MONDAY MORNING:
John kicked clumps of dirt and stray grass from the half frozen mud with a booted foot. His breath misted in the morning air mingling with the smoke from his cigarette. He was far, far away from Shermer High School - too far to get there by first bell on foot, but he had no burning need to be on time when he did intend to go to school. Today he had no such intentions.
No way was he going to be there to see them scrambling for their normalcy. He wasn't going to be there to see them throw everything they knew out of the window just to keep their illusions of acceptance. And because he was going to be the first thing that got chucked out the window, he felt no need to make it easy for them.
Easy for her.
John lit another Marlboro with the still burning butt of the first one and flicked the spent cigarette into the muddy ravine at his feet. He had never given her a lot of thought, but if he had, he sure would have bet that everything was easy for her. Even knowing now that wasn't so, he felt a perverse desire to make this one thing just as hard for her as he possibly could.
He was a fool to care one way or the other.
Shrugging his jeans jacket closer around him, he scrubbed out the half-spent smoke on the rock he'd been perched on, then jumped down and stamped his feet against the chill. Shaking his head at his own stupidity, John Bender set a brisk pace in the last direction he thought he'd be heading on this particular Monday.
xxxxx
It was chilly in the stands, particularly in the shadows, but the shadows were where Allison felt most comfortable. At least the sun was up now, and if she leaned a bit to her right and turned her face a certain way the rays warmed her skin and made her feel more alive than she had felt in longer than she cared to recall.
In the predawn darkness, she'd brushed out her hair and even used a curling iron she had lifted on a strange compulsive whim from the girl's locker room last month - wondering in a fleeting way if the thing had been Claire's. Was that irony? She'd have to look that up. With a couple of barrettes from the bottom of a junk drawer, her hair was thus tidy and away from her face.
Up until this morning she'd been planning to go back to hiding her eyes (and her soul) from the careless herds at Shermer High. She would keep her head down and she wouldn't have to see their expressions, today. She wouldn't see if they didn't look at her at all. But awake, deep in the night, at some point she had decided, "to hell with them!" She felt something changing inside her, and she wasn't going to hide anymore – not much, anyway.
This was one of her morning places. One of many such places where her solitude went undisturbed, and she tried not to think about why she'd chosen this particular place today. He'd been here before, and somehow it had been comforting to be alone with someone else there.
She hadn't questioned why he'd been there. He was a Sporto. Jocks did inexplicable things all the time. Had she been paying attention, she might have read it in his face and in the lines of his body. She might have realized he wasn't coming here to run, he was coming here to run away.
He was here today, feet pounding the track as if he intended it to break apart and swallow him whole. And today she did pay attention. He was punishing himself hard, and she wondered what he was punishing himself for.
A tear slid down Allison's cheek and hit the corner of her mouth so that she tasted salt. Allison leaned over to the right, tilted her face into the light and wondered whether feeling alive was worth it.
xxxxx
Brian had to be at school early on Monday. They were putting in extra hours to prepare for the Illinois Mathematics Tournament. Until very recently the IMT had been his sole focus, and that was why his mother didn't question why he was so quiet in the car - for which he was grateful.
He had never kept anything from his parents before. He didn't always agree with them, but it never occurred to him not to include them in what he was doing and what he was thinking. But suddenly there were things in his head he couldn't quantify, things he couldn't translate into the language of sons and parents.
His father had already tried to have a "talk" with him Saturday night about the events leading up to the detention. What could he say? "I couldn't stand the thought of having you disappointed in me, Dad. I couldn't stand disappointing myself! The desire not to have to face that was so strong that even just the fantasy of ending it all seemed like a good idea."
Right. He'd be in therapy before he could blink, and he could only imagine the baffled and nervous looks his parents would give him – how they would search for hidden meanings in his every word and action until he really did go mad. It was too horrible to contemplate.
And trying to explain what had happened on Saturday was completely beyond him. Brian had no illusions. The others hadn't lied to him. It had hurt, but he appreciated that much, at least. It was a courtesy – respect even, not telling him what he wanted to hear.
But Brian was determined. So maybe he couldn't be totally forthcoming with his parents right now, but he was sure as hell going to be honest with himself and act accordingly. If he'd learned anything from all this, it was that it just isn't worth trying to fit into anyone else's expectations – not his parent's, not his friend's, and not The Breakfast Club's.
His friends might feel betrayed when they saw him be friendly with Andy after what he had done, but Brian knew what he knew, and pretending otherwise was a lie. They would all laugh and say, "I told you so" when Andy and Claire and John and probably even Allison inevitably blew him off, but that was their problem. All of them. Their problem…not his.
They could all pretend that nothing had changed, but damn it, he was different today than he had been last Monday, and he was going to be the Brian Johnson of this Monday if it killed him.
xxxxx
Monday. It was Monday and time to face the cafeteria. She'd managed to avoid all of them so far. Even Andy hadn't been hanging around with the guys by her locker before homeroom as he usually did. Maybe he hadn't come to school today.
Claire wasn't sure why she had come. She'd had an out. When her mother noted she wasn't eating her grapefruit at breakfast, she'd been solicitous.
"Claire honey, are you ok? Are you well enough for school today? You look pale."
And she had been pale; she'd noticed it herself in the mirror as she brushed her teeth a second time to purge the taste of bile from her mouth. And lord knows she didn't feel well. She didn't know how to describe the way she felt, and she'd dreaded being here today, but something inside her fluttered with the excitement of possibilities that hadn't been there before. And something else had her heart pounding and her ears ringing, and that had to be fear that everything would be different.
Or maybe that it wouldn't be.
xxxxx
Through the wall of windows, the cafeteria looked about as inviting as it usually did, which is why John spent his lunch period out here in what everyone called the Smoker's Lounge.
He wanted to be left alone, and he wanted to ignore what was happening inside that room, but neither seemed particularly likely.
Angela Geordino sidled up smelling of smoke and hairspray and held out her cigarette for a light. Never mind he had seen her half-empty pack disappear into her shoulder bag with a bright red lighter tucked into the cellophane. There was something about the days when he was lost inside his head that made him a magnet for every chick in the lounge. Angie was a good kid, but today her hair looked like it would be unpleasant to touch and her heavily mascara-ed eyes looked as tired and knowing as his did. The combination was unappealing. Even as he cupped his lighter to block the wind for Angie, his eyes strayed to the fluorescent-lit social experiment known as the high school cafeteria and he knew he was looking for the soft bright hair and clear eyes of one girl in particular and it pissed him off.
It didn't take long to spot her, of course. She was surrounded by chattering girls and smiling. Last week he would have thought she was having a grand old time as Queen of the World, but he knew her face now, he'd seen what a real smile looked like there, and he knew how vacant the one she wore now really was. He didn't want to feel bad for her, not one bit, but his heart tugged.
John scanned the rest of the room and found Sporto at the other end of Claire's table with his muscle-headed friends.
In the back corner he saw Allison, drawing in her sketchbook, at a table with a few other misfits – all with several seats between them as if they were being very careful not to accidentally have a conversation. She had her hair done up like Claire's and it made John snort. Why was she even trying?
Then over at the nerd table, the brainiacs stirred to welcome Brian as he approached with his (probably very sensible) lunch.
Business as usual.
xxxxx
The usual swagger was gone from Andy's step. He wasn't very proud of himself and he couldn't even muster the energy required to fake it, not today.
He'd lingered alone in the boy's locker room after showering away the sweat from his run this morning, just staring at the place where he had humiliated Larry Lester as if somehow if he stared hard enough he could re-create the moment and do things differently. But of course that wasn't going to happen.
Andy knew Larry would be taking shit for what he had done to him, and it wasn't going to let up any time soon. He knew he was going to have to try and do something about that, but he couldn't face it today. He couldn't face his buddies and all the cruelty, so instead he'd waited in the locker room until there was just enough time left to slip into homeroom before the late bell.
And now he'd have everyone to face at once. There was no place to hide in the cafeteria and Andy knew it was time to find some real strength that came from somewhere other than his muscles. Even so, he wasn't really sure what he would do when he got to the end of the lunch line. Before he knew he'd made a decision he was taking the long way around the room toward the back corner and Allison.
If she looks up, if she even looks up, I'll give her a smile and if she doesn't tell me to get lost, I'll sit with her today. But Allison didn't look up, not once, and he kept on walking.
xxxxx
The sketch had started out as just lines. Allison wasn't putting much thought into it since she didn't have many thoughts to spare, but when the lines began to resolve themselves into a running figure, she quickly turned the page and began deliberately sketching her own lunch tray.
Even so she was as aware of him as she was of her own breathing. She saw the moment he made his decision and she was barely doing any breathing when he headed her way. But she had learned a few things about Andrew Clark and she wasn't going to let him hide with her. If he wanted to be with her he'd have to take a stand.
From the corner of her eye she watched him hesitate for a moment and then hurry away. She tried not to let it hurt, mentally kicking herself for not making it easy for him.
She didn't notice that her hand hovered at her barrette, itching to drop her shield back in place forever.
xxxxx
He hadn't seen any of them all morning, but he hadn't expected to. It was at lunch that he knew he would have to do something, if he was really going to do something.
It was a temptation to take the easy road. One of his friends, he wasn't even sure which one, shouted, "Brian!" and beckoned him toward their usual table. He almost went. But he took a deep breath and waved in their general direction and headed straight across the room toward Allison.
She was startled when he dropped into the seat across from her and it flustered him.
"Is it..is it ok? I mean, is it ok if I sit here? With you?"
Allison nodded without a word, eyes still wide with surprise. Then she made a small sound like a squeak and started concentrating on her drawing again.
"That's nice, your picture. You're pretty good…"
She looked up, but she had forgotten how to speak, apparently. Soon she turned back to her sketchbook and Brian made a project out of peeling an orange. When he ventured to look at her again, what he saw in her book made him smile and settle in to the suddenly comfortable silence.
Allison was drawing his hands with the orange peels falling around them on the table.
xxxxx
Claire barely heard the chatter around the table but nobody seemed to notice her distress. Had she really gotten so good at faking it that she could do it without trying?
How could one day change everything so completely? How could she have ever thought the topics of conversation at this table were so earth-shakingly important?
When Andy sat down at the other end of the table his eyes cut her way and then away. She wanted to scream at him. "Why aren't you different!? Is everything really the same except me!?"
She didn't dare look outside where she knew John Bender would be. Her shell was cracking, and he would shatter it with a look - any kind of look. His knowing look, his vulnerable look, his scathingly bitter cynical look, she didn't have the strength for any of them.
And that was what she was doing. Studiously avoiding turning her eyes towards the smoker's lounge when Andy's raised voice snapped her out of her reverie.
xxxxx
Larry Lester had been almost the sole topic of conversation and Andy felt nauseated. They were treating him like some kind of a hero for being a cruel bastard. It was a sick nightmare he couldn't wake from. Finally when Kyle slapped him on the back for the third time, Andy stood abruptly and lost it,
"Shut the fuck up, you fucking assholes! Jesus, it's not funny! It was never fucking funny!"
They stared at him in shock. Kyle laughed as if it was some sort of joke.
"We're all fucking pathetic," he said in disgust, locking eyes with Claire whose face was unreadable, and then he turned on his heel and stalked toward Allison's table with every eye in the place on him.
It was a surprise seeing Brian there, but he nodded to the kid and said, "Brian," before turning toward the wide eyes in the pixie-like face he'd been haunted by since Saturday. "Allison, can I sit here, too."
"Yeah," she whispered, and he sat.
xxxxx
There was some sort of disturbance in the freaking zoo, and John's attention was drawn back to Claire as though she had tugged on something she'd tied up inside him. The little flock of princesses were all a-flutter, some of them standing in order to see better while Claire sat so totally still it was unnerving.
One of the gaggle covered her mouth as though she'd seen something unspeakable, and John leaned over to see past her. After blinking several times without the image of Andy, Allison, and Brian seated together disappearing, his lips curved into a sardonic smile and he turned avidly back toward Claire to see what she would do.
Slowly she raised her eyes and looked directly back at him. She was composed and only her white little hands, gripping the edge of the table as though she was afraid she was about to be catapulted into space, gave any indication she wasn't as eerily calm as she seemed.
John's smile slid from his face and his breath stilled.
She held his eyes as she stood and John blinked again when she moved toward the doors. Then shaking himself he smiled again and fished in his pocket, retrieving a sparkling earring that he deftly threaded through his pierced ear.
"Johnny?" Angie said, but Claire had already passed through the door and stood there in a circle of shocked faces holding out her hand.
John took it.
xxxxx
Claire dropped into the seat next to Allison and John swiveled a chair around backward and slouched down next to Brian snatching half of Andy's sandwich.
"Hey!" Andy complained.
John just raised his eyebrows.
"It doesn't mean anything, you know," Allison said seriously. "It doesn't change anything."
"It changes us," Brian said.
Andy raised his carton of milk over the table. "The Breakfast Club," he said solemnly.
Allison raised her chocolate milk and Claire her juice. Brian said, "The Breakfast Club!" and reached for his milk, but Bender already had it.
Claire's clear laughter may have been the first genuine expression of mirth she'd ever made in the Shermer High School cafeteria.