The blaring alarm clock jolted Caius into wakefulness, the way it did every morning. Caius let out a harsh and angry sigh, then peeled open his eyes. He reached out and smashed the alarm clock roughly, as usual. As he moved his arm, he realized that he had draped himself in a stiffening and highly uncomfortable way over the small, low-slung bedframe and lumpy mattress that he outgrew when he was ten. Seven years later, his limbs dangled onto the floor out of the tangle of blankets that he had somehow managed to enmesh himself in over the course of his three hours of sleep. He staggered through his room, no bigger than a large closet, looking blearily around at his scattered and strewn possessions. Everything in his cramped and cluttered room was black, as were the clothes he pulled on.
He crammed his feet into a pair of black boots, slung his black messenger bag over his shoulder, paused at the pieces of a mirror he had glued to the black walls to reinsert his eyebrow ring and earrings, and then lurched down the hallway, feeling unreasonably tired. His mother shoved past him, just now coming in, smelling strongly of booze and smoke, looking moderately pawed over. "Watch where you're going, you little snot." She growled, as they bumped into each other in the tiny hallway. "Go sleep off your hangover and learn to act your age," he muttered.
Their grimy rattrap of an apartment certainly wasn't much, but it was his home. They'd held onto it through being behind on rent, the pipes leaking multiple times, small (and not so small) kitchen fires, threatening and angry boyfriends of hers, threatening and angry girlfriends of his, several attempted break-ins, gang fights and drug deals gone wrong. Upon looking at the clock that was set above the blackened-from-misuse oven as he stomped across the gummy linoleum floor, he realized he was going to be late for school yet again. He glared at the bright morning outside, poured some lukewarm coffee left over from the night previously into a red plastic cup he found inside the sink. It didn't seem to contain anything particularly suspicious or foul, so he decided to chance it.
He stormed over to the front door and banged out of it, letting the partially broken screen door rattle loudly into place behind him. He downed his bitter coffee in a few mouthfuls, tossed the red cup back through the open kitchen window as he crossed their weedy lawn and slipped into the alley between his house and the next. There he kept his most prized possession, under lock and key and dropcloth, surrounded by trashcans at all times. He wheeled his precious black Harley Davidson motorcycle out into the street lovingly, and roared off towards a marginally better neighborhood.
His best friend, Athenodora, lived two blocks away, and he'd been giving her a ride to school ever since he could drive. There wasn't a time in his life that he could remember when Athenodora had not been his saving grace, keeping him from doing anything stupid, like blowing the school sky high or shooting someone, though he'd been sorely tempted to do both many times over the years. Which wasn't to say that she hadn't encouraged him to set fire to Dumpsters to let out his feelings on numerous occasions.
She was hunched over waiting for him on the front steps of her house. Her parents could be heard arguing loudly within. But Caius already knew they would be. Caius knew Athenodora better than he knew himself, which, even though he knew Athenodora would threaten to put a pen through his eye for voicing such a mushy statement, was true. She had been staring broodingly at the overgrown sidewalk when she heard his bike rumble up in front of her house, and then looked up, a smile illuminating her face. She grabbed her black bag (they had the same bag-they'd even gone to get them together, but she had covered hers with pins, buttons, and iron-on patches.) and strode over to him, knee-high boots clacking in the grit, black skirt flapping in the breeze. She clambered on behind him, winding her thin arms underneath his leather jacket and around his lean torso.
"Good morning, love-duck. And how are we today?" she asked in his ear. Caius smiled at the use of her mocking nickname for him- she claimed that when she slept over at his house way back in the seventh grade, he had actually said the phrase "love-duck" in his sleep, and thus that had always been his nickname. He grunted and shrugged noncommittally, knowing that Athenodora knew that this meant his mother had been particularly crappy this morning, but that he didn't want to talk about it.
"I myself am not doing particularly well either. My parents started arguing, like always, and that was okay. But when they started going after you, I walked out. Which I will most likely be made to regret later, through some means of punishment or another." She laid her head down on his shoulder as he wove in and out of downtown traffic. Caius felt a flare of emotion.
"If I'm causing you trouble-" he began when they were stopped for a red light. She pinched the layer of lipids that lay between his skin and the muscles on his stomach. "If you're causing me trouble you'll what? Stop seeing your best and only friend?" she questioned laughingly.
"If you were my only friend, which you're not, by the way, by virtue of that fact, you'd also be my worst friend," he responded. He could feel her laughter vibrating in her chest. "Cai, it's way too early for my brain to follow such logic. Talk straight or else." Caius couldn't help but smile. "Or else what?" he questioned. "Or else I'll pull that silly little eyebrow ring right off your face and cut off all of your peroxide blond hair." They laughed- Athenodora knew as well as Caius did that he had been born with hair the shade of fallen snow.
They pulled into the school lot and into their parking spot, 67. Caius slid off and then helped her down, his hands lingering around the narrow slice of her midriff exposed by her camisole for the briefest second, and, not for the first time, a thought flashed through his mind- what would it be like to be Athenodora's boyfriend? He'd been considering that particular question since eighth grade, but he'd never asked her anything like that- if something as stupid as asking her out ruined their friendship of over a decade, he'd never forgive himself.
They loped in step to the main entrance to the school. Caius smiled mockingly at all the good little boys and girls, scurrying to homeroom in their neat polos and boat shoes, who darted looks at them and quickly looked away. Athenodora adjusted his chain necklace in a parody of a housewife straightening her husband's tie, and he tugged on a lock of her cornsilk-blond hair that fell in tousled, pixie-short waves to just above her chin, without smiling- he never smiled at school, no matter what the provocation.
Caius was looking at Athenodora's profile as they walked, marveling at how mysterious it became when she applied all of her dark makeup, and thus didn't see the boy coming fast from his left side, who barreled right into him.
Aro bound his hair away from his face neatly as he contemplated his closet. He eventually decided on his burgundy sweater vest, white shirt, and black tie. After dressing, he glided to his sister's room. His little sister Didyme, a freshman while he was a senior, lay curled up under her puffy white comforter. Where Aro had plastered his room with periodic tables, maps, books, and posters with the greatest quotes of the millennium, Didyme's room was pink butterflies and lacy flowers, crystals hanging from the windows (though they were currently obscured by floral-patterned drapes that puddled on the floor) and purple dream catchers dangling from the flowing white canopy over her bed.
"Didyme!" He sang, shaking her shoulder gently. His sister peeked at him through one green eye. "Good morning, sunshine! It's time to get up!" he whispered happily. She sat up, stretched, and yawned. "Happy Monday morning, Aro!" she chirped perkily. Aro danced out of Didymes' room, going down the plushly carpeted stairs from the second floor of their loft apartment. Their parents were seated at the spotless glass table, already in their sleek charcoal gray and black pinstripe business suits, drinking coffee, and pouring over the paper and complex-looking spreadsheets respectively.
"Good morning, Aro," his father said, without looking up. "Good morning, Father . . . . Mother, " he said, putting an English muffin in the toaster for himself and getting a smoothie out of the refrigerator for Didyme.
"So, Aro," said his mother, fixing him with a hawk-eyed stare from behind her wire-rimmed glasses. "How was that AP Calculus test yesterday?" Aro responded with a smile, "I got a 105 on that, a 102 on an AP British Literature quiz, and a 25 out of 25 on an AP psychology assessment." His English muffin popped out of the toaster and he began to spread butter on it, still grinning widely. "Today I have a science club meeting after school, and then I have a debate club prelim, to see if I can qualify for Tri-State, which I have ever confidence that I can, an AP Chemistry test, and we're starting a new project in lit class."
Didyme sashayed down the stairs, brushing a kiss across each of her parents cheeks in turn, saying, "Morning, Mommy . . . Daddy. Oh!" she exclaimed as she turned around to face Aro. "Aro, we're tie-buddies!" Didyme was also wearing a black tie, but hers had pink rhinestones that matched the glittering butterfly pin that held back strands of her black hair which had artfully escaped her thick braid. The siblings laughed. Didyme scooped up a grapefruit and quartered it, sprinkling sugar on the portions she intended to eat. "Didyme, did you get any grades back yesterday?" questioned their father. "Oh, I got a 32 out of 30 on a biology test, a 100 on an economics quiz, and also got extra credit for doing a current event about the impact of movie theaters on communities. I turned in an essay in lit class about the lives of ancient Greek women. Today after school, I have a yearbook staff meeting, and then a cheer squad meeting. "
"We're very proud of you both," said their father, a little abstractly as he flipped a spreadsheet over to make a note on the back. "I have a dinner meeting with a potential client tonight," said their mother, "And I have a board of trustees meeting that begins at five and probably won't end until eight," overlapped their father, "So we won't be home for dinner with both of you, but you can order in whatever you want, or heat up leftovers," continued their mother. "Allright, we'll see you when you get in," chirped Didyme, having finished the grapefruit and begun daintily chugging the smoothie. Aro checked the clock- 6:30. They still had plenty of time to make it to school and have time for Aro to get to his academic bowl meeting and for Didyme to get to her science club convention.
As Didyme sang a lilting Italian aria her voice lessons teacher had taught her the year previous while picking out a coat to wear, Aro laid down food for their cats, Butter Buttons and Princess Peach. After their parents had sped away in their streamlined Lexuses, Aro and Didyme slid into Aros' glossy gray Camry and headed off to school. They both hummed along to the opening movement of Scheherazade by Korsakoff when it came on the radio as they careened through the darkened and almost deserted streets of their town. Didyme brushed at her makeup, studying her reflection in the mirror.
Aro looked at her sideways. She was wearing her skinniest jeans and her laciest blouse, and was worrying at her tie, hair and makeup. Aro didn't need AP Psychology to tell him she was making more of a conscious effort than usual to look good. "Whom are you dressing up for?" he asked lightly. "Oh, just this guy," she responded airily. "Just which guy?" Aro pressed, intrigued by his sisters' apparent crush. "Do I know him?" he continued.
"Well, yes!" Didyme giggled. "You know that guy who's president of the student council?" Aro swiveled his head to look at his baby sister full on. "Didyme, Marcus is a senior and you are a freshman." Didyme pursed her glossy lips and frowned at her brother. "And? It's not like I'm going to marry him. It's not like I even expect to date him. But that doesn't mean I can't want him to notice me." Aro turned his attention back to the road as they, slightly haphazardly, made their way into the school parking lot. "That's fine, then,"
They wished each other a good day, and then headed their separate ways. Aro presided over the academic bowl meeting as usual; dispensing more topics to study and offering study help to the newest members. When they finished, Aro realized they were done five minutes early, and so got out his chemistry book to do some last minute studying before homeroom. Unfortunately, he lost track of time. The homeroom bell rang, and his head jerked up. He was lost for a minute, feeling irrational panic swelling up in his chest. His homeroom was on the other side of the campus and it took all ten minutes from the homeroom bell to the tardy bell to get to the classroom. He had never been tardy once before in his entire 11 and a half years of schooling to one class, and had no intention of starting now. He rushed out of the classroom and into the quad. He was concentrating solely on chemistry as he walked, and was utterly surprised when he collided with someone.
Marcus was awakened by his mother at 6:50. "Marcus, sweetie, up and at 'em!" Once she was satisfied that he was sufficiently awake, she turned to go back upstairs, calling, "And I made pancakes!" Marcus smiled at his mother's retreating back as he climbed somewhat reluctantly from the warm nest of pillows and blankets. He padded to his bathroom to shave and freshen up for the day. When he got back to his room, he paused. He had a strange feeling about the day, like it was a day he'd been waiting for for a long time, but he had forgotten what about it made it special. He smiled, now certain in the conviction that, even though it was a Monday, and he had a quiz in CP Trigonometry, and they were allegedly starting a project that day in lit, it was going to be a good day.
He paused once more as he was pulling out his standard uniform of jeans and a t-shirt- he had nearly forgotten that today after school was a student council meeting, and he, as president, needed to look a little nicer. So he put back the old t-shirt and pulled out a new t-shirt, just plain white. His mother always told him that combined with his dark, shaggy hair, pale colors made him look older than his 17 years.
He smiled as he bounded up the stairs, recalling how he'd been unanimously nominated by all of his teachers and three-fourths of his grade to be their grade-level representative when they'd all been juniors. Because he'd been a member of the student council ever since he was a freshman, it was really nice to be thrust into the limelight, finally taking credit for his hard, behind-the-scenes work. He hadn't been planning to run for president- he'd only done it to humor his father, who'd done the same when he was a senior in high school, and besides, it looked good on college applications. He hadn't thought he had a chance, either. His rival, a boy named Stefan who was a first-generation Romanian immigrant, and was now much given to muttering under his breath whenever he saw Marcus walking in his general vicinity, had what seemed like just about everyone in the school planning to vote for him. Marcus had set up his booth with all his homemade signs anyway, selling buttons and calling out to other students crossing the quad. They all averted their eyes, like they were ashamed by the fact that by the same time next day, he would have suffered a blowout loss.
Marcus had eventually just sat in dejected silence, waving halfheartedly at other students until a boy who he knew was in his grade and was named Aro strode over, in full view of everyone else who had lunch that period. He had introduced himself and frankly told Marcus that he firmly believed that he would make a better president than that "obnoxious little flip". He had proceeded to buy fifteen buttons, and then continued on his way. When the results came in, Marcus was flabbergasted- it had been a blowout, but he had been the victor. It turned out, Aro and his sister were on or had connections to every club in the school, and persuaded almost every member in his favor.
He strode into the kitchen, saying, "Morning, Dad!" as he slung himself into his chair across from his father at the mosaic-topped table tucked away in their breakfast nook. His mother set a huge stack of pancakes in front of him, which he began to dig into with relish. His three dogs came trundling in through their dog door from the sunroom and barreling around the corner into the kitchen, their toenails clicking and scraping against the marble floor. The dogs, Brutus (a boxer) Antonius (a German Shepard) and Claudius (a greyhound) boisterously vied for his attention, leaping up to lick at his face and nudging at his hands, begging for him to pet them. His father, a Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist, laughed jovially.
His mother sat down with stack of pancakes, winding her long reddish-brown hair up into a knot on top of her head and sticking it in place with a pencil. The family ate together in congenial silence, broken only by the clink of forks against plates, queries to pass the syrup, and the insistent panting of the dogs. "So, Marcus," asked his mother. "What are you up to today?" Marcus finished chewing and swallowing before answering, "I've got a trig quiz, and we're starting a lit project, and I've got a student council meeting after school. What about you guys?" his father waved his hand. "The usual," he responded, "Jumping through government hoops until seven o'clock." His mother gazed dreamily off in the distance. "I'll probably catch up on housework, do some baking, maybe get some work done."
His mother, though she held some degree or another in virtually everything pertaining to art, preferred her job as a stay-at-home mom more than painting on command for people who wouldn't understand her work, or teaching to kids who wouldn't pay attention. So she'd converted half the third floor of their house into her personal studio. The other half was their library. The second floor consisted of the master suite and the guest rooms. The attic was where they stored all of their seasonal decorations and old things they no longer needed but thought might come in useful. The first floor was their cavernous living room, kitchen, dining room, sunroom, and foyer. The basement was Marcus' own personal domain, as he was his parents' only child. In it was everything a teenage boy might need to be happy, and then some.
"We're having meatloaf and mashed potatoes for dinner tonight," his mother informed him as he washed his hands of excess syrup and picked up his backpack. He kissed his mother good-bye, saying, "Sounds great," and then bade his parents a good day as he trotted to their large garage and maneuvered his Prius in the direction of school, still smiling.
As he got there, he parked, and made his way to the main building, where his homeroom was. Everyone he passed shouted out some sort of greeting to him. It was so nice to know that you were well liked. As he was strolling through the quad, he noticed a boy- it was Aro, he realized after a moment- collide with one of the school's resident punks.
Left side of his body aching, hand acutely smarting where he scraped it breaking his fall, and the knees of his jeans now even more torn, Caius picked himself up off the ground. Everyone was looking at him like he had clutzed out and fallen on the ground on purpose, taking an innocent bystander with him. And yes, he was used to people looking at him, but usually, his clothes and thin-lipped sneer made them look away quickly. It made him feel vulnerable, and more than a little stupid, so he lashed out.
"Watch where you're going, loser," he hissed, realizing somewhere in the back of his mind that his mother had said almost the exact same thing to him not an hour previously. The nerd who had smashed into him had been floundering around, picking up his spilled textbooks (some of which looked like they might weigh more than Athenodora) straightening his tie and brushing grit off of his flawless backpack, looked up suddenly, locking eyes with Caius, not even looking a modicum of apologetic or scared, as anyone else met with Caius' Deluxe Rage Stare should. "I beg your pardon?" he asked, sounding incredulous and incensed at the same time.
"You heard me," Caius snarled. A crowd was beginning to slowly gather. "You ought to try watching where you're going next time." The other boy stood, books tucked neatly under his arm once more. "And what about yourself? Shouldn't you have been watching where you were going as well?" he asked. A little dark-haired girl was scurrying across the quad towards them, a black tie that would have looked punk if she hadn't covered it with puke-tastic pink rhinestones fluttering behind her like a second braid. "Oh, so now we're supposed to watch off to the side of us as well as in front of us?" asked Athenodora, standing shoulder to shoulder with Caius, a derisive laugh sharp in her voice.
The dark haired girl had arrived and stood protectively next to the other boy. She was tiny and compact, where the boy was thin and lanky, almost taller than Caius himself, but they were obviously relatives, from their pale skin and pointed chins to dark hair and deep-set green eyes. "What's going on, Aro?" she asked, brow furrowed as she looked from her brother with concern to Caius with distrust. "Your freak brother ran into me," Caius snarled once more. "Oh, now I'm the freak?" muttered the boy, who Caius surmised was named Aro. "Have you seen your clothes recently?" Caius curled his hands into fists ostentatiously. "Say that again," he challenged. A semi-circle of nerds had gathered behind Aro and the girl, and Caius could feel that a circle of his black-clad would-be friends had gathered behind him and Athenodora. Through the nerd circle pushed a pretty blond girl who grabbed hold of Aro's hand while scowling expressively at Caius. "Perhaps I will," said Aro coldly.
"Hey, what's going on?" said another black-haired boy, shouldering his way through the crowd and stepping instinctively between Caius and Aro. "This. . . guy knocked me over," started Caius before Aro could say anything. "I could argue that you are guilty of perpetrating the exact same crime," Aro interjected. Marcus held up his hands to silence the clamoring din that had broken out from the five people in the center of the circle. "Come on, guys, is it really that important? Let's all just move on before the administration gets involved and we all get in trouble." Aro nodded in agreement and the circle dispersed. "Unlike you geeks, I'm not afraid of getting a detention," muttered Caius as he and Athenodora turned and went on to homeroom.
Marcus felt two emotions warring for dominance inside of him. He was happy that he was respected enough to disperse a crowd that looked like it was on the verge of a fistfight, but he was a little worried that a fistfight had almost broken out just because of a simple collision.
A girl who he supposed must have been Aro's little sister turned around to him. She was significantly shorter than him, and had an air of sweet, dainty charm, the kind of girl you'd swoop up in your arms like a kitten just so you could kiss her nose, and she'd squeal for you to stop it, but you'd know she liked it. She was looking up at him, eyes bright, hands clasped over her chest, smiling. Marcus was struck dumb momentarily. She was so beautiful- not pretty, not cute, not lovely- beautiful. The most beautiful girl in the school. Maybe the most beautiful girl in the state.
And she was smiling at him, cooing, "Thanks for getting involved- I thought that psychopath was going to rearrange my brother's organs! I don't know what we would have done if you hadn't jumped in!" Marcus nodded, trying to look cool, his mouth motoring along without his brain telling it to. "Oh, sure, no problem, any time." Didyme covered her mouth with a slender little hand, giggling. She fiddled with dark tendrils of hair by her cheek as she said, "Well, I've got to go- homeroom and all," As she turned to leave, she twisted back around partially, a creamy dent of concentration between her eyebrows and asked,
"You're the president of student council- Marcus, right?" with the sun shining behind her, she looked like a girl who video game designers would give their right hands to have the chance to draw into a fairy or an elf. "Yeah, and you're- I'm sorry, uh . . . .""Didyme," she supplemented. "Didyme," he repeated, the word rolling off his tongue in a way that made him want to speak in bad metaphors. "It's nice to meet you," he said, stupidly holding out his hand and instantly regretting it- did it make him look stupid? Did she think he was an idiot? But she placed her fine-boned hand in his and shook it firmly, demurring, "Likewise,"
They went their separate ways, and Marcus, palm tingling, heart racing, was late to homeroom, the only thoughts in his head of ways he could see her again and get to know her better, and the image of her standing in the sun, twisting to smile at him.
"Aro, I don't know what came over you! You know antagonizing that set never ends well!" Aro turned to look at his girlfriend next to him. "What, you don't think I could have taken him?" His girlfriend stopped writing down her homework in a purple planner to stare at him incredulously. "Please, Aro," she said. "Do you think you could have taken him?" Aro was quiet until he sulkily muttered, "Maybe," more to be contrary than anything.
If it had been anyone but his beautiful girlfriend Sulpicia, he would have responded with a snappy retort that left the air sparking, but Sulpicia had the talent of making Aro tongue-tied and graceless. A tense silence stretched between them for a moment until Sulpicia looked back at him sideways through her thick lashes, tossed her sheet of perfectly straightened golden hair over her shoulder. (A waft of her perfume, hyacinth and something sweet that Aro couldn't name, made him close his eyes momentarily in lazy, unthinking pleasure.) She said, "Well, I'm glad you haven't been lastingly damaged." Aro leaned across the aisle and tucked an escapist strand of hair behind his girlfriends' perfect ear. "I'm glad you're glad."
He trailed his fingertips quickly down her neck to touch on the sparkling line of petite stones that perched on her collarbones- the fire-colored necklace had been a gift from him when she had first agreed to go out with him, and seeing her wearing it always gave Aro a lasting flutter under his ribs. She trailed her fingers, pearlescent and perfectly polished, down the bones of his hand, until the teacher walked in and began to take roll.
After homeroom, Aro and Sulpicia didn't see each other until lit class, two periods later. As the bell rang and all the seniors began filing slouchily out the door to their first class, Aro wrapped Sulpicia in a gleeful hug, pressing a kiss on her scalp. She hugged him back and they separated, several guys giving Aro the eye as he glided to his next class.
All through homeroom and first and second period, Caius sat in his desks, slouching and scowling aggressively at everyone, including Athenodora, who seemed to find his fit of temper hilarious rather than frightening and kept giggling. He snapped out the first answer that popped into his head when the teacher called on him in class, and got the, "don't-get-an-attitude-with-me-you're-not-so-great-you-stupid-teenager," speech. But that was fine. He'd learned to tune out teachers and adults when they were in rant mode long ago, and all the teachers' preaching did was waste instructional time.
Caius and Athenodora slunk into lit class as the bell finished ringing. Their teacher gave them a disparaging look as they entered, and her hand twitched, maybe involuntarily, maybe not, towards the thick stack of detention and tardy slips she usually kept in abundance on her desk. Doling out detention seemed to be her standard response to Caius. Caius wouldn't admit it, but that was a small reason why he didn't like lit class. A large reason he hated lit class was because it could have been excellent if you were actually encouraged to say what you thought was true- teachers went all out about "creative interpretations" but they really had specific ideas about what they wanted to hear about.
Another large reason was that he had a lot of nerds and goody-goodies in his class, like that dweeb who plowed into him earlier, his slut-looking girlfriend and the Good Boy who stopped him from making calcium dust out of aforementioned dweeb earlier. But the largest reason was that their teacher, this idiot woman named Isabella Cullen, was a fully qualified pinhead. She was always showing the class pictures of her husband, who always looked like he was constipated, and gushing on and on and on about both him and their snot-nosed, bratty little kid, whose name was so weird even he, a man whose name was a cosmic joke, found it hard not to laugh at. I mean, Renesmee? And then, insult upon injury, her middle name was Carlie? That was just cruel.
"Okay class!" sang the teacher once everyone had settled down. She tried to get up to the front of the classroom, but tripped over her desk and sprawled onto the floor. She picked herself up to the soundtrack of a few sympathetic titters. Caius merely rolled his eyes.
"Well, anyway, as I've told you guys, we're going to be starting a project today. Now, because this is a class of twenty, we're going to divide into four groups of five. In the first, we'll have . . . . . Stefan, Vladimir, Amun, Kebi and Alistair. In the second, Kachiri, Senna, Zafrina, Charles and Makenna. In the third, Garrett, Mary, Maggie, Siobhan, and Liam. And in the fourth . . . . Aro, Sulpicia, Caius, Athenodora, and Marcus." Caius felt a vague sense of disbelief. There was no way possible he had just been landed in a group with arguably the most unashamed geek in the grade, the most popular boy in the grade, and the most sought-after girl in the grade. He almost would have preferred to be in a group with the creepy Romanian brothers who were always looking him up and down.
The nerd looked equally, if not more, disgusted than Caius felt. "Probably worried that I'll screw over his GPA or something equally stupid," thought Caius unkindly. The popular boy looked pretty happy with the group he had just been saddled with- he was possibly unaware of the fact that the group had no chance of working together. Caius smirked grimly at Athenodora, who looked quietly stricken. She kept darting little looks at Sulpicia, who was now jotting irritated notes in a plum-colored notebook. Caius wanted to reach out and squeeze the bones in her shoulders, to comfort her with the knowledge that he would be suffering as well.
"Now, the premise of this project is fairly simple, but it's going to be pretty time-consuming, and you'll have to work together on all of it." Caius mashed his lips together furiously. "What kind of teacher actually says 'it's going to be pretty time-consuming'? And what does she think we are, kindergartners?" he thought. The teacher clasped her hands, but spread them again to regain her balance as she teetered precariously though she had not moved. "So you're going to have to do a twist on the Greek tragedy Antigone- all about moral vs. civil law. You've got all the rest of class period to meet up with your group and discuss things, and I'll have a rubric and all that stuff for you guys tomorrow." Caius felt his irritation rising even more than ever- how were they supposed to get anything done if they had no parameters in which to work?
That gigantic dork Aro actually raised his hand with a question. "Yes, Aro?" she asked. "May we use any sort of medium we want?" She seemed to be thinking about it for a moment. "Uhhhhhh . . . . . No, it has to be a video, and each member of the group has to be in a majority of the shots." Caius cast his gaze around the room, to see what his fellow inmates- ah, classmates, thought of this vicious new twist in this already stupid project. The boy Alistair had sunk so low in his chair all you could see of him was his forehead, blazing red as a ruby.
Feeling cruel, Caius snickered out loud. Athenodora saw what he was laughing at and joined in- Alistair was one of the shyest, most nonconfrontational boys in their grade, and he must have equated being put in a group with three of the loudest, pushiest boys in the grade with literally being thrown to the sharks. "His year is complete," he muttered to Athenodora, whose bony shoulders puffed with frantic laughter. Caius got the feeling she would not have found it half so funny under different circumstances.
"Okay, everybody, get to work!" Mrs. Cullen said. All four groups convened in the four corners of the desk set-up- and it was entirely possible that the corner that contained three boys whose walks of life were as different as it was possible to be was the unhappiest of the lot.
On the outside, Aro was very calm. But on the inside, he was seething with anger. Boiling with rage and resentment and every other hateful emotion he could think of. How could that sorry excuse for a teacher have the nerve to pair him with the laziest, biggest underachiever possibly the entire school district had to offer and his probably-addicted-to-multiple-different-substances girlfriend? Marcus smiled at him encouragingly as he came to sit down next to him. Aro acknowledged him with a nod that came out far more regally than he originally intended for it to and leaned back in his chair. "If I was a cat, the hair all along my spine would be standing up," he thought, simmering. Sulpicia spared him a glance, and then continued furiously in her notebook. Off task, Aro decided that one day, he would read the contents of that notebook.
Caius and Athenodora detached themselves from their desks; Caius grimacing like his loping, leisurely gait was causing him physical pain. Marcus had already pushed together all the desks, and Caius and Athenodora slung themselves into the chairs, settling down, their body language screaming that they were a unit, that no one else was invited to their private world of two. An uncomfortable silence descended upon the group as they all remembered the events of three hours previously.
"Soooooo . . . . . " said Marcus, who seemed to be the most ill at ease of the group. Caius and Aro were glaring daggers at different corners of the room, Sulpicia was flipping her hair, twitching her lips, and staring into the ground, and Athenodora was biting her nails and darting glances at Caius.
"So, ummm . . . . . . Guys. Had anyone read Antigone?" asked Marcus. "Yes," Aro responded absently, still staring at the trashcan as though it had suggested that he fix everything by throwing something at Sulpicia. He turned his focus back to the group. "Yes, Antigone is the daughter of Oedipus and his mother Jocasta. Her two brothers made a pact to rule their kingdom jointly, but one brother was the one who was doing all the ruling, and so the other went to war for the throne, and both got killed. Creon, their uncle and now the king, decided to give Eteocles a proper burial, which was very important to the Ancient Greeks, but left the other brother, Polynices, out in a field to rot and decreed that anyone who touched the body would be killed. Antigone knew that burying him was the proper thing to do even though it had been outlawed, and so went out and sprinkled dirt on the body, to take the place of a burial. Of course, Creon found out and ordered to have her walled up alive. Then Antigone's' fiancée, Creon's son Haemon, killed himself, and Creon's wife killed herself too- because it's a tragedy- so then Creon relented and wanted to free her from her prison, but when they went to do so, they found out she had hung herself instead of slowly starving to death. Very sad."
Caius crossed his arms over his chest and said, "Great. Now that our minds have been enriched just that much more, we can begin." Aro glowered at him. "It's not as if you knew what moral vs. civil law meant before." He snapped. "All right. So, our movie has to have a theme of someone wanting to do something they know is right, but the government or someone else in charge says they can't." Caius, now staring back at the light fixture in the back corner asked, "What if we had a kid in high school who wants to kill this really nerdy boy who's always annoying everyone, and he knows that that's what he should do, but the administration says that he shouldn't, but he does, and even though he goes to prison, all the other students are very happy?" Aro's glower turned into a full-out glare. "Very funny," he snapped. "I know it was," Caius retorted, "Just not to me," interjected Sulpicia, crossing her arms over her chest, drumming her nails on her slender biceps. "Thanks for your protective little two cents, there, princess," Athenodora shot back.
"Well, anyway," Said Marcus loudly, looking from one faction to the other. "Does anyone have any other ideas?" Caius opened his mouth to reiterate his, but Marcus cut him off. "I have an idea! What if we had a doctor who finds an alien that crash landed on earth, and the government says that anyone who finds the alien must turn it in, but because it's sick, she helps it get better instead of turning it in, and then it goes home?" He was met with stares all around- Caius' was infuriated, Aro's carefully blank and emotionless, Sulpicia's with quiet disbelief and Athenodora's with outright disbelief. They all sat in silence for a few more moments, until Sulpicia softly said, "I have an idea," Aro immediately turned his attention to her. "I don't know how she does it," thought Athenodora. "Having him stare at me like that would creep me out way too much," Sulpicia looked up, and Athenodora could see that though Sulpicia was playing the part of the shy schoolgirl putting forth her lowly little idea, she was quite confident in herself. This filled her with disgust and respect in equal measures.
"What if there's a boy who's been stalking a girl, but he's really weird and she doesn't want his attention. So she gets a restraining order. But then, when they're in the parking lot, because they're both in high school, he sees that there is a car that's about to run her over, and he has to make the choice between violating the restraining order to save her life or letting her die. He chooses to save her, and goes to prison despite his good deed, but gets off easy because he saved a life." Aro was still, eyes flickering as he considered his girlfriends' idea. Caius was half looking forward to seeing Aro struggle to tell her gently that he thought it was a bad idea, but he didn't want to have to come up with any more ideas (the one he had previously suggested was 99% snark, 1% seriousness.) and what she had proposed sounded like it might earn him his first A on an assignment since middle school.
"That sounds like it would be really good," said Aro supportively, laying his hand over Sulpicia's. She smiled and blushed coyly, looking up at him through lowered lashes. Caius pantomimed throwing up, sending Athenodora into a fit of giggles. That was when Marcus noticed that the group containing Stefan had ever so slowly inched its way across the classroom so that they were only a few desks away from Caius' back, as he was the one closest to the rest of the room. Marcus was immeasurably creeped out by this, which wasn't strange because he found most things Stefan and his brother did creepy. "Guys?" he whispered, motioning for everyone to lean in. "Why are Stefan and Vladimir's group creeping over here?" Caius twisted around immediately in his seat and flipped Vladimir off. "What do you think you're doing, anyway?" he demanded aggressively. All the rest of his group was wide-eyed and frozen. "Are you eavesdropping on us? I swear to god if I see you so much as look over here again I'll spit in your eye." Caius finished, turning around with as much attitude as he could muster. If the back of a head could stare, Aro was certain that was what Caius' was doing.
"Why did you do that?" Aro demanded in a furious undertone.
"I don't like them and I see no reason to pretend not to," Caius responded as he shot another icy glare over his shoulder at the other group, who looked awestruck by his outburst. "Caius, is there something going on that we should know about?" asked Marcus. Caius gave him a disgusted look that told him clearly to mind his own business. Resolutely not taking the hint, Marcus continued, "You really seem like you hate those two. Did something happen?" Athenodora jumped in before he could.
"He never really got over the fact that in the eighth grade, when we were reading The Outsiders, they jumped him and managed to cut off a lot of his hair with safety scissors." Caius glared at her. "I am OVER the haircutting, Athena. I was over that, like, two days after it happened. The thing that I am still mad about is that neither one of them had enough courage to come at me head-on; they jumped out at me from those ugly bushes by the library and ambushed me from behind! Even now, if I went over there and challenged one of them to a face-to-face fight after school, he wouldn't have the guts to show." Contempt was so strong on Caius' face and in his voice that Marcus could tell it had been something more than a silly little argument in the eighth grade, but he decided not to push it, as he barely knew Caius. "And what did your parents think of this?" Aro questioned heatedly.
"You mean parent." Caius corrected. "And it's not like she cares about anyone but herself." Marcus was filled with sympathy- no wonder Caius was so rough; he had a bad home life. But Marcus couldn't resist smiling a little when he saw Athenodora discreetly squeeze his hand under the table.
"Okay, so when are we going to meet to do this?" Marcus asked. "Well, not today," said Aro immediately. "I have both a science and a debate club meeting today," Caius' original dislike of Aro resurged- there was no good enough reason Caius could think of to justify Aro's ridiculous extracurricular schedule. "When he gets sick, I bet he goes to the vet," Caius murmured out of the side of his mouth to Athenodora, who bit her lip and looked away, eyes glittering with mirth. "Well, that's good, because I have a student council meeting every Monday, too," Said Marcus. "My dance troupe meets every Tuesday and Thursday." Said Sulpicia, looking up from where she was scribbling once more in both purple planner and notebook intermittently.
"Poetry Out Loud meets every Wednesday, so that day's out," contributed Athenodora. "Oh, you're on Poetry Out Loud?" asked Sulpicia. "Ummm.. Yeah. I wrote a piece for Words Under the Stars." Responded Athenodora. "That's interesting. What was it about?" Sulpicia inquired. "Sleep," responded Athenodora, a little shiftily. Caius almost smiled as he recalled how he had gone to Words Under the Stars, and lurked in a dark corner of the outdoor amphitheater until she was up. When she had taken the stage she had looked pale, drawn and nervous- poetry was intensely personal for her, and she was obviously having second thoughts about sharing that much of herself with a crowd. But Caius had pushed his way to the very front row and settled down, much to the horror of the PTA mothers next to him, and then she had smiled and recited her work flawlessly. Jolted back to the present, he realized that everyone was looking at him. "Caius, are there any nights of the week that won't work for you?" Marcus prompted. "I work and have a previous engagement on Fridays," he responded. Aro narrowed his eyes a little but let it pass- he knew Caius was not on any club at school, and church seemed unlikely.
"So that leaves us with Saturday and Sunday." Said Marcus, satisfied. "Oh, wait, I need Sunday to study," said Aro. "You study all day?" asked Caius. Aro nodded, as though this should have been obvious. "Why?" asked Athenodora, with the air of someone watching a small, slimy animal crawl across a petri dish in a lab. "I elect to study because I want to make good grades," responded Aro, a little stiffly. "Okay, we'll start filming this Saturday. For the rest of the week, we'll work on the script," said Marcus, wisely budgeting two extra days to work, because it didn't seem likely that Caius and Aro would agree on anything the first time around. "We can meet at my house, if that's convenient for everyone. My parents usually work until 8 on Saturdays, so we can have all day." Said Aro disinterestedly, also making notes in his planner. Marcus nodded, very happy with the way everything was turning out.
The bell rang, and everyone began to gather their things. "Aro," said Marcus, wondering how to gracefully broach the topic. "On Saturday . . . . Will your sister be there?" Aro waved his hand dismissively. "Oh, no, no, she's going over to a friends' house to work on a biology project," Marcus tried to hide the strange disappointment that had taken root in his chest as quickly as it came. "Okay, great. I wouldn't want us to be getting in her way and all," Aro nodded his assent, but Marcus caught the look of shrewd contemplation in his eyes as he said, "How considerate." Marcus realized that Aro was maybe a lot sharper than he had originally given him credit for. The tension was broken when, as they were walking to the door, Stefan, maybe purposefully, maybe not, bumped into Aro, and Caius blurted instantly, without thinking, "Excuse you, simple."
All members of the group silently reflected that whatever else might happen, this project would certainly be an interesting one
I've been working on this for a while. (instead of some other things, and for that I am sorry- writing this was addictive.) The storyline is supposed to be a parallel to what Stephanie Meyer says happened in the Guide- Caius runs afoul of the Romanians, Marcus crushes hopelessly on Didyme, Aro wins all over the place, so on. Some of the Guard are going to be introduced in the next chapter, (super-bonus points if you can guess who Didyme's friends are) and in fact, a lot of stuff is going to happen in the next chapter. Thus, stay tuned. Please review to tell me what you think, I'd love to hear it!