Chapter Two:
Secondary
Author's Note: Hi everyone! Sorry for the updating delay, but inspiration was hard to find and I was busy with moving into college! Luckily, I was encouraged to continue the story-due largely in part to the sweet reviews the first chapter got! I'm so glad you guys enjoyed it! Hopefully, you'll enjoy this second chapter too, even though it's some more exposition for the tipping point in chapter three. Please enjoy!
"Do you think I'm beautiful?"
The capped Chipmunk flashed his female companion a charming grin and gently cupped her chin in one hand; her eyes briefly flared with a siren-light of panic before she realized his intentions were largely benign. A demure smile crossed the blonde's slender, freckled face, filling the hollows of her visage with a pearly light that momentarily jolted Alvin out of his romantic ruse. He found himself slipping helplessly towards the maw of some unseen beast, some tentacled form desperate to latch onto him and feed him to a relationship that would leave them both of broken-hearted.
Alvin opened his mouth, acutely aware of the seconds marching by and how each must have struck her like a dagger to the breast. The panic returned to her eyes.
"Alvin?" she pressed timidly. Color rose like dough into her cheeks, rapidly extinguishing the divine light that had moments before captivated him. Slowly, she separated them with a hand to his broad chest and bit her lip too hard; a shout of blood streaked across her now quivering chin. Tears surged suddenly into her eyeteeth, clinging to the pink gems like tiny diamonds.
"Amanda, wait…" As careless as he could be with the feelings of other, he was loathe to make anyone cry, especially someone so heartbreakingly sensitive and fawnish. He crushed his palms into his eyes: there was no explanation for his reticence that wouldn't crush her already tenuous self-esteem. How could he tell her that the reason he couldn't commit himself to her was that he still harbored devastatingly strong feelings for the girl who most despised him and his family?
"I-I'm sorry," she whispered. She attempted to swipe away the comet tail of blood with the back of her hand, but only succeeded in smearing the substance across her mouth. The end result was clownish, almost comically so.
"Here." He reached across her skirt-clad lap to unlatch the glove compartment, which puked its contents onto the BMW's floor. The sight of a condom-still in its candy-shiny wrapping-yanked a poorly suppressed sob out of Amanda's chest, and she began to cry helplessly in the bucket seat of Alvin Seville's car. "Amanda, please… Please, don't cry."
Alvin quickly carded through the jumble of junk until he found the pack of tissues he had stuffed in there after driving Simon to the Urgent Care last Friday. Hating how tremulous his hands had become, he ripped the package open, pulled out a clutch of tissues, and offered them to Amanda. She thanked him shakily before mopping up the cocktail of blood and tears that had colored her buttermilk complexion strawberry-pink. He waited until she had successfully removed most of the offending fluid from her face and pressed the used tissues into his cup holder before approaching the subject of her attractiveness again with justifiable caution.
"Amanda. Listen to me. You're one of the most beautiful girls I've ever met-and look at me! I've toured the whole country, baby. I've seen thousands of girls and not one of them compare to you," he said softly, albeit firmly. She summoned a shaky smile, but did not speak. "Amanda, this isn't your fault at all. It's… It's me. I know that's totally Ryan Gosling of me to say, but it's true. You're an awesome girl and I'd be fucking jumped to be with someone like you, but-"
"But you like someone else," she concluded. Amanda glanced up at Alvin with vein-laced eyes, her wounded lip contorted into an emotionless line. "You like Brittany."
"No, I don't," he snapped instinctively. Years of being fed this line had caused him to foster an inveterate reaction to the assumption that bordered on violent; Amanda jerked away from him at the heat of his words. Wondering how he had managed to screw up something as simple as a simple parking lot chat, Alvin sighed and removed his hat so he could thread a hand through his tumble of auburn locks. "I know you and Britt are really good friends, so you should know what things are like between us. There's no La La Land with Britt, ya know? She hates my guts. She hates my whole family."
The blonde brushed a stray curl behind her ear, vacillating between honesty and loyalty to her best friend. Deciding Alvin deserved the truth-especially after how understanding he had been about her breakdown-she tenderly placed her hand over his own and silently urged him to meet her gaze. "Alvin, I know what it's like between you two. But it's not always what you think. Brittany's said some nasty things about you, but she… I think she still cares about you guys. On some level, at least. And if you still care about her as much as I know you do, then you should tell her. Brittany's not always great with subtlety. Sometimes you have to force her to see reality."
"Don't I know it," he mumbled derisively.
A pale giggle escaped her. "I know what she did to you guys wasn't right, but she's still hurting. I think maybe if you talked to her…"
"We'll see." Alvin paused, gauging Amanda's reaction to his response and cringing internally at the hurt that briefly crinkled her brow into a shocked furrow. "I'll try, Amanda. I really will."
"Okay."
They sat together in silence for a minute. Outside, student-athletes filed down from the locker rooms to the athletic complex downhill, chatting amiably and tossing shin guards at one another. Alvin had initially been grateful that his baseball coach had decided to cancel today's conditioning on the grounds that he "just didn't feel like coming to the damn sandtrap today", as it had afforded him the opportunity to have a moment alone with his latest potential fling, but now he wished he was among the crowd. He spotted Eleanor maneuvering her way through the throng with her backpack hitched easily over one shoulder. She would be climbing into her friend's car so that they could ride over to the local hockey rink together, a thought that inexplicably elevated his spirits. It had been years since he had gone skating.
Alvin turned back to Amanda, beaming widely. "You wanna ride over to the rink? Go skating?"
She blinked, stunned. After considering the invitation though, she brightened and nodded. Perhaps there was hope for their relationship. Perhaps she could hang on the arm of the coolest guy in school. And perhaps, if she played her cards correctly, she could get Brittany and Alvin to make amends-purely platonic amends, that was.
She was a girl with needs, after all.
XXXXX
Jeanette Miller sat cross-legged in her living room, chewing anxiously on her thumbnail.
Upon catching a ride home with Brittany-who had announced she was currently parting the Red Sea and went upstairs to take a well-deserved nap-Jeanette had fretted relentlessly over her upcoming date with Simon. She had cleaned both her bedroom and the living room, set up her laptop in what she hoped was a relatively casual position (which took the better part of ten minutes to achieve), and perused their movie collection no less than twelve times in search of an appropriate film to accompany dinner. It had struck her on several occasions just how ridiculous all this posturing was, but with her future relationship with her best friend hanging in the balance, she was willing to go to absurd lengths to ensure that tonight saw movement towards a more romantic horizon.
She toyed with her cell phone and considered rearranging the items on the coffee table (her laptop, the copies of the scholarship requirements, and two bottles of fizzy lemonade) again before realizing that her anxiety was escalating into a manic frenzy. Oppressing herself to relax, Jeanette leaned back against the throw pillow and started scrolling through her various social media feeds in the hopes that the anonymous swirl of photos and faces would distract her from the very real terror of totally destroying her friendship with her best friend.
A Snapchat from Eleanor illuminated the middle of the screen. Surprised, Jeanette opened the message and watched a shaky video of two figures-one sporting a familiar red baseball cap, the other dressed smartly in a lemon-yellow peacoat-skating hand-in-hand across the icy landscape of the local rink. Seconds later, another Snapchat popped up, this one containing a blurry selfie whose caption read "Alvin's on a skating date with Amanda Blake?"
Jeanette gasped inexorably at the mere notion of Alvin chasing after one of Brittany's best friends, especially with tensions recently flaring under the galvanizing pressure of senior year. Unlike her sisters and a solid two-thirds of the Seville family, Jeanette sincerely believed that Alvin was intelligent and though he had a penchant of allowing his manhood to guide his decision-making process, he knew which girls to keep at a polite distance. Amanda Blake, Brittany's most trusted confidant and a doe-eyed waif whose talents included crying on cue and sleeping through US History lectures, was among those precious few who were too deeply embroiled in the complex Seville-Miller conflict to safely take to bed. What had pushed Alvin to further tamper with the families' already explosive dynamics?
She was so invested in sleuthing Alvin's motives that she failed to notice a sleepy Brittany enter the room and lower herself into the overstuffed armchair.
"What's the yarn, Jeanie?" Brittany asked with a yawn.
Jeanette dropped her phone, feeling oddly shameful. It was none of her business to hypothesize about Alvin's potential relationships or cast judgement: Alvin was an individual deserving of independence and privacy, in spite of the chaotic strings of regret and rage still binding him to Brittany. "Um, n-nothing. Just, um, waiting for Simon."
"Oh, yeah," she murmured, stretching her bronzed arms over her head and waiting for the satisfying click of her joints popping back into place. "Are you guys ordering out?"
"Um, yeah. China East."
"Oh God, yum. Get me some orange chicken."
"Sure."
"Don't think I'm gonna hang around you guys, though," Brittany said suddenly, her pleasantly fuzzy-tongued tone curdling with malice. "I don't-"
"Yeah, I know, you still don't want to see him," Jeanette interrupted. Her voice too had taken on a sharp undercurrent of exasperation. "I get it."
The older girl huffed. "Well, Jesus, don't slaughter me over it. Why would I want to see him after he ruined my career?"
An uncharacteristic coldness clouded Jeanette's eyes like cataracts. "Britt, he didn't ruin your career. Neither did Alvin. No one took your career away from you and the fact that you still refuse to acknowledge either of them is just… childish."
"He ruined us! He and that-that jackass ruined everything!" Brittany exclaimed, high color streaking across her velvety cheeks. "Just because you didn't give a shit about being famous doesn't mean I wasn't hurt! God, Jeanette, get a fucking grip! They were selfish, they ruined everything for all of us!"
"Two against one," Jeanette said calmly. The unflinching frost of her expression had melted to reveal a more clinical, measured cold. "Ellie and I wanted out. You could've gone solo, Brittany. You really could have. You can't blame that on the boys."
Mute with anger, the girl jumped to her feet. She pointed a pink-nailed, accusatory finger at her sister, fishing for some statement that would deliver the same devastating impact as Jeanette's previous remark. Finally, she spat "fuck you, Jeanette" in a low, venomous voice and thundered out of the room.
The chilly courage she had weaponized against her sister evaporated; in its place, a weary sadness-the grey aftermath of a sobbing fit-flooded into her chest and leaked down her cheeks. Sniffling helplessly, Jeanette chased the tears away with the sleeve of her violet sweater, agonizingly aware of the fact that the insult itself was largely empty. Brittany had simply allowed her temper to get the best of her and deflected her own hurt by aiming to injure her sister. A tactic that, however crude, had been successful.
The cheerful ding of the doorbell jolted Jeanette out of her miserable reverie. Wishing she had time to at least rub the pathetic pinkness from her under-eyes, she hitched in a steadying breath and went to the front door. At least she could always depend on Simon.
XXXXX
"You shouldn't have to put up with that."
The brunette Chipette-now entirely dry-eyed and in considerably better spirits-glanced up from her vegetarian lo mein and cocked her head curiously. The two had completed their scholarship applications roughly fifteen minutes ago, shortly after which the food had arrived. Jeanette had taken the steaming box of orange chicken up to Brittany's room and knocked the door timidly; she would have to see later if the older girl had actually accepted the edile armistice. Eleanor, flushed and manic from hockey practice, had grabbed her order of beef and broccoli, shot Jeanette a conspiratorial look, and dashed upstairs to Skype Theodore about their Government assignment. They were alone in the living room now.
"Put up with what?" Jeanette ventured. She had recounted her fight with Brittany in the mildest terms possible after failing to contrive a decent excuse for the teartracks striping her cheeks, but had also expressed her unwillingness to linger on the issue for longer than what was entirely necessary. Her issues with Brittany were none of his concern.
"With Brittany. With Brittany being mad at me," he quickly amended. Simon leaned back against the arm of the sofa, his brow working silently over the pair of stormy eyes that always transported Jeanette to another realm. However, she was too absorbed by the nervous raking of his fingernails across his opposite wrist in an unconscious scourge to be taken away by those silvery irises. She frowned slightly. "I made a mistake-"
"No, you didn't," she blurted, grabbing his left wrist. "Simon, we all wanted out. I can deal with Brittany, believe me. One day she'll wake up and realize that she just didn't want to keep up that life anymore, that it wasn't your fault or Alvin's fault or anyone's fault. It might take a little while, but… but it'll happen. I know it will."
"I just don't want you to be the one who suffers the consequences."
A tentative smile brightened her grave expression. "There's not too much suffering, Simon. It's only Brittany, after all."
"She made you cry," he pointed out somberly.
"But I'm fine. I really am. Don't worry about me and Brittany. That's… It's old. I-I don't want you to think it's your fault. Okay?"
"Okay." He bit his lip uncertainly, then placed a gentle hand on her own; a powerful current surged through their fingers. "If it'll make you happy."
She grinned again as a flutter of ardor spurred her heart to start pumping at a supernatural speed. "It will."
They finished eating, allowing their conversation to cover less contentious topics such as Simon's research project at the local university and Jeanette's latest contribution to the district literary magazine. She belatedly noticed that over the course of the discussion, they had scooted closer together, placing her within close enough proximity to admire the minutiae she occasionally overlooked-the astute curve of his brow, the sturdiness of his jaw, the sweet fringe of lashes awning his eyes. By the time they selected a film-Warm Bodies, which Jeanette felt contained enough romantic overtones without being overtly mood-setting-she was pressed lightly against his side, his left arm slung around her shoulders.
Oh, my God, she thought, feeling the sinewy weight of his tricep against her neck and shivering inwardly with deep, heart-clenching desire. Something's happening.
Jeanette decided to test the waters before making any concrete assumptions about the something and whether or not its occurrence was obvious only to her. With a soft sigh of content, she lowered her head onto his shoulder and held her breath in anticipation, every tendon of her small body locked.
The tender pressure of a hand against her scalp, scant inches from the messy bun she had haphazardly tied her curls into earlier, flushed the tension from her muscles and shoved a satisfied breath out of her lungs. She reared her head back slightly, relishing in the sensation of his fingers against the sensitive flesh of her scalp. Her nerves were a riot of lush, ringing pleasure.
"Is this okay?" he asked softly from somewhere far above her. Jeanette nodded, incapacitated by the sensation. "I'm… Do you want me to do something?"
"Just play with my hair," she whispered.
He obliged, tentatively tracing his fingertips along the curve of her head and dandling with the errant ringlets that had escaped her bun. Jeanette closed her eyes and sunk into the electrifying perfection of the moment, her fears and anxieties abandoning her. She felt as though she had just made her descent into the rec pool's deep end: cool, heavenly bliss enveloped her like the fluorescence-laced water, plunging her senses into blue obscurity.
She fell into a light doze that spiraled into a nourishing sleep. Her nerves, still singing joyously, serenaded her journey to dreamland.
XXXXX
The fever of day broke, drenching the world in drizzly sweat and a glassy cold that hung portentously over the neighborhood like an illness threatening to return. Alvin watched the stars slowly emerge from the onyx swirl of clouds, perched on the ledge of his mattress; Amanda, still naked, slept soundly behind him. Even in slumber, her presence was unobtrusive, nearly featureless. She was an evanescent girl, already fading from his memory-only the lingering soreness in his hams and the craze of scratch marks branding his upper-back prevented him from completely forgetting what had just transpired.
He didn't know what had come over him. Certainly, Amanda was beautiful and he did have a long, storied history of luring in girls of her social pedigree, but she was also entangled in the web of his and Brittany's feud. There wasn't a doubt in his mind that Amanda would confide into Brittany the intimate details of their previous session, nor was he dubious about Brittany's readiness to retaliate against him for this transgression. He had upset the precarious balance between them and he had done so knowing full well what the repercussions would be and who would have to endure them.
Alvin laced his hands behind his head, trying to make sense of the situation. Amanda was simply the latest link in a tremendously long chain who had satisfied his carnal needs, but had failed to fill the gaping hole in his chest. Something had been cruelly scooped out of him and with every girl that he chatted up, dated, and took to bed, he sought that missing organ so vital to his body's function. He longed to be fulfilled on that visceral level. The emptiness was becoming almost intolerable.
"Alvin?" Amanda lifted her head off the pillow, blinking drowsily. A strand of blonde hair was laminated to her cheek with sweat. "Are you okay?"
He turned around and smiled warmly; she reciprocated the gesture. "Yeah. I'm perfect."
"What were you looking at?" she asked.
"Just the sky." Alvin climbed back into bed, pulling the rumpled blankets over their bodies and offering his muscled arm to her. She obediently shimmied into place beside him like a loyal pet desperate for approval from its master. "Thinking about you."
"Mmm…" Amanda pressed her face into his chest, already slipping out of consciousness. "Feels different."
"What does?"
"Everything… Everything changed," she mumbled. Seconds later, her breathing slowed to a steadier tempo and she slept on.
"Yeah." He glanced out the window, at the frigid rind of moon and the encroaching darkness and the cold hovering spectrally above them all, and felt a chill rake through him. "I guess it has."
XXXXX
When Jeanette finally woke up, the movie credits were rolling languidly onscreen and the room had become significantly dimmer. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she attempted to place her surroundings, which caused her heart to triphammer frantically as she remembered the events that had lulled her to sleep in the first place. She had practically been in Simon's arms.
Jeanette slowly pulled herself into an upright position, finding that she had nodded off with her back propped against his side. He too had fallen asleep and was curled into the corner of the sofa, head braced against his arm; his other arm was still extended, as if awaiting her return to his embrace. A thrill zipped down her spine at the neural memory of his fingers against her scalp.
She switched off the television, then settled back into her warm spot on the sofa. The intimacy of their nap lingered like the cloying scent of honeysuckle in summer. Though they had always been close and had few qualms about hugging or sharing a chair or even dancing sporadically at those unswervingly awkward middle school events that they invariably attended together, they had never conceded to the gravitational pull of one another's hormones and placed their hands where hands rarely strayed. It had been so different, yet so… right.
Something had changed. And hopefully, it was for the better.
Smiling, she glanced back at her sleeping counterpart, only for her euphoria to be quashed by concern as she noted the unhealthy pallor of his complexion. Brown half-moons of exhaustion underscored either eye. Jeanette hesitantly touched his crown-some distant part of her wondering if perhaps he too enjoyed having his hair played with-and felt her heart break at the heat simmering just beneath the skin.
Simon was pushing himself too hard. That much was glaringly obvious to almost anyone who was even vaguely familiar with the Chipmunk, but Jeanette knew just how thin he had spread himself-and just how obstinate he could be about easing his crushing workload. As someone who too had a habit of over-scheduling herself, Jeanette was sympathetic with his plight: they were both striving for the best schools and, in the process, had accumulated far too extracurriculars on top of a demanding course load. However, she had found her outlets through her morning swims and writing for the district literary magazine, which was less of an extracurricular and more of a passion that she actively looked forward to. She would have been surprised if he had done anything fun or even remotely relaxing in the past few months.
Jeanette sighed, vacillating between shaking him awake to see if he was alright or letting him sleep without interruption. Lack of sleep and an abundance of stress had decimated his immune system. He had only just recovered from a vicious sinus infection, although judging by his physical appearance, the illness was looking to make a nasty comeback. And with winter looming whitely on the horizon, he would become even more vulnerable to whatever virulent strain of cold or flu made its rounds through school. The thought deeply saddened her.
Let me protect you, she thought as she lightly traced her fingers across his forehead. Let me keep you warm and safe. Harvard's not that important-you can take a break. You can sleep.
His eyelids fluttered suddenly, prompting Jeanette to yank her hand away lest she come off as some kind of psychopath. She patiently waited for him to adjust to his position and the quality of light, both of which seemed to cause him a marginal amount of pain. A soft cringe escaped him when he lifted his head.
"Hi," Jeanette greeted meekly.
Simon managed a wan smile. "Hi. Sorry for crashing on your sofa."
"You needed to crash. We both did."
"Maybe not for two hours, but you're probably right," he said with a sheepish rub of his neck. "I should probably get out of here."
Jeanette suppressed the bloom of disappointment in her chest before it could manifest itself in her expression and replaced it with the same firmness she had utilized against Brittany earlier. "Simon, will you do something for me?"
He blinked, slightly surprised. "Of course. Anything."
"I want you to take care of yourself tonight. Go home, shower, and go to bed. Don't read the Harvard message boards, don't study, don't email anyone. Just… Just get some sleep. Okay? Please?"
Shame deepened the shadows trapped in the hollows of his face. Jeanette didn't particularly enjoy talking to him as if he were an insolent child, but her concern for his wellbeing championed her embarrassment. Finally, his eyes cast downward by the weight of indignity, he nodded. "Okay, Nettie. For you."
"No, Simon," she said, melancholy seeping into her tone. "Do it for yourself."
He found it within himself to match her gaze-which, to his chagrin, was heavy with fear-and reach across their laps to take her hands in his own. "I'm so lucky to have you, Nettie."
Jeanette swallowed firmly against a lump in her throat large enough to suffocate her. Love filled her lungs like a pneumonial fluid, threatening to steal her breath away. She opened her mouth as if to speak, then closed it out of the knowledge that she couldn't articulate her feelings coherently.
"I won't let you down, okay?"
"Okay," she mustered. "Okay."
XXXXX
"Hey, Jean, I think your phone buzzed."
"Thanks, Ellie." Jeanette walked back over to the kitchen table, where Eleanor was finishing the last of her homework assignments and eating some of Brittany's orange chicken. To Jeanette's dismay, when she had gone upstairs after walking Simon to his car and hugging him tightly enough to feel his heart racing behind his chest, the box of food she had left at Brittany's door was untouched. Eleanor seemed nonplussed about finishing off the dish, but Jeanette knew it meant that she wasn't forgiven-not yet, at least.
The message illuminating her phone screen momentarily distracted her from her Brittany-related strife and even brought a warm smile to her face. Simon had texted to confirm that he had arrived home safely and to invite her over tomorrow morning. Though they weren't dating, Jeanette couldn't help but qualify the outing as another date and privately rejoice in the minor victory.
"What's the yarn?"
"Simon asked me to come over to his house tomorrow," she said, holding the phone to her chest.
Eleanor raised her eyebrows knowingly. "Are you two…?"
"No, but… but something's changed." She laughed in spite of herself. "Everything's changed."
Author's Note: Okay! That chapter's a bit long, but I really wanted to cover all the bases of the story (and I still didn't get to the Eleanor/Theodore subplot, but let's just hold off on that for now). Just a reminder that this story is all original pairings! Thank you again for all of your kind reviews and please let me know what you thought of this chapter (I thought it was kind of weak, but it was necessary). Thank you!