Chapter 8: Simon

It was a Monday, and unlike the traditional Monday, Ben was on time. Actually, Ben was on time for the first time since I can't even remember. Gina was rolling with the pinches, but John was just as weirded out as I was.

"Congratulations, you're on time!" I said sarcastically.

"I know," he said simply.

I looked at Gina and she shrugged. She didn't know why he didn't do a victory dance or something either.

"Is this the first math class you're in time for this term?" John asked, frowning a bit.

"No. I've been on time three times previous."

"What the fuck?" I said. First, he could not have been on time 'three times previous', second, who the fuck says things that official-like? Not even officials say that.

"Oh, there's the teacher," Ben said.

"We are not done talking about this," I whispered to him. "Remember, you don't start doing drugs without me doing drugs and vice versa."

The teacher opened the door and we walked into the classroom. Hell was beginning, I thought, and then changed my mind when I saw the teacher swallow two painkillers. This lesson would be fun. I'd fail math of course, but fuck it if it wasn't worth it.

"So, what are we doing today?" I nearly yelled as we sat down. John looked a bit as if he wanted to cut out my tongue, but he didn't say anything.

"Why did you have to annoy the teacher so!" John complained. "I wanted to ask him things, didn't you ever think of that?"

"Like what?" I asked, and turned towards him. There was a half-crazed look in his eyes, and a bit of red on his face. "Look, calm down, it's not like you won't pass."

"Maybe this is too big of a dream for you, but I want to get an A. That requires a certain effort and understanding of mathematics, which I can't get if you scare the teacher away!"

"Calm down, John," Gina said.

"Yeah, John, it's not life and death."

John humphed and walked towards the men's bathroom at high speed. Come to think of it, I've never seen him run.

"Are you going to follow him?" Gina asked me and Ben.

"It's just performance anxiety," Ben said, then we looked at each other and burst out laughing, despite the oddness this morning. I quickly stopped laughing, and so did Ben, looking hurt.

"No, but, seriously, go check on him," she said after we had calmed down.

"I'm not doing it," Ben said.

"Neither am I. Why don't you do it?"

"It's the men's bathroom," she explained.

"I've got a phone call, have to take it," Ben said with a shit-eating smile on his face. The fucker.

"I'll go then. You owe me a bag of frozen strawberries."

I walked towards the bathroom, opened the door and stepped in. In one of the stalls someone sounded like he had just run a marathon.

"John?"

"Leave" hiccup "me alone." sniffle "Please."

"Are you okay? Honestly, it's just math, it's not a big deal."

"Not a..." deep breath, followed by another "I need to calm down. It is a big deal. I need to do more than pass, I want an A, and I'm going to get one, but I can't without the teacher, so now you've destroyed my life!"

"That's a bit, dramatic, isn't it? It's just math, and grades aren't a real measure of what you know. Remember that girl who got expelled for sleeping her way to a perfect grade?"

"Well, it's not supposed to be that way and I don't want to be that way!" John yelled, and then the sounds from his booth mostly sounded like that of a laugh, except he couldn't be laughing, could he? He always seemed perfectly sane.

"Let it all out?" I said, wondering if that was really the thing to say and leaned against the booth. Then I quickly realized how easy it would be for me to be slammed in the face and leaned against the sinks instead.

"Are you really that bad at this? Oh god, this is how bad I am at math!"

"No!" I protested. Please John, don't start crying again, I thought. Or was he still crying? Maybe he could also be a silent crier?

"What would you do if Ben was in this situation?" John asked, and he sounded pretty calm.

"Cart him over to Gina, who would tell him to suck it up, but I can't do that, because you're hiding in the men's bathroom and Gina's not a man. She doesn't have the necessary stuff."

"True," John said and hiccuped.

"Have you calmed down? Ready to go eat lunch?"

"No," John said.

"Okay," I said. "Do you want me to get you something? When I'm sad I always try to eat, it gives you something to do. I've got a chocolate bar, do-"

"I'm not going to eat away my pain," John protested.

"Your man-pain."

"Yeah, man-pain," John said, mockingly.

"Are you mocking me?" I said, pretending to be hurt. John giggled. "Do you want to eat away your man-pain now?"

"Yes," John said, sniffing. He opened the door to his toilet booth and stepped out. His eyes were a bit red.

"It's totally impossible to see that you've cried," I told him.

"Shut up," John told me, smiling slightly.

Lunch was still weird though. John looked like he going to start crying at any minute the whole time, no matter how much I joked. My joking-wingman wasn't helping, even though he tried to. Al he did was the usual 'the food sucks and looks like piss'. That's not funny anymore, even I get that. He was the one who beat it into my thick skull, even. What the hell is going on?

Gina, on the other hand, just picked at her food and kept pretty quiet. Food was one of the chinks in her armor.

After his failed attempts at joking, Ben had somehow managed to find someone who wanted to text him.

"Who's your new friend?" Gina asked Ben while she played with the peas she had on her plate.

"Just a friend," Ben replied with a quick and polite smile.

I couldn't come up with anything to say after that and I could literally feel the sweat on my brow.

"Well, that conversation died out quickly," John muttered and then left. Gina did soon too. It was just me and Ben left, and for once it wasn't like the good old times when it was just the two of us, but it was like a new time where he didn't want to talk to me.

When I got home, I found Dad sitting on the couch, a bottle of wine on the table in front of him.

"What happened?" I asked, and hoped that I wouldn't have to comfort him. One comforting was enough for at least this year, but the wine bottle probably meant that I would have to. He nearly never took out a wine-bottle, his poison of choice, because of the one time he spilled wine on a whole pile of books, managing to somehow destroy all of them. I was just happy that it wasn't any of my CD's.

"You know the girl I was seeing?"

"Yeah? She hasn't broken up with you or something, right?"

"No."

"That's good. I like her. She's nice."

"She's dead. Murdered. Same murderer that did that thing we saw on the news yesterday?"

"That was gruesome," I said, remembering the fact that the face, hands and feet had been cut off from the rest of the body. "And... It's really sad."

"The funeral is in three days. Closed casket."

"That's really sad," I told him, feeling like a broken record. "Should I go buy some more wine?"

"Nah, we've got ten bottles," Dad replied, and drank what was left of the bottle in front of him, which was about half. He may not drink that often, but when he does he goes all out.

"I'll get another, then," I told him, did just that, and then left him there. I felt a bit guilty about it but he had a bottle of wine. Wine gave you nice warm feelings, and that was just what he needed. He didn't need me sitting next to him saying that it was sad.

When I sat down on the bed in my room I realized that that was what I also wanted. There was no way I was getting any of the wine, dad would want it all for himself and he was dead-set against underage drinking.

Maybe I didn't like Dad's ex-because-she's-dead very much, because she was just further proof that Mom and Dad's divorce was final and not something that was just temporary. I was also sad because I was never seeing Dad's ex-because-she's-dead again and she had her good moments. She always brought me Snickers and wore really low-cut shirts.

I took my phone out of my pocket and pulled up the contact list. I should talk to someone. Maybe that will make me feel warm and normal and not as sad. Ben was good at this stuff, wasn't he? Was he? Really? Well, maybe. It didn't hurt to try, even if it was probably so that he sucked at it.

I called him. There was no reply, so I called him again. Still no reply. Well, he had been acting weird all day, maybe he didn't want to talk to me, the fucker.

I called Gina instead. She owed me one, and the bag of frozen strawberries.

"Gina," she answered.

"Hey, it's me."

"Simon?"

"Yes."

"Why are you calling? Not to sound rude or anything, but you usually don't."

"You know those murders, right? Dad's girlfriend is one of the victims."

"There's murders? Whatever, doesn't matter." she said. "I'm sorry for your loss."

"Thanks. Should I be sad? I mean, sadder? I feel sad, I just..."

"Well, if you liked her and you're never going to meet her again because she's dead, I guess that the natural response is sadness, but if you didn't... I mean, you don't have to be sad." Despite the subject and the fact that as far as I know she hasn't been to a funeral in her whole life, she still sounded like she knew exactly what she was talking about.

"I guess," I said, not really sure of anything. Why did I call her again? To feel warm and nice and stuff. "What, ehmm... You didn't know about the murders?"

"No, I don't watch the news or check them. You'll find out anything important by everybody else, anyway. I didn't think you'd be the type to watch the news."

"The type to watch the news? There is no type for that. I just watch 'em. They're on before I go to bed. It's convenient."

"You have a set bed time? I'm learning so much right now."

"Blackmail?" I asked, and lay down on my bed. I felt warm again.

"No, just friend things." There was a pause. "Hey, I have to go. It's dinner time. If you want to we can talk more later on?"

"No, I think I'm fine. Unless you want to talk?"

"No, I have stuff to do. See you tomorrow."

"See you. Wait!" I yelled, hoping she hadn't ended the call yet.

"You wanted to talk?"

"No, it's just... Was it just me or was Ben behaving really weirdly today?"

"Yeah, he was. Oddly polite and on time. It's not a bad change."

"No, we just loose some prime time entertainment."

"Hah, true," Gina laughed. "Bye."

The call ended, and then I lay there on my bed with a phone in my hand and still feeling sad. Gina was nice to talk to, but... She wasn't Ben. I still felt slightly empty.

I didn't do anything that evening but try to reach Ben again. He never answered, and I knew that this was the start of enemeyship. I mean, he had been my friend for so long and now he couldn't even answer my calls? After all that I had done for him during the fire and the car crash and basically since I met him?