Chapter Eleven

Brian was the next to start to pour his heart out. It was weird how detention suddenly turned into a confessional.

"It's like me, you know, with my grades. Like, when I, when I step outside myself kinda, and when I, when I look in at myself, you know? And I see me and I don't like what I see. I really don't." he said sadly.

"What's wrong with you? Why don't you like yourself?" Claire asked.

"'Cause I'm stupid... 'cause I'm failing shop."

Brian went on to explain that he had eight weeks to make a ceramic elephant lamp that was supposed to light up when you pulled on the trunk. But no matter how hard he tried he couldn't get the light to turn on. That was his first F and he was real disappointed in himself because he took shop as a safe course, thinking it would be easy.

"Why'd you think it'd be easy?" Bender asked.

"Have you seen some of the dopes that take shop?" Brian returned his question.

"I take shop, you must be a fucking idiot!" Bender spat, offended.

"I'm a fucking idiot because I can't make a lamp?" Brian scoffed.

"No, you're a genius because you can't make a lamp." Bender growled sarcastically.

"What do you know about trigonometry?" Brian countered.

"I could care less about trigonometry."

"Bender, did you know that without trigonometry there'd be no engineering?" Brian asked, appalled.

"Without lamps, there'd be no light!" John put him in his place.

"Okay, so neither of you is any better than the other one." Claire stopped them.

"I can write with my toes!" Allison chimed in, taking the conversation in a positive direction, "I can also eat, brush my teeth, play Heart & Soul on the piano..."

"With your feet?" Claire asked and Allison nodded.

"I can make spaghetti." Brian smiled.

"What can you do?" Claire asked Andrew.

"I can uh...tape all your buns together." he laughed.

"I can write some pretty awesome fiction." I blushed.

"I wanna see what Claire can do!" Bender said.

"I can't do anything." Claire shook her head.

"Now, everybody can do something." John nodded his head.

"There's one thing I can do...no forget it. It's way too embarrassing." she blushed.

"You ever see Wild Kingdom? I mean that guy's been doing that show for thirty years." Bender pointed out.

"Okay, but you have to swear to God you won't laugh...I can't believe I'm actually doing this..." she mumbled.

Bender swore as she pulled out a tube of lipstick and placed it in her cleavage. She then bent her head down and applied the lipstick with her boobs. When she looked back up her make up was perfect. We all clapped, but Bender's clap was slow and sarcastic.

"Alright, great! Where'd you learn to do that?" Andrew asked.

"Camp, seventh grade." Claire admitted.

"That was great Claire. My image of you is totally blown." Bender groaned and Claire wiped off the lipstick, ashamed.

"You're a shit!" Allison yelled at him, "Don't do that to her, you swore to God you wouldn't laugh!"

"Am I laughing?" Bender asked.

"You fucking prick!" Andrew spat. Bender turned and looked him right in the eye.

"What do you care what I think anyway? I don't even count, right? I could disappear forever and it wouldn't make any difference. I may as well not even exist at this school, remember?" Bender growled before turning to Claire, "And you don't like me anyway!"

"You know, I have just as many feelings as you do and it hurts just as much when somebody steps all over them!" Claire cried.

"God, you're so pathetic." Bender was furious now, "Don't you ever, EVER compare yourself to me, okay? You got everything and I got shit! Fucking Rapunzel, right? School would probably fucking shut down if you didn't show up! Queenie isn't here! I like those earrings, Claire."

"Shut up..." she mumbled.

"Are those real diamonds, Claire?" he kept on.

"Shut up!" she said a little louder.

"I bet they are. Did you work for the money for those earrings? Or did your daddy buy those?" John asked.

"Shut up!" she shouted and kicked him, tears now streaming down her face.

"I bet he bought those for you! I bet they were a Christmas gift, right? You know what I got for Christmas this year? It was a banner fucking year at the old Bender family! I got a carton of cigarettes. The old man grabbed me and said hey, smoke up Johnny! Okay, so go home and cry to your daddy, don't cry here okay?" Bender tore her a new asshole.

No one said anything for a moment. And although I was enjoying Claire getting put in her place, a part of me still felt bad for her. Bender was right but he didn't need to be so harsh. Either way, I hoped that now they were done with each other.

"My God, are we going to be like our parents?" Andrew asked.

"Not me, ever..." Claire mumbled as she wiped a tear away.

"It's unavoidable, it just happens..." Allison said.

"What happens?" Claire asked.

"When you grow up, your heart dies."

"Who cares?" Bender scoffed.

"I care..." Allison whispered as she started to cry. I rested my head on her shoulder and tried to hold back tears.

"I care too..."

I locked eyes with John and when he saw that I was crying his face softened. I wanted to run over to him and bury my face in his chest but instead I squeezed Allison's arm as she held me. Brian soon broke the silence.

"Um, I was just thinking. I mean, I know it's kinda a weird time, but I was just wondering. Um, what is going to happen to us on Monday? When we're all together again? I mean, I consider you guys my friends. I'm not wrong, am I?"

"No." Andrew shook his head.

"So, so on Monday... what happens?" Brian asked.

"Are we still friends, you mean? If we're friends now, that is?" Claire looked up.

"Yeah..." Brian nodded.

"Do you want the truth?" Claire asked.

"Yeah, I want the truth." Brian watched her.

"I don't think so..." Claire shook her head.

"Well, do you mean all of us, or just John?" Allison sniffled.

"With all of you..." Claire mumbled.

"That's fine, none of us wanna be friends with a stuck up bitch anyways!" I spat.

"That's a real nice attitude, Claire!" Andy backed me up.

"Oh be honest Andy. If Brian came walking up to you in the hall on Monday, what would you do? I mean picture this, you're there with all the sports. I know exactly what you'd do, you'd say hi to him and when he left you'd cut him up so all of your friends wouldn't think you really liked him!" Claire rolled her eyes.

"No way!" Andrew snapped.

"Okay, what if I came up to you?" Allison asked Claire.

"Same exact thing." Claire sighed.

"YOU ARE A BITCH!" Bender shouted.

"And a fucking coward!" I added.

"Why? 'Cause I'm telling the truth? That makes me a bitch?" Claire snapped.

"No! 'Cause you know how shitty that is to do to someone! And you don't got the balls to stand up to your friends and tell 'em that you're gonna like who you wanna like!" Bender kept yelling.

"Alright, what about you? You hypocrite!" Claire countered, "Why don't you take Lindsay or Allison to one of your heavy metal vomit parties? Or take Brian out to the parking lot at lunch to get high? What about Andy for that matter? What about me? What would your friends say if we were walking down the hall together? They'd laugh their asses off and you would probably tell them that you were doing it with me so they'd forgive you for being seen with me!"

"Don't you ever talk about my friends!" fire was burning in Bender's throat, "You don't know any of my friends, you don't look at any of my friends and you certainly wouldn't condescend to speak to any of my friends! So you just stick to the things you know, shopping, nail polish, your father's BMW and you poor, rich, drunk mother in the Caribbean!"

"Shut up!" Claire cried and kicked him again.

"And as far as being concerned about what's going to happen when you and I walk down the hallways at school, you can forget it! 'Cause it's never gonna happen! Just bury your head in the sand and wait for your fucking prom!" John finished.

"I hate you!" Claire sobbed.

"Yeah? Good!" Bender shouted back.

The room went silent when their bad break up was over. Good, now I knew for sure that they were done with each other. Brian broke the silence again.

"Then I assume Allison, Lindsay and I are better people than you guys, huh? Us weirdos...Do you, would you do that to me?" he looked at Allison and I.

"Never. You're my sweetheart, remember?" I smiled, my face still wet with tears.

"I don't have any friends..." Allison sighed.

"Well, if you did?" Brian laughed.

"No, I don't think the kind of friends I'd have would mind." Allison smiled.

"I just wanna tell each of you, that I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't and I will not! 'Cause I think that's real shitty..." Brian sniffled.

"Your friends wouldn't mind because they look up to us..." Claire dared to speak again.

"None of us look up to any of you, I can tell ya that much!" I growled. Brian let out a hysteric laugh.

"You're so conceited Claire! You're so conceited. You're so like, full of yourself. Why are you like that?"

"I'm not saying it to be conceited!" she was crying again, "I hate it! I hate having to go along with everything my friends say!"

"Well, then why do you do it?" Brian asked.

"I don't know. I don't...you don't understand, you don't. You're not friends with the same kind of people that Andy and I are friends with! You know, you just don't understand the kind of pressure that they can put on you!" she explained.

"I don't understand what? You think I don't understand pressure, Claire? Well fuck you! Fuck you!" Brian buried his head in his arm and started to sob, "Know why I'm in here today? Do you? I'm here because Mr. Ryan found a gun in my locker..."

"Why'd you have a gun in your locker?" Andrew asked.

"I tried...you pull the fucking trunk on it and the light's supposed to go on, and it didn't go on. I mean, I..." Brian kept crying.

"What was the gun for, Brian?" Andrew asked sternly.

"Just forget it..." Brian mumbled.

"You brought it up, man!"

"I can't have an F. I can't have it and I know my parents can't have it! Even if I aced the rest of the semester, I'm still only a B and everything is ruined for me!" Brian explained.

"Oh Brian..." Claire sighed with pity. Brian knocked the chair over next to him in anger.

"So I considered my options, you know?"

"No! Killing yourself is not an option!" Claire cried.

"Well I didn't do it, did I?" Brian snapped at her, as if she cared, "No, I don't think so!"

"It was a hand gun?" Allison asked.

"No, it was a flare gun. It went off in my locker."

"Really?" Andrew started to laugh but he coughed to try and hide it. We all started to laugh.

"It's not funny..." Brian mumbled but after a moment he started to laugh too, "Yes it is...fucking elephant was destroyed!"

"You wanna know what I did to get in here?" Allison asked, "Nothing, I didn't have anything better to do."

We all laughed.

"You're laughing at me..." Allison mumbled.

"No!" Andrew shook his head and continued to laugh.

"Yeah, you are!" Allison joined in on the laughter.

We all howled with giggles and laughter, unable to contain ourselves. It felt good to finally get everything out on the table. You couldn't get better therapy if you paid for it.