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Ch.14
…..
"Sam!" She cried in surprise, and let out a breath as if relieved he was there, as opposed to worried he was stalking her, "Oh my god! What happened to you?" She swept around the table to the chair next to his, and made a grab for his face.
"Nothing, nothing. It's nothing; just a misunderstanding." Sam said, trying to avoid her flying hands.
Steven scoffed, "That's an understatement," he said, gulping down some Gatorade, "So I take it you've met." Sam almost laughed at how disappointed he sounded. No doubt his new friend had wanted to be the first to meet the new kid. Sibling rivalry, Sam understood it.
"Yea!" Aly smiled, and Sam noted the slightly suspicious look Steven gave his sister, "He was the…"
"I ran into her at the store, like literally, knocked over a stack of canned beans and everything. Sam crossed his fingers under the table, mentally trying to bypass this part of the conversation. He hated lying to everyone at school. Aly was staring at him in slight shock, oblivious to Steven whose eyes pinged back and forth between them. It was ok if he was suspicious, just as long as he didn't know. There was no telling what he would do with such information, and what those he told would do.
Steven opened his mouth, and Sam anticipated having to delicately talk his way around the fact that Aly hadn't been to the store in a month, or that there wasn't a tower of beans to knock over, but before the words could leave his mouth, someone came sliding noisily into the seat across from Sam, "Man! I am starving!" was all the new arrival said. Aly rolled her eyes, and stabbed at her food with a plastic fork. The guy was ridiculous thin, with wild curly brown hair, and a track T-shirt on with a hole in the armpit. He quickly pulled out four ham and cheese sandwiches, a bag of barbecue potato chips, and a plastic tub of chocolate cake, unwrapped a sandwich and stuffed about half of it into his mouth. He was closely followed by two other guys and a girl with bright flaming red hair. They were a little more aware of Sam, but took the available seats. Aly groaned suddenly beside Sam, "Ollie, please close your mouth. I don't want to see that." She leant her head forward over her food, perhaps protecting it from any wayward ham that could spray from Ollie's mouth, "She elbowed her brother on the other side of her, in the ribs. "Ow! What was that for!?" he yelled. She didn't dignify that with a response, but suddenly seemed a lot more quiet and downcast. Sam eyed the back of her head curiously. Ollie, or whoever was chewing raucously from the other side of the round table, pointed a lazy finger at Sam, who tilted his head back in question, and spoke at the precise moment he swallowed, "Whose this?" he said to no one in particular.
"This…"Steven said, sounding the voice of reason, and reaching an arm around his sister to awkwardly pat Sam on the back, "is Sam, everybody."
After that, Sam carefully steered the conversation away from what had happened that weekend, and soon they were filling him in on the small town, talking about the school, and making fun of the lump of mysterious meat on Sam's tray, that he hadn't touched. He learned the girl was Jessica, the tall guy with long blonde hair was Dalton, and the quiet darker skinned guy was Jason. They were a strange mix of band geek, artist, track runner, and Aly who apparently didn't sit with them regularly. She didn't elaborate on why today was different, but Sam could guess. They lived close together, and that seemed to be what brought them together.
When the bell rang, Sam found himself surprised to be laughing along with them; it was an easy going group, and they didn't care to talk much about the camp-out killings. Sam had heard enough throughout the day to know that the majority of the student body was making up their own versions of what happened, some even going as far as saying Aly killed her best friends.
As they were throwing their trash and leftover food away or packing things back into back packs, Daniel had somehow battled his way through the surging crowd of dispersing lunch-goers. Sam was the first to notice him standing there scowling, and the others quickly turned their attention to what was going on when Daniel stepped up to Aly, glaring at Sam over her shoulder, and yelled over the chaotic clamor that he needed to talk to her.
Sam wanted to follow them, and find out what was so important, but Jessica had begun to drag him away, chattering in his ear about how he'd really pissed Daniel off by getting his buddy in trouble. Daniel was friends with Craig. Only Sam and Aly knew that getting Craig sent to the office wasn't the only or even main reason for Daniel's antipathy. He followed the rest of them through a small side hallway that was less crowded.
"So what's your next class?" Jason asked him, and they all stopped walking, letting the stream of teenagers course around them, and ignoring the people who weren't shy about letting their irritation be known. Ollie leaned against the tiled wall still finishing the last of his potato chips happily, and Daniel was a little preoccupied with his cell phone, but Jessica and Dalton both took a look at his schedule.
"Holy crap! You're taking Calculus?" Jason asked.
"So?" Dalton grabbed the yellow sheet, "I am too. What class?"
"Yeah, but are you also taking advanced economics, and advanced physics?" Jason asked him argumentatively, both eyebrows raised.
"The AP physics, yes. Not the economics." Dalton stated in distaste, handing Sam back his schedule, "And we are in the same Calc."
"Here, let me see. I'm in AP economics." Jessica said, pushing her way between them.
"You are?" Dalton asked shocked, "How did we not know that?"
"I knew it!" called Steven from the behind Sam, still looking down at his phone.
Jessica ignored them, and quickly scanned the sheet, "Man!" she muttered, "AP English, and Spanish 4. I'm impressed. But you're only in a PE class…"
"With me!" Jason interrupted her.
"… and I heard that English with Mrs. Stepanek, is ridiculously easy and that all they do in there is watch movies, and work on a scrapbook, with the occasional essay thrown in."
Dalton scoffed, "From whom?"
"My sister, idiot. She graduated last year, and she took AP English."
"Oh," he looked down at his shoe for a second, "Why didn't I take that class? An extra easy A in an advanced class would've looked great on my transcript."
"Oh please, you wouldn't have made an A in that class." She laughed jokingly, "You suck at English. It has no math in it." He shoved her shoulder. Sam laughed.
"I'm in your economics class, but I don't think anyone is in your Physics or English class with you."
"And there you'd be wrong." Ollie joined them, stuffing the ziplock bag into his jacket pocket, "Aly has English with Stepanek."
Sam frowned at him, "How do you know that?"
Steven, seemingly still speaking to his phone, spoke up, "Look who you're talking too." That just made Sam more confused, but then Jessica wrapped an arm around the skinny guys shoulder, "This one," she said ruffling Ollie's hair to his indignation, "has had a crush on Aly since middle school." As if that explained everything, "We should go."
They walked the rest of the way through the little hallway, and by then most everyone had gotten to class making it much less crowded, and even more so when the narrow passage opened up into a larger corridor that ran straight down the middle of the school, like going from a vein into a major artery. Smaller hallways were cut into the walls on either side, symmetrical and equidistant. The classrooms inside were like capillaries.
They each split up, going in separate directions to their next class, except Dalton and Ollie who were both on their way to their regular economics class. The rest of the day dragged on, a little stressful to Sam who had other things on his mind, boring to Dalton who only had non math related classes left, distracting to Jessica who was trying to finish the sketch she'd been working on for the past couple days, and tiresome to rest of them, especially Ollie who started to get hungry again by 7th period. Sam walked into his second to last class, and immediately spotted Aly who had her head down on the table. He quietly walked up to the desk next to hers and dropped into the seat. The ridiculous invention creaked loudly wobbling on a loose screw. Whose idea was it to attach chairs to desks? It was majorly uncomfortable. Aly looked up suddenly at the noise, her eyes were red, and she looked like she would rather be anywhere but there, probably regretting coming to school at all. She looked like she'd been crying. "What's wrong?" Sam asked leaning towards her.
Aly shook her head, "Daniel broke up with me." She put her head back down on her arms. Sam didn't know what to say. "It's just been a bad day." She said into her sleeve, the material muffling her voice slightly, so Sam had to lean closer to understand her. He cautiously put his hand on her back, patting her shoulder. It was better than just sitting there like an idiot. "I'm sorry." He said.
About that moment Mrs. Stepanek walked in with a pile of manila folders, papers falling out, hanging precariously, about to flutter to the floor, by a single corner. She sighed in a purposeful way, blowing strands of brown hair off her glasses, "Ok guys, in light of recent events, and the amount of work I need to finish, what movie would you like to watch today?"
….
At the end of the school day, Sam walked out of the PE locker room with Jason close on his tail, "Why are you not in track?" he asked. They had been running on the track outside today, and Sam had more fun than he was willing to admit running the piece of cake two miles. "Ollie could talk to the track coach and even if they weren't doing tryouts, the moment that coach hears about or sees you run, he's going to want you on that team."
"I can't." Sam said, "I got a lot on my plate at the moment." He shrugged nonchalantly.
Jason whistled, "No kidding man. Is there anything you're not good at?"
Sam ducked his head, feeling uncomfortable with all the praise. Yes there was something he was not good at and unfortunately that something was the only thing his dad cared about- hunting. "I can't sing." He said jokingly. Jason laughed and showed him where they usually met up after school. They all lived close by and in the same general area, so they walked as a group.
"Hey, Sam! Jace!" They heard Steven yelling before they saw him; standing beside a trash can next to the football field at the back of the school building. They could see Ollie running and yelling away from a small bug that looked like it could be a bee, and Jessica laughing hysterically at the high pitch terrified sounds coming out of his mouth. "Oh my gosh. He is an idiot." Jason laughed. They quickly caught up, standing on the sidewalk alongside the stretch of parking lot and the line of cars there waiting on their owners children. Aly stood a little away from the rest of them staring sullenly at the ground.
"You won't believe it! Craig got put in In School Suspension for hitting you!" Steven yelled excitedly. Anyone witnessing the gigantic smile stretching across his face would have believed it was Christmas. The roar of an engine caught all their attention, and Sam closed his eyes. He'd know that sound anywhere. Great. He hoped Dean didn't purposely try to embarrass him this time. Steven turned along with them; the smile still on his face as Dean pulled up next to their spot on the sidewalk, and leaned across the stick shift to look up at them from beneath furrowed eyebrows out the opened window.
"Wow, dude. Nice car." Dalton said. Dean looked at the group of mismatched kids Sam had become friends with.
"Hey Dean." Sam said, opening the back seat door to throw his back pack in. He stepped back, and then snorted, "You look ridiculous."
Dean grimaced and poked at the white bandage that was only half plastered to his temple, the other half sticking out away from his hair, "Dad's forcing me to keep it on. These your friends?"
"And yet he's letting you drive?" Sam shook his head. He quickly pointed each of them out, and was surprised when Aly became momentarily animated from her funk to tell him where she worked and if he wanted to come and hang out at the café, her boss wouldn't mind. When Sam got in the car, Dean pulled out of the parking lot, then said, "Guess what?"
"Dad's pissed at me?" Sam guessed.
Dean nodded, "Yep. But that's not all of it."
Sam looked over at him, "He thinks he's found something."
Sam could tell by the way it was said, that whatever Dad had decided he'd discovered wasn't something his brother was too happy about.