Everything goes into slow motion.
With practiced ease, Mack reaches into her pocket, where Marissa can see the outline of something long… and sharp. Without a second thought (the first being Oh my god she really is going to shank Emily), Marissa grabs her warm, half-empty cup of peppermint mocha and lobs it at Mack's head. Unfortunately, she's not the best at any sort of physical activity, and her shot goes wide—but the loosely fitted cap pops off the cup mid-flight, spraying sugary coffee all over Sheila as she goes to break up the fight (or assist Mack?)
Sheila screams. Roars, more like. She whirls around, mocha-soaked hair slapping Mack in the face. Mack's hand is still in her pocket when one of Emily's hands grabs her wrist, keeping it there. The other open palm makes a perfectly audible slap against Mack's face, throwing the skinnier girl's weight to the right. Using her grip on Mack's wrist, Emily adds to that momentum by pushing down on the girl's wrist, causing her to tilt beyond her center of gravity and stumble into Sheila.
Sheila, meanwhile, is just beginning to charge Marissa in what seems to be a full-on tackle. Marissa grabs her purse and swings it at Sheila, who bats it aside as if it were lightweight (which it is; Marissa makes a mental note to stick some weights in there). With no desire to be tackled through Starbuck's glass plated window directly behind her, Marissa dives to the left. Right into the catfight between Emily and Mack, in which Mack yanks on Emily's hair and clothes as she goes down, and Emily leaves angry red scratches on Mack's wrists.
Meanwhile, Sheila makes up for Marissa's change of position by simply adjusting her trajectory, and it looks like Sheila's just going to send herself and Marissa crashing into the tables and chairs. Not as painful as the window, maybe; but that table has sharp corners. Marissa mentally slaps herself for not jumping in the other direction.
But then another figure enters the picture—taller, larger, and with much more momentum, Hannah swoops in and grabs Sheila's military jacket, yanking it to the side and away from Marissa. The black girl yelps as she reaches as far as her stretched jacket will go, and then some more as cloth tears. Her momentum still keeps her moving, though, and she veers to the side and crashes into Emily, forcefully extracting Mack's fingers out of the folds of Emily's front. More clothes tearing, more screaming, more girls pouring in from different directions.
Everything suddenly speeds up again. Sunshine slides to a halt in front of Marissa, settling into a very solid martial arts stance. Tina and Quinn descend on Mack, each grabbing a wrist and dragging her out into open space, away from Emily. Hannah still has a hold on the back of Sheila's jacket, keeping her away from Emily. A lot of screaming and name-calling and—
"Alright, break it up!" calls a male voice. All girls involved freeze at the sound of the mall cop's voice…
And then it's every girl for herself. They all split in frantic flight, faults forgotten in sheer panic of incoming trouble. Marissa grabs Emily's purse, her own already in her hand after she tried to attack Sheila with it, and books it after Emily and Tina.
Damian gawks. "You have a football team?"
Cameron glances around. "What? No, we… oh. Yes, we have a soccer team. But those guys down there are just playing on their own free time."
Damian looks like he's just itching to go down and play, so Cameron suggests that they go check it out.
"Do you play any sports, Cam?"
Cam jumps. People around Dalton tend to call him Cameron; it's always been that way. Nobody's called him Cam since his last meeting with Hannah.
Cameron recovers. "Are you kidding?" he grins, gesturing at his body. "Those guys could probably snap me like a toothpick. Besides, this hair took forever to style."
And it did. He had to get Blaine's help with gel that morning in the bathroom, and Cameron likes the final product. With his clear, bright eyes and carefully ruffled and spiked blond hair, he looks easy-going and laid-back. Blaine had gone as far as to call him 'gorgeous' (something Cameron never got when he wore those fake glasses and left his hair looking like a bird's nest).
Damian shrugs. "Whatever, your choice." And he promptly unfastens his belt and drops his drawers.
He's wearing soccer shorts underneath, but Cameron can't help but flinch at the unexpected motion. Damian laughs heartily at his expression. "Gotcha," he laughs, before pulling his shirt over his head. Once again, he's wearing a basic white tee underneath the red-and-blue striped polo, and Cameron just chuckles along with him.
"Tricky, but I'm not falling for that again," Cameron laughs. "Now you're just going to leave me alone and play soccer?"
"Your choice," Damian says again. "Com'on, Cam. Run some of that lunch off. Great lunch, by the way. I might consider transferring, if it means I get free dining hall food."
"It does," Cameron grins as he takes off his dress shoes and peels off his blazer. "I don't know why I'm doing this."
About five crazy minutes later, Quinn has finally circled around the entire perimeter of the mall to make it back to the parking lot where she parked. She didn't want to go back inside for a while, so she just walked around the outside.
Tina, Hannah, Marissa, and the Latina are already standing around her car when she gets there. "What the hell happened?" she questions accusatorily.
The Latina flips her hair haughtily and answers. "Those skanks listened in on our conversation and then barged in, calling me and Marissa bitches and tools. My god I just wanted to slap some sense into that chica. Damn."
"Where's Brittany?" Tina asks. "And Sunshine?"
"Here," the small Asian calls, appearing around the corner of an adjacent car. "That was adventurous," she grins.
"You guys left Brittany behind?" Quinn freaks. "Oh my god. We have to go back in there. She's a sitting duck for anybody who wants to take advantage of her. Oh my god, how could we do this? Why didn't somebody grab her hand? Marissa! You're the one Brittany seems to have latched—"
"I was in the middle of a catfight," Marissa intones. "In case you didn't notice."
"We have to go in there," Quinn repeats. "Who was the last person to see her?"
Sunshine raises her hand. "But hey, I heard Marissa screaming bloody murder and went to help," she defends.
"Urgh!" Quinn growls in frustration. There are a million scenarios Brittany could be involved in right now, and most of them involve people taking advantage of a gorgeous blonde's childlike naivety. "Who—"
"My roommate says she found a mentally disabled girl," the Latina, Emily, says, her hand covering her cellphone's speaker. "Ellis has the car, so I'm waiting for her… but she says she has to take this tall blonde to the bathroom first."
Quinn almost lunges for the phone. Emily tosses it to her, a bitchy fine, okay look on her face. Quinn ignores this in favor of catching the device.
"Hello? Is Brittany safe?"
The voice that answers on the other end sounds like it belongs to a dry, older woman. "She's fine. I found her licking pennies she picked out of the wishing fountain. She said the sound of falling water made her want to go to the bathroom, and when I told her I could lead her there, she latched onto my hand. Are you her caretaker?"
"Just a friend. Could you meet us outside at Lot 10, Row 5?"
"Alright, I'll see you in a bit."
Quinn hangs up and heaves a sigh of relief. "Oh my god, she's okay."
"Yeah, well you know what? My friends aren't so much."
Everybody whirls around to the newcomer. It's a rather chubby girl wearing all black, from fishnets to a studded choke collar. Greasy brown hair falls limply around her shoulders. The smell of expired sweat wafts off her, causing the nearest people—Tina and Marissa—to wrinkle their noses in disgust.
"Who are you?" Sunshine asks warily.
"The name's Ronnie. Anyways, because of you," the girl continues, "Mack and Sheila took off. Without me. So now I don't have a ride back to Lima. I'd appreciate a ride back."
"Crazy bitch tried to stab me!" Emily hisses.
Ronnie crosses her arms and shifts her weight to one hip. "Mack's not that stupid. Most of the time, at least. It's pepper spray in her pocket."
"Oh."
"By the way," Ronnie says offhandedly to Emily, "This flew out of your purse when your friend picked it up for you."
Emily takes her wallet back from Ronnie, her lips forming a perfect O. "Oh."
"I guess you didn't find Brittany?" Ronnie assumes, glancing around. "I told her to wait by the fountain when you guys left her. Tweedledum would probably just hurt herself anyways."
"No, she's coming with—" Quinn does a mental double-take. "Wait, you know Brittany? Do you—?"
"Blondie finally acknowledges my existence," Ronnie snarks. "Though I guess it's too below you to notice us. Sheila, Mack, and I: we're the Skanks. We usually hang out under the bleachers."
Quinn pulls out her car keys. Tina actually looks like she's going to throw up, so Quinn decides to take one for the team. "Com'on, I'll give you a ride home when Brittany gets here."
Damian recognizes one of the players as the guy who'd directed him to Warblers' Hall—Justin, the tall one with a slight cockney accent. He's a thunderstorm on the field, plowing through anybody in his way and raining fury on anybody nearby. Damian learns quickly to maneuver around him, passing to other players constantly—usually a tanned, athletic blond with a similar angry streak, Derek, or a rather smiley guy called Danny.
Eventually, Damian loses track of the time. He doesn't notice when the friendly game evolves into a fierce competition or that Cam has long since dropped out. He only snaps out of it when Danny taps him on the shoulder.
"Hey man, sorry to interrupt you, but Cameron's been waving at you for the past three minutes."
Damian looks around and spots Cam, who is indeed waving at him. His tie is loosened, the top buttons of his oxford are open, and he looks like he's recovering from incredible exertion. If Cameron's skill level of soccer is any indication, Damian would guess that Cam doesn't really exercise all that much.
He jogs over ruefully. "Sorry about, uh, forgetting you." He glances at his watch and realizes that it's been fifteen minutes. "Oh man, I'm—"
"Man, you were a monster on that field," Cam marvels, waving him off. "I almost didn't want to disturb you, but you've got three missed calls." Cam hands over Damian's cell phone.
"Oh. Uh, thanks." Just as he takes it, the phone begins to ring again.
"So… Sheila's a heartless bitch," Ronnie states when Quinn drives into Lima city limits.
Everybody freezes momentarily, and then the ice breaks. "I only saw her for two minutes and that's what I got," Hannah contributes emphatically.
"I seriously thought she was going to tackle me through Starbuck's front window," Marissa confesses.
"Definitely crazy," Quinn agrees.
"I heard she eats cat poo…" Brittany murmurs.
Ronnie gives them all a doleful side-eye. "I guess I was wrong about you," she directs at Quinn. "You don't know what a heartless bitch is, do you?"
Awkward silence. Quinn looks a bit affronted, unsure to be offended (seeing as Ronnie just implied she was a heartless bitch and then revoked it as if it were an honorary title).
"Sheila has the most balls out of everybody in the school," Ronnie explains, "and she isn't afraid to speak her mind and stand up for her rights. You know we live in a society dictated by narrow-minded, opinionated men? They're the ones who make us feel like we need their approval just to feel good about ourselves. They're the ones who tell us we have to live up to their standards. We have to stay in the kitchen, we have to look nice so they can show us off to their friends, we have to make them happy and obey them so they feel like they're in control of something. It's just a system of masochistic suppression, and we Skanks aren't a part of it."
"Okay, so I can respect your point of view," Marissa says. "But that still doesn't give her permission to barge into a conversation and call us—"
"It's the truth, though, and she doesn't sugarcoat it. Tool? Somebody's bitch?"
"No," Quinn cuts in. "My man doesn't control me. I am still my own woman, and he—"
"Sam Evans?" Ronnie scoffs. "Or Finn Hudson? The school's two quarterbacks, and also the biggest tools Lima has seen in—"
"I'm just going to be blunt," Quinn says, defaulting back to queen bee mode. "You make yourselves as gross and skanky as possible just to alienate yourself from society because you don't want to be 'part of the system'?"
"But that's not what you really think, is it? That's just what years of the system's peer pressure has pounded into your head. They want you to feel terrible about yourself and your image. They want you to lash out at other people to make them feel worse in an attempt to make you feel better-"
Quinn winces.
"-They hate you if you don't conform to their impossible body image standards-"
Hannah winces.
"-and, even if you do conform, they make you hate and abuse your body-"
Marissa winces.
"-so that you go out and cash in on useless, artificial glamour products so you feel like a woman instead of an awkward teenage girl."
Sunshine winces.
Ronnie continues, "Screw the system and what they want from women. I don't care what they think; I do what I want. That's what being a heartless bitch is all about; we're independent women and our hearts aren't part of the system that everybody else is literally dying for."
"Okay, so don't listen to the system or man or whatever; they're just there to screw your heart over," Hannah interjects. "What about love?"
"Really? With people falling in and out of love all the time, love just seems like a load of bull to me. You fall in love with someone when you want approval or sex or shiny toys or shiny sex toys, and when you don't get it, you fall out of love. That's what I've seen," Ronnie argues rather bitterly.
"I'm sorry for your experiences," Hannah says quietly, "But that's not how love is supposed to be, as I see it. Or maybe I'm talking about love in a different sense of the word. I see it as caring for another person and wanting what's best for them. I love my friends. I'd do anything for them. Mostly anything, but you get the point. I'll do anything to make them happy." By the end of her sentence, she's almost speaking to herself.
"What is love, but a way for a man to hurt a woman," Quinn murmurs.
Brittany speaks up, her voice full of authority. "That's why ladies should make love to each other. To balance out all the hurt."
An awkward silence fills the air, but then Ronnie whirls to face Marissa. "So you. You've been too quiet this entire conversation, so I assume you're brewing up something significant and sentimental to say. Com'on, spit it out."
Marissa stares at a point on the ground, absolutely speechless. She really doesn't know what to say. Is her self-esteem so low that she needs somebody to tell her that she's beautiful?
Yeah, that's could very well be what all her life's problems boil down to. Cameron, Puck, Bryce…
"What are you doing with your life?" Ronnie elaborates, and Marissa can feel Ronnie's eyes drilling into her scalp. "Are you living it on your own terms and without regrets, or moping around waiting for some guy to rule it for you?"
"I… uh, I…" Marissa glances out the window and recognizes her neighborhood. "Turn left here," Marissa instructs Quinn. "Mine's the light blue house on the left."
"Saved by the bell, huh?" Ronnie smirks. "I'll let you off the hook, but take care of yourself, Princess. Think about how you're wasting your life."
"Who said she was wasting it?" Hannah indignantly jumps to Marissa's defense. "Marissa is one strong chica and she doesn't need anybody to tell her she's gorgeous or self-sufficient. And if she's going after a guy, it's not because she needs his approval, but because she has feelings for him. Right, Marissa?"
Quinn slows to a stop in front of her house, and Marissa mumbles something incomprehensible as she slides out of the car. Hannah—so supportive and so wrong. Hannah's the strong one, the one who supports all her friends 100% before attending to herself. Is that love? What is love?
"See you guys on Monday," she murmurs, as they all wave bye to her—even Ronnie does. Brittany murmurs something to Quinn; Quinn shakes her head, but Brittany insists and slides out of the car. Quinn throws up her hands, then begins to drive away.
Brittany runs over and hugs Marissa. Marissa just returns the hug, unsure of what to say, but then Brittany grabs her by the hand and pulls her towards her own house. "I wanna see your room," Brittany giggles eagerly.
Damian's jaw drops when he checks the caller ID on his ringing phone.
Lindsay.
Author's Rant
Awkward cliffhanger... But really, the chapter kept dragging on and I was itching to post, so I just chopped it into two chapters. I also realized I was writing a lot of stuff from girls' POVs, so this is my attempt to increase that.
What is love?