Divergent

Part 9 of Synonyms

Author's Note - so I got 'em together and then I broke them up. Missy's been stewing, Jan's all confused about what to do and Courtney's got this whole jubilation thing going on. What will happen next?

Author's note 2 - okay so I messed around with the time line a little, but it's not major. Assume all of those scenes happened ("bring it" and "they cannot not go") but that they were "off-screen" so to speak. For the purposes of this story the cliff-missy dancing in the living room scene happens after the interpretive dance session.

Disclaimer - I do not own any of these characters. I do own a battered laptop, a copy of the video and a somewhat sadistic imagination. Wish my stuff was a little more bankable.
"Okay. Well that wasn't good."

"Les," Torrance says, "You're a master of understatement."

"Well," I gesture in the direction of Missy's departure, "that wasn't good."

"No kidding." She pauses, "What're we gonna do?"

"Well she wouldn't be moving like than unless she'd talked to him, and he said the wrong thing."

"Like what?" Torrance questions.

"Like how recently he's slept with Courtney. Woah!" I placate the instant rage evident on her face, "I don't know he's done anything, I just suspect that there's some stuff we don't know."

"Yeah," Torrance muses, staring after Missy. "I'll take her, you take him."

"Great," I enthuse sarcastically. "Can't wait to wade in on this trauma."

******

"Jan? Buddy?" I call as I move through the locker room. "You there?"

"No." Comes the typical, stubborn response.

"Right," I drawl.

I round a corner and there he is. Back to the wall, elbows resting on knees, his head tilted back, eyes closed. He'd almost look relaxed - if he wasn't sitting against one of the walls of the communal shower.

"You look comfy." I venture, taking in the scene.

"Yeah."

"So what happened?" I gesture to his surroundings. "You get lost on the way to the shower."

"Maybe."

"Or did you slip?" I probe, watching the skin around his eyes flinch.

And it does. Majorly.

"Did you slip Jan?"

"No." He moans quietly, dropping his head into his hands. "Yes."

"Huh." Leaning against the wall, I slowly let myself slip down so I'm sitting beside him. Beside my best friend and all of his misery.

And I keep silent, just letting him work his way around to it.

"There was, I mean, I may have, possibly, done something I regret. For like the past three years."

"Courtney?" I ask.

"Courtney." He confirms. "But Missy's just so, and Courtney's so -" he pauses, searching for the word.

"Irritating?" I offer.

"Yeah. And Missy's just herself, you know. I don't have to be anyone else." He sighs.

"Maybe," I venture, "you should tell me why Missy nearly knocked me over during her impression of an Olympic sprinter earlier."

Jan pauses, taking it in.

"I didn't mean her to run."

"Of course not." I pause. "She was fast, though."

"Yeah?"

"Really fast."

"Right."

"So spill."

"I slept with Courtney," he says, "Before I ever kissed Missy."

"Okay," I admit, "Not really seeing how this is a problem."

"Missy asked if anything had happened with Courtney since, like, us. Me and her."

"And?" I prompt.

"I didn't answer." He says, banging his head against the wall. "I didn't fucking answer."

"Why?" I'm confused, didn't he just say.

"Since there was us. Since her. I'm counting this from the first time I touched her. From the first time I wanted her. The first time we -" He throws his hands up in the air, frustrated.

It dawns on me. "The locker room?"

"Yeah."

"After the locker room you and Courtney?"

"It was a Friday," Jan says with a shrug. "It made sense at the time. I didn't know what was going on. It could have been nothing. I didn't even know exactly how much I wanted to be with Missy until I was there with Courtney."

"What happened?"

"I went round. There was a movie. Popcorn. Stuff. I was dazed, didn't know what I was doing. On auto-pilot. All night I was on damn auto- pilot." He trails off, sounding as confused and out of it as he claims to have been then.

"Jan, you have to tell her this stuff. Well, not all of it, but enough to convince Missy that you didn't cheat on her. Coz you didn't. You didn't Jan. You made a bad choice, but it was before all this." I pause, surveying the scene. "So why the hell are you sitting in a shower?"

For the first time Jan looks up at me, his face pained, his brow furrowed.

"What are you doing here man?" I ask emphatically. "You should be out there, chasing your girl, saving your relationship?"

His eyebrows knit together as he tries to process this.

"But she wouldn't listen. She ran off," he bumbles in his defense.

"Get up Jan," I say, offering a hand, "Get up and go. Tell Courtney where she can shove it and then go tell Missy about it. There is no point in you being here."

Jan takes the offered hand and pulls himself to his feet. But the motion is slow, deliberate - it's obvious that he's uncertain, and unwilling to face either one of the girls.

"Go Jan. Before it gets any worse. Go to Missy and tell her the truth. The whole truth. The whole sordid affair. Tell her."

Jan gives me this screwy look, this half-suspicious, half-amused look.

"Promise me you'll never say stuff like that where people can hear you."

"Sure," I grin, "I promise." I watch Jan idly scratch his neck. "You gonna get out of here or what man?"

"Yeah, yeah," he capitulates, "I'm gone. I'm gone." And with that he starts to retreat across the room, one hand holding the back of his neck, and muttering quietly to himself every few steps.

I can feel the smile on my face as I watch him leave. My brash confident friend, reduced to a shuffle over a girl. Jan, whose pick up lines have always consisted of the crude and the obscene, nervous and edgy when faced with the prospect of a real relationship. How'll he do it, a cynical voice in the back of my head asks, can he do it?

Yeah, I think as I watch him gather himself as he walks, watch his strides lengthen and his back straighten. He can do it.

Or at least I hope he can.

"Jan," I call, just as he gets to the door.

"Dude?"

"Don't mess this one up, man. This one's real. She's real."

"Yeah," he replies so quietly that I strain to catch the words, "She is."

And with that, he's gone. Off to face the music. Off to face the world.

*******

I don't know what to do. I ran away, far away and I made it home. No one stopped me. No one chased me, though even if they had they wouldn't have caught me. No one did anything.

And so I'm standing. Standing in the middle of the living room. My tears have long since dried up and I'm left with, what?

Anger?

Frustration?

Hunger?

I don't know.

Something.

Like a zombie, I drop my coat and gym bag on the sofa. Like a sleepwalker I cross to the stereo and hit play.

Music starts. And like a cheerleader I start my moves, working them through in my head, keeping to the beat, keeping to the count. I can feel my mind start to slip away as I work through the moves, I'm starting to relax, I'm doing nothing, just practicing, letting my body repeat the moves it knows so well, I'm light, I'm air, I'm -

WHAT THE HELL IS CLIFF DOING?

He wiggling, and moving his arms and grinning. Mocking me. God I hate my brother.

"Bite me." Go away.

"Hanging out with the airhead has really sharpened your verbal skills, huh?"

"Screw you."

"Said the cheerleader." He sneers.

And it dawns on me. I'm miserable and what am I doing; grinning like an idiot and waving my arms in the air. This is me, now. Two years ago I'd be backflipping in some gym, by myself, always by myself. Now, right now, I mean, I'm alone, but I'm not by myself - I have a squad, friends. I have people.

I don't have Jan.

But I have people. Cliff doesn't have people. He doesn't even -

Suddenly I have this great desire to make things right, make everything right.

"That's right I am a cheerleader, and you're a dumbass. Torrance likes you, she likes you."

"She has an odd way of showing it" he sneers. God he's bitter. Doesn't he know that things aren't always simple?

"Don't be stupid. She broke up with her boyfriend for you."

"Yeah?" He's challenging me and I just can't stand it. How dare he? Like take a chance man, get out there?

"Look, do us all a favour and get over yourself and tell her how you feel". Go and talk to her. Please. Before I smash in your head with my pompoms!

"I thought I had." Okay now he's just pissing me off.

"Well do it again, and here's a tip from a cheerleader. Be aggressive, be, be aggressive."

I storm past him up the stairs. When I reach the top I turn, and can still see him standing there, stewing.

"Get over yourself Cliff." I yell down. "Things aren't always simple. You've got to give them a chance." Cliff glares up at me.

"Sort it out," I yell, "She's worth it."

"Yeah," comes a voice from downstairs, freezing my angry tirade. "She is."

I don't even have to look. I know Jan's standing there, looking up at me. I don't want to look, I don't want to see -

"Missy" he says, forcing my eyes to see the pain in his eyes. "We need to talk."