Numb
Give me all your fear, throw it all away.
Think about the good things, no matter what they say.
We'll take tomorrow baby, yeah,
One day at a time.
One day at a time.
Butch Walker / One Day at a Time
"I'm impressed, Mr. Cameron," Ms. Kwan beamed as she returned Sean's paper, "really impressed."
Sean was reluctant to turn over his paper, fearing the worst scrawled in red ink across his pearly white paper. Ms. Kwan continued to move down the line to each of the other students handing back their papers. "Sean aren't you even going to look at it?" Emma asked leaning forward across her desk as she sat behind him. Sean turned around. He couldn't remember the last time he and Emma spoke without fighting. Why was she even being civil towards him? Didn't she hate his guts? Sean picked up his paper and slipped it to Emma.
"See for your self," he said, his eyes not even looking at the grade on the paper. He didn't even pay attention to Emma's surprised reaction. He slipped on his headphones and tried to drown out the rest of the class, resting his head on the table.
"Sean!" Emma strained, without trying to get in trouble with Ms. Kwan. She groaned in frustration as she tried to grasp Sean's attention to give him back his paper. She slipped low in her chair and kicked her leg forward, her foot forcefully hitting Sean in the back. Sean jumped up in his chair, nearly falling out of it, almost causing a commotion big enough to catch Ms. Kwan's attention. "Sean," Emma whispered. Sean slipped his headphones off and turned around, looking quite red in the face.
" What?" he asked angrily, but then quickly changed his attitude.
" Your paper, maybe you should look at it" Emma answered.
Sean snatched his paper and rolled his eyes as he slowly looked over the cover page, the only red correcting marks on his paper were for grammar errors. His eyes floated to the top of his paper and smiled.
95
Sean Hope Cameron was smiling over a paper, a play he wrote. He found himself thinking it was a mistake and quickly raised his hand. "Ms. Kwan!" he called out. She turned around and focused her attention on her troubled student.
"Yes?" she asked holding her hands folded in front of her.
"Is this grade for real?"
"It's written in ink" she responded.
"But I mean, are you sure you didn't make a mistake?" he asked.
"Yes Mr. Cameron it's real, I was very impressed by the work you put into it" Ms. Kwan explained. Sean beamed, his face burning red, "In fact, I was hoping we could perform it in class, next week or so."
Sean looked up at her in disbelief. "You have to be shi—kidding me" he muttered.
" I kid you not Mr. Cameron," she said focusing on the kid, knowing full well the other word he had intended to use.
Sean's heart was racing. It had been a long time since he had received a paper back of refrigerator quality. Sean felt himself glowing with embarrassment as Ms. Kwan announced to the rest of the class then she would be handing out the roles from his play. He would definitely be thanking Ellie during lunch.
Ellie had just sat down at her table when she felt a pair of arms wrap around her shoulders and a set of lips find themselves to her cheek. "Thank you" she heard Sean whispered and smiled.
"You're welcome," she said, a confused look on her face, "wait...what are you thanking me for?"
"You know that paper I had to do for Kwan"
Ellie nodded.
"I aced it!"
Ellie's face lit up and she felt so happy for Sean. And she had actually helped him do something. She'd helped and hadn't been a burden like she had felt as though she were being for the longest time. Sean sat down across from Ellie and picked at the fries on her tray.
"What are you doing tonight?" he asked casually. He was desperately hoping to celebrate with her over his perfect paper. But he could tell by the look on her face that she wouldn't be able to see her tonight.
"I can't...Co-Op job until late tonight" Ellie answered, equally disappointed. Sean sighed and plastered on a small smile.
"Call me when you get home then," he said kissing her lightly on the cheek and walking off towards his usual table in the cafeteria.
Ellie sighed as Marco and Ashley crept up at the table. Holidays were just around the corner and more than likely things would either look up or look down. At this moment things were looking up, and what goes up, must come down.
"Have you seen Craig today?" Ashley asked as she was checking over her Lit homework.
Ellie thought for a moment, she had seen Craig, but only for a moment in the hallway. She'd seen him walking down the hallway with Manny, which was completely odd, the way he was gently touching her shoulder and smiling at her; the same way he smiles at Ashley when they are together. "I saw him in the hall today."
"I haven't seen him since homeroom, and we have nearly all our classes today, you think he's sick?"
"I'm sure he's fine Ash" Marco answered for Ellie.
"I'm just worried is all, I mean he's been so distant lately, I don't want anything to screw this up for me"
"Ash, relax" Marco tried to console.
"Ditto, I mean if you weren't so self-conscious and worried about what other people thought you'd realize that Craig really loves you, so you have nothing to worry about," Ellie responded more thoroughly.
Ashley sighed. " You're right, it's just been hell since me and Jimmy split up again, and I'm still trying to find myself."
"Aren't we all?" Ellie asked, reminding her that they were teenagers.
"But you haven't changed yourself as many times as I have"
Ellie laughed at the truthfulness of her statement.
Since she had met Ashley, she'd changed her appearance a variety of times. When they met Ashley was experimenting with a goth look that had her mourning a relationship that she hadn't realized she wanted. She'd wavered between her new goth appearance and at one point during reconciliation with Jimmy she'd found herself trying to force her new look into her old packaging. "Yea, I know -" Ellie said, "but here's the thing Ash, you're trying to figure yourself you're going to change probably a million times over, preppy, goth, punk?" Ellie shook her head, "who cares?"
"But people look at me and think poser."
"Ash - you are not a poser, you probably know more about music than anyone else I know," Ellie comforted her, "but punk isn't about fashion, it's about the music." The entire situation seemed to have Ashley on edge, "look Ash - does Craig think you're a poser?" she watched as Ashley thought and seemed a bit confused, "look at it this way, Craig liked you when you were goth, he likes you now, why are you hung up on other people's opinions?"
Ashley nodded.
"Besides," Ellie said laughing, "I like you just the way you are, now get over yourself."
Ashley laughed for a moment and nodded in agreement, "you're right."
"I'm always right," Ellie said with a smirk.
"Cameron" Jay said throwing his arm around Sean's shoulder. " What's up my man?" Sean brushed Jay's arm off his shoulder and lightly punched his friend in the arm. He wasn't in the mood with dealing with Jay after what he had said about Ellie earlier. But Jay was a guy, and after all, it had been just guy talk, right?. You couldn't really expect to have a decent conversation with a brain dead moron like Jay anyways. Jay spun his black cap around backward. " Party tonight Sean, you coming?"
" It's Tuesday" Sean answered mundanely as he kept walking down the hall.
" All the more reason to party, the week's almost over" Jay laughed.
" Maybe..." he thought for a moment, " is Amy going to be there?"
Jay shrugged. " What does it matter anyway, bring that punk chick," Jay started snapping his fingers to jog his memory, "Emily...uh, Emma, Ellie?"
" Ellie..." Sean said softly, slightly cringing at the mention of Emma being a possible date to the party. " Can't bring her anyways, she's working late tonight"
Jay's lips curled up into a smirk. " well so what, what she doesn't know won't hurt her right?"
Sean frowned. 'I guess Jay expects me to cheat on Ellie or something, who does he think I am?'
"Look you gonna come or not?" Jay asked.
"Yea, I'll come...but not for long, okay?" Sean answered, hoping that Jay would be happy with his decision.
"Fine Cameron" Jay said as he headed towards his next class, " You know what I think Cameron?"
"What?" Sean answered stopping in front of his classroom.
"I think you need to chill back with the boys and some cold ones"
Sean laughed dryly at the thought of getting wasted with Jay and the boys. 'Maybe, just one' he thought as he imagined the party. 'Just one' he could handle just one couldn't he?
"I'll see you tonight," Jay said.
Sean nodded and slipped into the classroom. As he sat down at his desk his mind began to wander. Jay had relinquished old memories he had strived to forget from his childhood. Before his parents left and before he moved in with Tracker...
"Mom!" Sean called out excitedly as he rushed through the front door waving a perfect test in his hands. He was expecting his mother to be happy for him. To show her that he could be a smart boy, that he was a good boy. He walked towards the living room. He hadn't heard his mother respond and continued to call out her name. But this was met with only distant moans of pleasure from the seat of the couch. "Mom?Dad?" he called out a bit hoping that both his parents were home for him to please.
Sean walked into the living room and noticed to figures on the couch from where he stood in the doorway to the room. The one on the bottom he noticed was his mother. The one on top was someone he didn't recognize. He could smell the alcohol resonating from his mother's body. She reeked of it. Perhaps she had mistaken the scruffy man on top of her as his father. 'Could she really mistake this scruffy burly man as his tall strong father?' Sean shook his head.
" Mom?" he asked aloud.
Hope Cameron's head turned toward the sound of Sean's voice, she pushed the man away from her, and he rolled onto the floor. She fixed her disheveled hair with her fingers and tried to straighten out her clothes. "Oh hi Sean..." she said with her raspy voice, scratchy from the alcohol she was shoving down her throat just moments before. "This is um..." she said, struggling to get out the name of the man she didn't really know.
"Alec" the man answered, getting to his feet, buttoning his shirt, and running his fingers through his greasy hair.
"He's the..." Hope continued.
"Plumber backed up pipes...you're mother was uh...helping me relieve the clog"
Sean was young, but he wasn't blatantly stupid. His mother was doing something with this plumber that she would normally do and was only supposed to do with his father.
"Did you want something Sean?" his mother asked.
"Um...just to show you my test," he said softly, and disappointed in his mother, "I got an A," he said softly.
" well isn't that nice, we should put this on the refrigerator," she said and lazily grabbed the test away from Sean and stumbled into the kitchen and slapped the test on the fridge with a cheap pizza delivery magnet.
" I must be going" Alec, the plumber, said...
"It's time to get going Sean..." his teacher said. Sean looked around the room and noticed that everyone else was gone. His last class of the day and he was still in class, and not on his way home.
" Uh, yeah..." Sean said standing up and grabbing his books off the desk. He walked out of the room into the empty hallway and headed home. Headed home to get ready for the party.
Ellie walked into her small closet space at the Co-Op job with Caitlin and got straight to work going over story ideas for the show. She slipped her headphones over her ears and began to listen to the music, tapping her pencil with the beat.
"I'm a mess, I guess," she said singing along with the beginning of the song, as she jotted down notes for Caitlin and organized story ideas into smaller piles.
It seems like yesterday we had the world our way.
But some say we're heading for destruction. (1)
"That sounds nice" Caitlin said leaning in the doorway of the room. Ellie looked up as she noticed Caitlin's voice resounding throughout the room, and pulled her headphones off her ears and let them hang around her neck.
"Mae, they are some band from some Seattle record company" Ellie answered, closing her work binder.
"Look, I've talked with a few of my colleagues and realized we have the perfect first story for you Ellie," Caitlin said leaning across the table turned desk.
"What's that?" Ellie asked, completely interested.
"Well it's all around town about the stuff at school getting stolen, and I was thinking why don't you go undercover..."
Ellie thought for a moment. She had it on good authority that Jay and his little troop of Candy Bandits were behind the recent vending machine thefts, there was also the vandalization of the school's audiovisual equipment and then there was Mr. Simpson's Alienware laptop. If she agreed to this, there was a good chance that Sean would be in the middle of her investigation, and she didn't want to risk Sean getting into trouble. Things were looking pretty good for him lately - not to mention their own budding friendship turned relationship. But she couldn't turn this job down. Ellie swallowed. "How would I do this?"
"Well, I talked to Mr. Raditch today, and he said he's initiating a Saturday Detention after the holidays and you're in"
"Okay?" Ellie said a bit confused.
"He believes that one of the culprits or at least an accomplice is probably a student and will be in that detention session," Caitlin explained, "and you'll be serving that Saturday detention."
Ellie sighed. Could she sacrifice a Saturday to do what was needed for her job? And what would she do about Sean? Ellie agreed. But she couldn't betray Sean after the help he's contributed to helping her survive. She would figure things out, and maybe it would take a walk home to make her realize what she could do.
Sean could hear the music blasting from a block away from Jay's house.
No parents. He could feel the bass through the door as he walked up to the landing and through the front door - only to be thrown back by the smell of weed and alcohol. he felt himself wondering if this was still a good idea. He'd been sober the last few weeks since the argument with Amy at the last party. He looked around the living room and really took in Jay's place with sober eyes. Family photos of Jay and his dad and stepmom. Pictures of a very young Jay with his grandma. All this was amongst the drunken party goers around him. It was in that moment he realized Jay played the part others expected him to play - or maybe it was just an act of rebellion.
Jay really did try too hard to make people like him.
At that thought Sean looked around and realized for the first time at Jay's, his host was nowhere to be found. He walked into the kitchen and grabbed himself a cup and found himself joining the party. 'One drink won't hurt' he thought to himself.
That one drink turned into two. Those two drinks turned into three. The three turned into four.
And Sean stumbled off into the night, heading home.
Author's Note: updated 07-30-2020
(1) Mae Sun
