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Cory looked at Shawn carefully as they got off the bus. "Hey, you all right?" he asked his friend. He had seen a flicker of pain dart across his friend's face. Shawn laughed, "Sure, Cor, why wouldn't I be?"

Cory shrugged and looked at Shawn closer. He noticed that one of his hands was stuck into his pocket, and that the part of wrist that showed out of it was black and blue. "Shawn, what's wrong with your hand?" the words were barely out of his mouth before the bell rang for first period.

"Not now, Cory." Shawn muttered, walking into Jonathan Turner's English Lit. class and taking his usual seat towards the back of the room. Cory sat down in front of him.

Turner pulled a book out of his pocket and held it up, though Cory couldn't see the title. "Who knows what the Cold War was about?" he asked, looking around.

"What it's always about. Land, Girls, Money, and girls!" Shawn called out with his usual tact, getting a ripple of laughter to go around the room and making Cory feel marginally more cheerful; if Shawn could still, joke, maybe he wasn't hurt that bad. Maybe he wasn't hurt at all.

But for the entire rest of the lesson, Shawn was unnaturally quiet. And Cory didn't hear any tell-tale snores that meant that he was asleep. So he was back to being worried.

"Don't you just hate Mondays?" Cory asked, setting his tray down next to Shawn in the cafeteria. Shawn nodded; his mouth already full. He was already wolfing down his food. Cory rolled his eyes. "Geeze, Shawn, it's like you haven't eaten in a week!"

Shawn was tempted to say, "More like a weekend," but held it back. Usually, he hung out at Cory's most of the weekend, but Cory had been out of town. And Shawn's refrigerator was empty save for a couple of beers, and he wasn't about to touch those. He'd seen what it did to people. Plus, he had no pocket money.

Which basically added up to one food-free weekend. Which also meant that Shawn took forty seconds flat eating his school-supplied lunch.

Cory noticed that Shawn didn't take his right hand out of his pocket, making his eating sloppier then usual. "Shawn, what's up with your hand?" Cory yanked the hand out of the pocket, holding it up to the light.

The entire wrist was black and blue, with a couple of scraps and cuts to boot. It made Cory hurt just to look at it. But before he could say anything Shawn yanked his fist away and stuffed it back in his pocket.

"It's nothing. Just a bruise, that's all." Shawn kept his voice low, not wanting to be overheard. What he didn't know was that in the back of the cafeteria, a certain English teacher was looking at his wrist, and knew that it wasn't a bruise at all.

And was wondering how he'd gotten his wrist broken. And why he wouldn't tell anyone.


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