Chapter 5: What the F--k?

"Hun? Hey, do you want the coke or not?" The lunch lady was talking to her but Allison barely heard a word, it wasn't until Andrew nudged her gently that she put fifty cents on the counter and walked away. The lunch lady looking at her doubtfully as she did.

For a few seconds she stood alone looking out at the jungle, which was the cafeteria, her heart was pounding, her hands were sweating, and she was nearly crushing her bagged lunch. 'What am I doing here?' she asked herself. And then Andrew was besides her, smiling his wonderful smile and she remembered.

"Are you okay?" he asked. "There's nothing to worry about."

She raised an eyebrow at him. 'That's easy for you to say' she thought. He wasn't the one who was attempting to sneak his way into Shermer High's social elite. His place was already reserved, being a star athlete and all. But poor Allison had nothing going for her, she felt as though she might throw up. She followed Andrew as he skillfully maneuvered his way through the maze. On more than one occasion, someone would call his name, he gestured his hello's and Allison watched as heads cocked and brows furrowed when their eyes landed on her. Allison's translation of those reactions: "What the fuck?"

It was the same over at Andrew's table. At first there were the familiar words of welcome, 'Hey Andrew', 'what's up?', and 'hi', but as they both approached the group, and they caught sight of Allison, a wave of whispers began. Choosing to ignore them, Andrew simply said, "Hey guys, this is Allison," and sat down.

Once seated, Allison let out a small sigh of relief; at least she was out of the spotlight. But then as she looked around the table she realized that it wouldn't be that easy. There were about seven or eight, wrestling jocks and a few, she assumed, of their girlfriends. And they were all staring at her. Like a dear caught in headlights, Allison just looked back at them, round-eyed and silent. But than a few seconds later, Andrew was talking to one of his friends. It was a relatively neutral topic centering on their next wrestling match, but it had the reaction he hoped for. Slowly, the jocks shifted their attention from Allison to the conversation at hand, and soon the table was talking lively again. All, that is, except for the few girls who still stared at Allison and made remarks to one another behind covered mouths. Allison knew that her small talk would not yet be tolerated; she was much too new to the group and did not have any sort of popularity to fall back on. What she needed was something that would give her pull with these people, something that would make her seem even remotely interesting. She looked over at Andrew who had asked her a question, she responded honestly, and with an air of comfort she felt the girls would be surprised with. It was getting to be obvious that she and Andrew where more than just friends, but Allison knew this would not be enough. And then something totally perfect and amazing happened and it was in the form of one Claire Standish.

After she had been sitting there with her lunch out and no obvious attempts to eat it, Allison saw Claire walking over to the table. Thinking she had come over to talk to one of the wrestler girlfriends, Allison pretended to be extremely interested in her bag of chips. Claire however spoke to her.

"Hi Allison," she smiled. The rest of the girls only looked from Claire to Allison in a dumbfounded sort of way.

Noticing their reaction, Allison sat up straighter and smiled, "Oh, hey Claire how's it going?"

"Alright I guess. I just came to tell you that Jenny Hayworth asked me when we were all going to hang out again," Claire came over and sat on the edge of the table where Allison and Andrew were. "Hey Andy," She nodded.

Allison felt relieved she had finally found her leverage, "Tell her, anytime, anytime she wants." She felt an air of satisfaction as the girls just sat there in stunned silence watching her chatting rather friendly like with Claire.

"Yeah, so anyway, Jenny also wanted me to tell you that you'll have to have lunch with us sometime. Hey Andrew?" she had to yell because at that moment he was in a deep discussion with the guy sitting next to him. When he looked up Claire continued, "You think you might be able to spare Allison a little later this week?" He smiled and nodded. "So, well, I gotta go. I'll call you later okay?"

And with that she stood up and left. Allison and the other girls watched as Claire joined her group, and as the icing to an already delicious cake, Jenny and Leslie both waved to her. She waved back, after that lunch did not seem like such a big deal.

"Hang on a second Andrew." It was after lunch and Allison had just spotted Claire's red hair in the middle of a crowd making its way to class. She rushed over to her and called her name. "Hey Claire, can I talk to you for a minute?"

"Sure Al, what's up?"

"I just wanted to say thank you for what you did back there in the cafeteria, I felt as if those girls were going to burn me at the stake."

"Yeah I noticed that, but I have to tell you something." Claire said. "That really wasn't a rescue mission, you know? Jenny really did ask me when we were going out next, and she does want you to eat with us. I wasn't trying to make you look good in there, I was telling the truth. Listen we'll be late, I'll call you later."

Allison watched Claire make her way through the crowd once again. She soon felt Andrew's hand pulling her in the direction of her next class. Later while she was in study hall she thought about what she had heard. When Claire had left the table, Allison had been one hundred percent sure that she had only said those things in order to get her out of a tight spot. Here is how Allison had played out the scene in her mind: Claire had spotted Allison sitting at Andrew's table and had noticed how uncomfortable she looked. She might have even spotted the other girls whispering behind their hands, in an attempt to help her out, Claire had gone over to the table and lied in front of the whole group in order to make her seem, more appealing. In Allison's mind the plan had worked flawlessly, and she would only have to wait to see if the other's bought into it, and whether Jenny and Leslie would be alright with it.

But to her complete surprise the situation had not been rehearsed, and everything Claire said had been the truth. It had worked out rather well and Allison could not help but smile as she replayed the scene in her head. She remembered the way the girls had looked at her after that, it translated as 'what the fuck?', and she let out a laugh. At the sound of her laughter the boy in front of her turned and winked at her. Rolling her eyes, she said, "That wasn't for you."

Andrew had told her that he would meet her at her locker after school. When her Spanish class ended Allison made a mad dash to her locker and watched for him. When he reached her, he pulled her into a tight hug and kissed her. Closing her locker door she grabbed his hand and they made their way to the parking lot.

"Where are you going?" Andrew asked. Allison had been walking towards her school bus. The bus was already half full and she could even see the pimply face of her freshman stalker peering out the window.

"To the bus," she said slowly, "How else am I supposed to get home?"

"Well I kind of thought I would drive you," he said as he handed her her bag. "But if you prefer the bus, then go right ahead."

Playing into his sarcasm she quickly said,"Hmm...Let me see? Ride on the rancid smelling creepy stalker filled school bus or ride home in your, what is it you drive, oh yes, your Chevy? Oh that's a toughie. I think I'll take the bus."

He laughed and pulled her towards the student lot, "Come on it's this way." Allison followed but not before turning back and catching the look on the freshman's face. By now she recognized his expression fairly well. 'What the fuck?' it said and Allison laughed as she walked off hand in hand with Andrew.

"I think we should leave your introduction to my parents, until a later time." They were parked across the street of Allison's house. "It's not like they wouldn't go to psychotic. They probably wouldn't even care."

"We can do it any other time." Andrew reassured her; he had his arm around her neck and was running his fingers through her hair. "We'll have plenty of time for stuff like that."

She leaned in and gave a long, deep kiss, bringing her hands to his face. "Okay" she said shyly as she started gathering up her stuff and opening the car door.

Andrew sat there for a moment, as if trying to compose himself after the kiss. Then as she started saying goodbye he called out to her, "Don't make plans for Friday I'm taking you out. So I'll call you later?" he asked.

"Sure," she responded and made her way to her house.

As always the house was quite, she assumed her mother was off on one of her early dinner dates with a friend and her father was probably still at work. She used to feel so lonely walking into her house before, but today even her obvious lack of parental companionship wasn't affecting her. She had Andrew to occupy her mind. Warming up a plate of leftovers she headed up to her room to study.

Later that night...

"Hello"

"Hi, Al its Claire."

"Hey, what's up?"

"Just calling to let you know that there's this major party at Grace's house this Saturday. So you and Andy definitely have to come."

"Sounds fun"

"It should be a blast. Grace's house is huge so it's always this big turnout. I don't know why she does it, every time she does her house totally gets thrashed and then she complains and swears that she won't ever do it again. But now here we are. So you and Andy, I'm glad that's going to work out. At least something's coming out of that dreadful detention..."

"I've been meaning to ask you Claire, you and Bender?"

"That situation is a little more complicated."

"Have you even talked to him?"

"Yes, but...Listen can we talk about this some other time? I have to go my mother is starting in on my dad again and all I wanna do is turn on my stereo and drown them out. I'll see you in school tomorrow."

"Okay, bye."

Later still...

"Hi"

"Hi Andrew, you know I think I'm going to have to move this phone to my room. I have to come into the hallway and there is no privacy."

"Maybe your parents will get you your own line."

"Yeah, fat chance."

"So lunch was pretty nasty huh?"

"It was in the beginning but that whole Claire incident really helped me out."

"Yeah those girls look up to that group. I'm sorry about them they are total bitches."

"Whatever, it makes no difference. I just can't let them get to me, that's all."

"You're right. So I'll pick you up in the morning then?"

"You know Andrew keep this up and you'll just end up spoiling me."

"Is that such a bad thing?"

"Trust me; you wouldn't want to know me that way. Oh and Claire mentioned something about some party on Saturday..."

"Grace Crawliff? Yeah I heard something about that. She's pretty wild, do you want to go?"

"I guess so. So I'll see you tomorrow then?"

"Yeah goodnight"

"Night"

A/N: Come now please review. Tell me how this story sucks hard I don't care just do it. Come on