But even still at times I wonder
What you're thinking of me
You're probably sure I lost my mind

-Around My Head, Cage the Elephant

Andrew Clark hardly knew what had gone on in his first two classes of the school year. He hadn't been paying very much attention. Because all he could think about was Allison Reynolds.

He felt about two feet tall. Andrew knew he had been a total jerk that morning in the library. Not only that, but he knew he'd been a jerk by bringing Samantha Harold to Claire's family's party over the summer. He hadn't been sure if Allison would still be there by the time he got there, but he had definitely wanted her to see him with another girl. He wanted her to hurt the same way he hurt.

That wasn't right. He knew that. But he couldn't help himself. He cared about Allison so much, and she had just pulled away from him for no reason at all. Andy knew that if he had done that, the whole Club would probably hate him, and consider him some coward jerk. But when she did it, he was expected to play nice.

He knew it hadn't been fair to Claire, either. She and Allison were great friends; it was unfair to flaunt an Allison replacement in Claire's face and not expect her to take sides.

But, no. Andy had his pride. He had to be strong. He couldn't show himself to be vulnerable and heartbroken over some freak girl. He had to show the others that he could move on; that he wasn't pining for her.

It was easier said than done, though. Because no matter how much Andy tried not to show it, Allison had been so much more than "some freak girl" to him. Even in the short time they had known each other, they had come to mean so much to each other. Or so he thought. Allison just got him, in a way that no one else ever had. While he'd bonded with all the others in the Club, and they'd seen him for who he really was, Allison had done more than that. Every time she looked at him it had been as if she was seeing into him. And Andy knew that he had never felt that connected to another girl before. He wasn't sure if he ever would, or if he even wanted to.

But Allison had made her decision, and there was nothing he could do. Especially if she was not even willing to talk to him about it.

If there was no hope of getting her back, at least he could show her there were no hard feelings by how quickly he moved on. Even if it was the last thing he wanted to do…

That was the reason for his new attire. He wanted to make himself attractive to the kinds of girls he should be dating—girls who were the exact opposite of Allison. Girls who wouldn't spit fingernails at him and tell him to eat shit and make him want to do things like go to art shows and not just take easy classes.

But he had bigger things to worry about at the moment. There was one thing that Allison had inspired him to do that he wanted to actually go through with. He wondered if he'd made the right decision about quitting the wrestling team. He'd been avoiding his father, and now he had to figure out how to tell him, his coach, and his friends.

Allison was just as miserable as Andy was, in her own, quiet, less game-playing way. She was more than beginning to regret what she had done, not that she had ever really wanted to do it in the first place. But she couldn't go back now. Not when Andy was already dating other girls, and not when his whole future was at stake. Allison could predict that if their relationship had continued, he would inevitably have had to choose between Allison and his teammates, and Allison had drawn the conclusion that if he chose her it would ruin his entire future.

Her resolve to never admit that she still had feelings for Andy became even stronger when she overheard the conversation of a few girls in her Spanish class before class started.

"Oh my gosh, have you seen Andrew Clark today? He looks so hot." Some blond girl, that Allison knew hung out with Claire, was saying.

The brunette she was talking to was examining her nails and said, "Well, he's certainly dressing better, that's for sure. But, Char, I thought he was dating that cheerleader Samantha again. Claire said that she saw them together over the summer."

"Duh, Annabelle. That's because everyone else in our circle was out of town. Who else was he going to hang out with? Even if he did suffer from temporary insanity for a bit and experiment with hanging out with freaks," (she said that part extra loudly, and Allison wondered for a second if that part was meant for her to hear, then quickly dismissed that thought) "it's not as if he'd ever date anyone outside our group seriously. He knows better than that. Samantha may not be wealthy, but at least she has status. I think she's going out with Dan Hogan now, anyway."

The brunette, called Annabelle, smiled. "So, I guess that means Andy is finally all yours for the taking."

"Well, duh. I'm pretty sure he's going to ask me out soon. He was flirting with me earlier before second period. If I have to, I'll make sure that every girl knows by the end of the week that he's off limits." The blond said loudly.

Allison didn't bother listening to any more of the conversation.

She began to think that maybe she hadn't made the wrong decision after all.

What was wrong with her? Why had she second guessed herself? She'd been crazy (which everyone thought she was anyway) to think she could ever have anything serious with Andrew Clark. It was like some grand cosmic joke. She had somehow deluded herself into forgetting that she hated the kind of people that Claire and Andy's friends were. She hated the hypocrisy, the criticism, the juvenile immaturity, the backstabbing, the social hierarchy. She hated it all.

There was a reason why she had not talked prior to meeting the Breakfast Club. There was a reason she'd told Andy to eat shit. And there was a reason she had broken up with Andy in the first place.

She hated high school.

She was almost grateful to those bitchy friends of Claire's for reminding her that she had acted in everyone's best interest. She loved Claire, and she cared about Andy, but she wanted absolutely no part of their worlds outside of the Club. She should just leave Andy to go back to his jock straps and his preppy parties and his cheerleader bimbos.

She had made her decision, it was the way things had to be, and now she had to live with it.

Elsewhere in Shermer, both Bender and Brian had been trying to find each other and/or Claire ever since they'd parted outside of the library. Both to no avail.

For Brian's part, he'd been in a whirlwind of questions ever since Saidie kissed him.

When it had happened, Brian had felt like he was practically floating on air. He knew as long as he lived he'd never forget that kiss, his very first. From the way his heart beat rapidly right before it happened; and the feel of a girl's soft, puckered lips against his; to the thrill of knowing that that quirky, lovely girl had initiated it—the way she'd pulled him into her and the way it made him feel oddly masculine and strong that she had to stand on her toes to kiss him.

It had been very quick. There was no tongue or swapping saliva. There hadn't even been any parting of the lips. And in a way, that was what made it so special to Brian. There was something innocent about it. It had been short, sweet, and entirely exciting. In short, the kiss Saidie had given him had been just like everything he liked about her.

When it was over, Brian hadn't known what to say or do. He kind of stood there entirely shocked and happy, probably looking quite dumbfounded. She had looked up at him, and then her eyes flickered and looked down at the ground in an almost shy, nervous way that Brian found enticing.

Then she'd looked back up at him like she wanted to say something.

But she never had the chance. Before she could speak, or he could recover enough to speak, his friends Dell and Adam were on his heels.

"Brian! How was your summer, man?" Adam said.

"Um, h-hi Adam. It was fine." Brian said, flustered.

Dell was eyeing Saidie. "Weren't you in my History class last year?" he asked, not impolitely, but somewhat coldly.

Saidie, always seemingly oblivious to things like that, smiled at him. "Yeah, I think so."

Dell nodded, eyeing Brian.

"Um, guys, this is Saidie Heyer. Saidie, these are my friends Adam Parker and Dell Simmons."

"Nice to meet you." Saidie smiled at them and held out her hand. Dell hesitated for a moment and then finally stuck his hand out and shook hers. Adam didn't say anything and just stared in awe.

Saidie shrugged this off and turned back to Brian. "Um, I guess I'll see you later, Brian." She waved at him and was gone.

His friends looked at him as if he had grown another head. "Who was that?" Dell asked.

"Yeah, you two were standing awfully close together." Adam said, as if he were accusing Brian of murdering his mother or something.

"I told you. That was Saidie." Brian said, getting frustrated.

"Yeah, but how do you know her?" Dell questioned.

Brian sighed. He wondered what it said about him that he'd never really told his best friends about all the things that had happened to him and around him since his birthday. These had been his friends since elementary school, and Bender and Claire knew more about his life lately than they did. But it wasn't like he had anything to hide.

"Okay, fine. Um, in May? When I said I met a girl? But I never said anything else about it? It was her. We've been, um, hanging out…"

Both Adam and Dell burst into laughter. "Get real, man." Dell said.

"Okay, if you don't want to tell us who she is, that's fine." Adam giggled.

"Um, what do you mean?" Brian asked, confused.

"Brian, come on. We know there's no way you'd date that…girl." Adam practically spit out the word, as if it tasted bad on his tongue.

"Although," Dell said between laughs, "it would explain his attire today, and his look."

Adam and Dell walked off, still in stitches. Brian had no idea what was so funny, but he couldn't waste time thinking about it.

He needed to find Bender, or failing that, at least Claire. He had to tell him all about what had happened with Saidie, and on top of that he had a million questions. How did he know if he'd kissed her back right? How could he tell if she'd enjoyed it? What should he do next? Did this mean that Saidie was his girlfriend now?

As the bell rang, he realized Bender and his girl wisdom would have to wait.

Little did Brian know that Bender had been looking for him as well. He had some questions of his own.

Bender had managed to play it cool in the library that morning, but once he'd had a moment to himself, after separating from Freddie, he began to drop that façade, even if only internally.

The truth was, he'd wanted to be reunited with Claire just as badly as she'd wanted it. Her kiss told him that she hadn't forgotten what he'd said to her on the last day of school. "When we get back, it's gonna be you and me."

And Bender then realized what a stupid fool he was. What a complete and utter idiot.

That had been his own unique way of asking Claire to be his girlfriend.

He had experienced a lot of things in his life. But he had never had a girlfriend. And he'd never planned on having one.

And now he'd somehow managed to lose his mind and convince Claire Standish—a real live teen queen, a richie, a girl who wore pink and listened to Madonna, for fuck's sake—to go steady with him, like some stupid little prep teenybopper. He'd broken his no commitment rule.

For the future prom queen, no less. He was a complete and utter idiot. A hopeless, crazy-about-Claire-Standish dope.

How the hell was he supposed to pull this off? What the hell did this mean? How were boyfriends of rich Queenies supposed to act? And how the fuck was he supposed to be her boyfriend when they had all agreed that they weren't even going to be friends in school?

Freddie had asked him about Claire, and he'd given him the short version of the story. Freddie had just laughed. And, really, it wasn't as if Bender could have expected much more than that from hm. Freddie was a cool, nice, laidback guy who was fun to hang out with. But he had less experience than Bender with girls, had never had a girlfriend either, and wouldn't be caught dead dating a girly girl princess type.

Which was fine, but Bender needed advice. And there was only one place he was going to get it.

Brian and Claire seemed to have grown close. In fact, Bender had picked up on the fact that Brian seemed to be the one Claire revealed all her girly secrets to, and he also now knew Bender better than anyone but Freddie and Saidie. If anyone could help him figure out how he was to proceed as Claire's "boyfriend" without totally losing himself in the process, it was definitely Brian.

Like Andy, he'd hardly been able to concentrate in class with all this on his brain. Saidie had provided a brief distraction when she'd met him at his locker and babbled on and on about how brave she'd been in just grabbing Brian and going for it, and how great he looked, and how she'd barely even noticed at first that he was wearing the coolest shirt with her favorite band on it, and was he wearing it to impress her, and was Bender, by the way, responsible for this new look of Brian's, not that she hadn't loved the way he looked before?

But by lunch time Bender had had no run-ins with Brian or Claire or even Andy or Allison, and he was getting antsy.

He practically sighed with relief when, as he was standing outside the library trying to look cool, he saw the dweebie's flushed face coming toward him.