Ice has covered up my parents' hands

Don't have any dreams, don't have any plans

-Neighborhood #3 Power Out, Arcade Fire

Brian climbed the steps to his bedroom with Andrew following close behind him. He had gotten past his mother by telling her that Andrew was a student he was tutoring.

He had thought he was speaking with his mother in private in the kitchen, having left Andrew in the living room with the remote for a minute. But Andrew had overheard him.

At which point Andy wasn't sure whether to feel sorry for Brian, or to be a little confused about him. Were things so bad with his mother that he wasn't even allowed to have friends over unless it was about studying, or was he too embarrassed having a dumb jock nobody over around his highly intellectual family, to admit that Andrew was his friend?

Before Andy could think too much about it, Brian reentered the living room. "Come on. W-we'll go up to my room so we can talk. Okay?" Andy nodded and followed Brian through the first floor to the stairwell. He realized that Brian's house was pretty similar to his own. Both he and Brian were from Average Joe, middle class, suburban backgrounds. Yep, everything they'd learned in detention was more and more turning out to be true. The two of them definitely weren't so different at all. Brian was pushed to his mental limits by his mother; Andy was pushed to his physical limits by his father.

He wanted to ask Brian about what had happened downstairs, but Brian stopped him by speaking first.

"So, um, what happened? I mean, people don't usually show up at my house asking to sleep over, you know?" Brian started. Andy nodded, understanding. If he'd been as observant of Brian as Bender always was, he'd have noticed that Brian was slowly becoming less and less awkward, and was stumbling over his words less and less. Bender had noticed it, and Claire was starting to. The only real question was where his slow development was coming from. Bender thought it was from trying to impress Saidie; Claire, in her own mind, thought Bender was rubbing off on him; but in reality it would end up being a combination of the two, motivated by his increasing anger, frustration, and need to rebel against the way his mother (and a lot of times, his father) saw him.

Andy cleared his throat, mentally preparing himself to open up to Brian. "I…I just can't go home. I can't go back there and deal with my dad tonight. I don't think I could handle it for another second."

Brian just sat down, his knees folded up under his chin (no matter how he dressed himself up; underneath it all, he was still the same old Brian), and nodded, encouraging Andy to continue.

"Did practice not go well or something, and you're afraid to tell your dad?" Brian asked.

Andy sighed. "I didn't go to practice. I mean, I did, but no one knew I was there. I just kind of watched."

Brian looked up at Andy, confused.

"You remember how you told me to think about what would be the best thing for me; that would be beneficial for me in the long run?" Andy asked. Brian nodded, remembering back to one of their last conversations at the end of the prior school year.

And then he proceeded to tell Brian everything. How he'd been all prepared to make his big announcement and thought that Allison would be so proud of him; how their breakup happened before he could tell her; how he'd been devastated but still thought she'd been a positive influence on him and he still wanted to show her and everyone else that he could think for himself by quitting things that didn't make him happy; how he'd almost changed his mind about quitting wrestling because losing Allison made him doubt himself, and how he'd watched today's first practice and knew that he just couldn't take it anymore.

"Now that I had the idea in my head of a having some semblance of a life doing what I want, and not just what my dad or the other jocks want me to do, I couldn't just go back to the way things were. That would suck. And it would just prove Allison was right about me, and I'd be like that forever. So I finally just got up, walked out, and didn't look back. I'm done with all that."

Brian smiled slightly. "That's…that's really good, Andy. Good for you."

Andrew tried to return his smile. "Thanks. But I'm not done. I left and went straight home. I just wanted to be by myself, to process things, and I was planning to tell Coach Fuller about it in the morning. But my dad was there when I got home. Most Mondays, he works late at the factory. So I wasn't expecting that."

"Why was he there early?" Brian asked, and then immediately regretted it. He felt stupid; he knew that that wasn't the important part of the story. But Andrew just sighed and hung his head, and Brian thought that, if it was even possible, Andrew looked even more exhausted.

"From what my brother Lyle said, there was some big issue at his job today and my dad was one of the people they let go because of it." Wow. Andy couldn't believe he'd just blurted it out like that. As tears formed in his eyes, he realized he couldn't think of a single other person he'd show any sign of weakness to, let alone this much vulnerability. No one besides Allison, that is. But she was gone. And that thought sent the tears flowing out of his eyes.

"I had no idea of the mess I was walking into. I knew my dad was going to flip when he found out I quit, but him finding out today…." His voice was starting to break. "He doesn't give a shit about me. I'm a machine to him. He reamed me out so badly I thought….I thought he was going to hit me at one point."

Brian's eyes widened at that, and he was overcome with sympathy, and thoughts of Bender. He had one friend with an abusive parent; if he ended up having two, there was no way he'd have been able to ignore it and do nothing (which they were all sure Bender wanted them to do).

"He called me every name he could think of and told me he wasn't going to allow me to throw my life away, and demanded that I apologize to Coach tomorrow for missing practice, and that I go work out to make up for what I missed. I told him to leave me alone and just forget I exist, and I walked out." Every word was a tremble by this point.

"I didn't know where else to go, so I came here. I don't want Stubbie and my other friends to find out that I quit this way, and I don't know where Bender lives. Plus, Allison will barely even talk to me, and I couldn't ask to stay with her or Claire, of course. Even if she does think her parents wouldn't notice or care… I'm sorry to intrude."

At the mention of Allison's name, Brian's mind and heart were wracked with guilt. Should he say something? He could tell that what Andy really needed right now was Allison, and he knew, if his conversation with Allison at the end of last school year had been honest, she still had feelings for Andy and had only broken up with him for selfless reasons in an act of self-sacrifice.

Should he tell Andy about that conversation? Would Allison be mad at him if he did? Would it even do any good? Just because Andy wasn't a wrestler anymore didn't mean his status as a jock, and the friends he had, would change. He hadn't said anything about quitting baseball; and he'd mentioned taking up basketball, and Brian was an optimistic enough person to believe that Andy's friends wouldn't just drop him because he quit playing some high school sport. So there would still be the issue of Andy's friends getting in between Andy and Allison.

But, still. He liked Andy, and he really cared about poor, sweet, sensitive, Allison. They both deserved to know the truth.

"Um, Andy, I don't know. Maybe you should give Allison a call. She's still your friend; she'd be willing to listen, and what you just told me; that's some pretty major stuff. I think she still cares about you, and would want to know."

Andy seemed to think on it a second, and then shook his head. "No. No, she's made it very clear that she isn't interested in me. If I call her and tell her any of this, it'll just make her feel obligated or like I'm trying to use pity to get her back. No, I'll tell her and the others tomorrow at breakfast. They'll all find out, anyway. By the end of the week, it'll be all over school, anyway."

Brian rolled his eyes, the same way he'd done at Claire's conceit in detention. Andy managed to catch that, and realized what Brian must have thought about what he'd just said.

It was time to change the subject. Now was as good a time as any to ask Brian the question he'd wanted to ask him since the Monday after detention, but had never gotten up the courage to.

"Hey, Brian? Um, I know this is going to sound strange, and random, but I…I just want you know that I never forgot about what I did to Larry Lester. It's been on my mind every day since it happened. And I've always wanted to ask you what happened to him? I never saw him around after that. But don't think I didn't want to apologize to him. I just never got the chance."

Brian's impure light blue eyes met Andy's own clearer, darker blue ones with a confused look. "What do you mean? Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I don't want you to think I'm heartless. I'm not. And I wanted to know what happened to him?"

Brian still looked confused, though his face was going ashen, the way it did when he got angry. A little known thing about Brian was that he had a bad temper. People thought he was just some calm, weak kid who made an easy target, but what the Club would eventually come to find out was that Brian's ferocious temper was not to be messed with. It wasn't the Benders of the world, or the jocks of the world, that other kids should be afraid of: It was Brian Johnson's wild temper.

"Why are you asking me? Because you assumed that Larry was my friend? Because we're both non-jocks, weak, brainiac weirdos, we must be friends? Well, I can tell you, us weirdo brainiacs aren't like that. We don't think we're better than anyone just because we're smart; we don't all hang out together, and we don't only hang out with people like us. Unlike some other social groups who use their social status to exclude others, I hang out with whoever is willing to hang out with me. We don't have some secret dork club or something that we're all in." Brian's breathing got heavier as he spoke, and his face got even more ashen.

"Johnson, I didn't mean anything like that. I swear. It's just that in detention, you said—"

"—I said I knew him. I never said we were close buddies or anything." Brian snapped.

"Oh," was all Andy could say.

"You know who is friendly with him? Who does hang out with him sometimes? Saidie Heyer. You know, Bender's friend? The non-white girl who listens to rock music and is an athlete but sometimes wears girly clothes, has dork classes but hangs out with burnouts? Maybe you should ask her. Larry goes to her church. I only know that because she told me when I was telling her about our detention. So, she knows what you did Larry. Funny how she didn't hold that against you when she met you. You know, kind of the way Allison had to come up with the outside-of-school thing because she knew you and Claire would hold it against her and Bender and me that we're the freaks; the weirdos?"

Brian had to catch his breath, he was so angry. He'd had about enough of the conceit of all the popular kids who looked down on him. To think Claire had said people like him looked up to people like her and Andy. Why would he want to look up to anyone with that kind of attitude?

Andrew was dumbfounded. Why did it always seem like he was putting his foot in his mouth, lately? All he could do was apologize to Brian for offending him, which he dd.

Brian saw the look on Andrew's face and immediately felt bad for what he'd said. While it had been true, he knew that this wasn't the right time to be laying all of this on Andy.

But Andy had been the one to bring up Larry. Brian wondered what had made him do it. Maybe the memory of what he'd done to Larry really did still haunt him.

The boys say in silence for at least fifteen minutes before Brian completely calmed down.

"I-it's okay. Andy. I know you didn't mean anything by it. You're already going through enough. I'm sorry about the whole wrestling thing. And I'm sorry about your dad."

Andrew just nodded.

"D-do you know, um… what you guys are going to do now?" Brian asked softly.

Andrew shook his head. "That's part of the reason why he's so adamant about me going back to wrestling and football. I already wasn't going to be able to afford college; not when my dad's raising four boys on a single income. I mean, we've been doing fine, comfortable even most times, but a college tuition has always been out of the question. I know my dad. If he doesn't find something soon, and if I refuse to go back to wrestling and football, he'll probably try to send me away to my mom or something. One less mouth to feed."

Brian didn't know what to say to that. Though he'd been upset with Andrew a few minutes before, he certainly didn't want to see Andy sent away; not when he was so close to finishing school (only two years left) and not when they'd all only just become friends and all found each other to talk to.

"Well, I-I hope something will, um, turn up so, well, uh, you know… so that doesn't happen." Brian said.

Andrew just looked down at his shoes in response.

"I'll go, um, get you some sheets and stuff; you can share my bed if you want and we can sleep on different sheets so it won't be uncomfortable, um, you know." Brian said.

When he came back, he and Andy passed the time before and after dinner talking about what Andy should do next. Andrew Clark had never felt so lost in his entire life. What he hadn't told Brian was that he was pretty sure even if his dad tried to send him to his mother for the remainder of his high school time, she probably would 't even want him anyway.

As mad as he was about his dad, he was beginning to understand why his father was so tough on him, and why Mrs. Johnson was so tough on Brian. His dad just wanted his son to be tough so he could get through the hard times in life, and to get a scholarship to a good school so he'd have a shot at a decent job and not have to worry about affording his family. And Mrs. Johnson probably just wanted Brian to be successful so he could have a better life than the obviously crappy one he was having in high school. Brian told him during that night that he had a feeling his mother resented his father; that she'd married him because he was so smart in school and she'd thought that would mean big money one day. She now resented him for never living up to that potential, and wanted to make sure that didn't happen to their son.

Andrew started to think that maybe their parents all thought they were doing what was best for their children, and just had cold ways of showing what Brian, in detention, had called "parental compassion." Maybe they all thought loving and raising children was about doing whatever was necessary to prepare their kids for the harshness of adulthood, even if it meant being cold and hurting their children a little in the process.

Maybe even Bender's father had some twisted way of thinking that by hitting his child and calling him names, he was just toughening Bender up for the harsh way the world treated people who came from… well, where the Benders came from. Andy didn't think it excused such behavior, but it was an idea nonetheless.

Maybe, Andy thought, all of their parents were just as lost and torn inside, as they all were. Even Bender's. Even Allison's.

Not that it made any of their parents any less crappy. It didn't even mean that any of them should forgive their parents. Andy certainly didn't plan on forgiving his father.

When the boys finally went to bed that night, neither of them slept very well. Andy was thinking about how much he and Brian had in common, and how that was probably what had led him to Brian's house after he'd aimlessly wandered the streets for about thirty minutes that afternoon. When Brian did finally fall asleep, Andy crept out into the dark of night to go for a jog and figure out what to do next with his life, knowing that he dreaded the rest of the week ahead.

Brian was thinking about Larry Lester (who he hadn't seen since "the incident" either), and how after detention none of them had ever really mentioned him again, perhaps so as not to hurt Andy. They'd sort of almost pretended the incident never happened; the same way they'd never brought up anything about what they found out about Bender in detention. Both of those were sensitive subjects that they never ever brought up, out of compassion to Bender and Andy. But it seemed almost cruel, to Brian, to just pretend that neither were the reality, when both of those things were still very much a part of their lives. He finally fell asleep wondering how long it would be before both elephants in the room came back to bite them all in the butt.