I don't want what you want
I don't feel what you feel
See I'm stuck in a city
But I belong in a field

Heart In A Cage, The Strokes

Allison was selfish and she knew it.

She had been a disappointment to her friends today, and she hadn't even meant to be. But if disappointing them meant that she could get back at her parents, then she would just have to work things out with them later.

She had decided to distance herself from Andrew and Claire, and it was all the fault of Carla and Todd Reynolds.

After Claire had come by one day to see Allison's costume (she'd had to see for herself that Allison was really going to be a ballerina, because she hadn't been able to believe that her basket case friend would really buy such a costume), Allison's mother had actually talked to her—really talked—for the first time in a few years.

"Allison, honey?" Carla Reynolds called to her.

Allison, who had been on her way back up to her room after seeing Claire out, froze. Was her mother actually speaking to her?

She turned to face her mother, but didn't say anything, waiting to hear what would come next.

"Who was your friend, there?"

Allison squeaked and narrowed her eyes at her mother. "Her name is Claire."

Carla smiled at her. "Oh, honey! You never have friends over! It's so nice to see you with such a lovely, proper friend. You should have her over for dinner some time."

Allison gave her a blank stare. "Right," she said sarcastically. Then she turned to head back to her room.

"Wait!" Carla asked.

Allison huffed. What now?

"Allison, honey. Your father and I noticed that you've been getting a ride home from some boy lately. Come tell me about him." Carla sat down on the couch and motioned for Allison to join her.

And for a minute, Allison was tempted. Her parents had actually noticed something about her and then discussed her? This was something she'd been yearning for since middle school. And it was finally happening.

But then she remembered why they had disowned her in the first place. She loved Frank. She could never be disloyal to him. Even though Frank had long ago forgiven his parents, and would love to see Allison embraced by them. Just because he could, didn't mean Allison could. Even for Frank.

Because it wasn't just about Frank. It would have been different if her parents just felt bad about the way they'd treated their younger two children, and wanted to make amends. But Allison knew better. She may not be a Brian Johnson or even a John Bender, but she knew enough to see right through her parents. The only reason they were paying attention to her was because she was hanging out with some of the popular kids. Carla Reynolds had always wanted her daughter to be some pretty, fashionable, debutante. In fact, there were times when Allison wondered if Frank was just some convenient excuse for Carla to dismiss the disappointment of a daughter that Allison had always been, and Carla had always wanted to get rid of.

"What's he like? Is he your boyfriend?" Carla asked, still motioning for her daughter to join her.

Allison hated that this was tugging at her heart. She had wanted this so much. All she wanted was to feel the love of her parents. In fact, it was the lack of love that had led her to detention in the first place: she figured it would be better to spend the day with kids her own age and pretend to belong with them, instead of stay home and feel that same emptiness all day.

It would be so easy to go over to her mother right now, let her mother stroke her hair, and tell her mom all about her jock boyfriend and her popular princess friend. Hell, her mother and Claire's mother would probably be best friends themselves, they sounded so much alike. They would shop together with their daughters and buy them nice clothes and Andy would think she was even more beautiful and whenever they had a fight she could go to her mother for advice and her mother would hug her and tell her everything was okay and that she loved her.

And all Allison had to do to get that love was be her mother's perfect little princess.

But Allison could never be a Claire. She didn't even want to be. She liked who she was.

And if her parents couldn't love her as she was, then she didn't want their love at all.

So she looked over at her mother with that defiant look of hers, and said, "No. No, he's not my boyfriend. He's just…just a student who's dad works at the school. His…his dad is the school therapist, so he makes him be nice to me. That's all. And that girl is his sister. Her dad makes her be nice to me, too."

Then she turned and ran upstairs to her room.

Allison normally felt so good about her lies. Normally this kind of thing, getting back at her parents, would make her sublimely happy.

But she felt horrible.

She felt horrible about denying Andrew and Claire. And she felt even worse because after the last time she'd lied to Andrew, he'd made her promise to work on lying all the time. She'd promised to never lie to him again.

She was sure he probably wouldn't care about her lying to her parents (he'd probably understand completely why she did it), but lying about her relationship with him? And with Claire? He probably wouldn't be too happy about that.

Especially because, in her own twisted, weirdo way, she was doing the exact same thing she had been afraid that they would do to her: deny her. She had her own issues, true. But she wasn't sure that that gave her any more right to lie about her relationship with the Breakfast Club than it gave any of the others.

Allison went over this in her head a little, and decided that for right now she was okay. She just had to keep Claire and Andy away from her home and her parents, and maybe distance herself from them a little, until she could figure out what to do next.

After Claire left Allison's house, she'd gone straight home to make a phone call. She'd tried Brian first, but his mother had yelled at her and refused to let her speak to him. She hated Brian's mother. More than she hated her own parents, more than she'd hated anyone. Claire had never been a violent person, but she wanted to do awful things to Brian's mother. She knew better than anyone what Mrs. Johnson put Brian through, and she loathed Mrs. Johnson entirely for it. The way she saw it, the rest of them could take care of themselves, but Brian? Well, Claire had taken a personal responsibility in looking out for him and taking care of him.

So she called Annabelle instead. She was dying to know how the little outing with Brian, Annabelle, and Caroline had gone.

"Annabelle?"

"Oh, hi, Claire." It was the most depressed she'd ever heard her friend sound.

"Oh, Annabelle. What's wrong? What happened?"

"He likes someone else. How come you didn't tell me?"

"I tried to, Annabelle. I swear I did. But you never gave me the chance. Every time I tried, you, like, kept cutting me off." There was silence as Annabelle thought about this.

"I guess that's true. It's my fault. I didn't even stop to ask if he, like, even had a girlfriend or anything. I guess I figured that he didn't because of who he was, or that if he did he wouldn't care because obviously he'd like me better because of who I am at school. I was being arrogant, and you and I both promised each other we were going to try not to, like, be like that anymore." Annabelle scolded herself.

Claire sympathized with her. It definitely wasn't as easy as it seemed. "So what happened?" she asked again, to get details. Anabelle filled her in.

Brian had met the girls after school by Caroline's car and she'd driven them to the mall, where Brian had let the girls basically play dress up on him. He was still convinced they were buttering him up to ask him for homework help.

It had been a fun afternoon. Annabelle always enjoyed hanging out with Caroline, who was beautiful and popular but still fun and down to earth and kind (except when she got drunk); and it was nice to get to see the boy she was crushing on outside of school. Once they completed teaching him how to be cool (which was their ultimate plan), she could finally ask him out and publicly acknowledge her feelings for him.

But what she didn't know was that Brian felt completely out of place. All he thought about all afternoon was how Bender had been right about Brian having nothing in common with these girls, and how he'd be bored with them if he spent any significant amount of time with them. Annabelle was nice enough, but Caroline, he thought, was kind of silly and unstimulating.

But Brian was ever the nice guy. He remembered to be kind when he said goodbye to them, saying "Thanks, guys. This was fun, and you guys helped a lot. i think my… girlfriend will really like me in this stuff. She…she's been a little mad at me or something, and I-I've been trying to find a way to get her attention back."

He'd been completely oblivious to the shocked looks the girls' faces.

"I'm so sorry, Annabelle." Claire said again.

"Who is this girl? What do we know about her?" Annabelle asked.

Claire was glad that Annabelle couldn't see her blush. "Um…She's a friend of Bender's, and I do know that Brian really, really likes her."

"Oh," Annabelle said, and Claire could sense what she was feeling so she said, encouragingly, "But I'm proud of us, Annabelle. You know, not letting Charlotte and Erica make all our decisions for us. Liking who we want to like. Not getting completely caught up in the popularity crap."

What she didn't tell Annabelle was that she was thrilled to still have her around. She was kind of like proof that Claire and her friends weren't complete bitches. She was now even more excited about introducing Bender to Annabelle. Just like she was when she got to know his friends, Bender would be surprised to see that she actually had a few decent friends and that they could be good people.

And that got her thinking about Bender's few close friends, and gave her an idea, based on the little bit of information she'd eventually gotten out of Brian about what had happened during guys night out last school year.

She smiled to herself and said, "Hey, Annabelle, you take a couple of advanced classes, right?"

"Yeah…" Annabelle answered.

"I think I might know another guy I can introduce you to…."