#2. The Test
"White chocolate macchiato or French vanilla latte?" asked a foggy voice.
"Do you think it matters? The boy just needs caffeine. And quickly. The form doesn't matter."
The second voice was dampened too but Blaine could still distinguish them from each other. He could also the insistent jabs to his shoulder but for a reason that seemed neither here nor there, he didn't seem to care.
"Aww, leave the poor kid alone," came yet another voice.
"Entrance test, Wes. Monday. No time for sleep. Only caffeine and quadratic equations."
Entrance test! Blaine shot up suddenly at its mention, falling suddenly and harshly from his much needed nap back to reality. He blinked at the bright fluorescent lights and tried to orient himself. Butt numbing plastic chair, table scattered with papers and highlighters. Stacks of books. Lots of books. Right, library. He scrunched his nose at the tickle of a piece of paper being pulled from his cheek. Right, math notes. Entrance test in three days.
"Jeeze man," Nick said holding the page of notes, eyebrows raised, mouth a gape with horror. "Caffeine, stat."
"On it." Jeff plopped down his books and headed briskly for the door.
Blaine glanced briefly across the room where Wes seemed to be straining to stifle a laugh as he dug out his own work. He was glad someone was finding his misery entertaining. If his days at Dalton were numbered at least he'd have brought some joy to the mahogany halls. They say that's helpful, right? That providing joy can bring it back around to you. Maybe that only works if you get to hang around your newly created joyful company though and in that case he was probably no better off than when he started at Dalton a month ago.
It was cruel in a way and that thought had been growing ever bigger in Blaine's mind since his meeting with the headmaster two weeks ago where he'd first learned of the exam. He supposed his parents might have mentioned it when he was in the hospital but that was beside the point. Wes had been right, he'd fallen in love with Dalton. He struggled through most of his classes but he loved that he was never alone in the library. Academic prowess seemed to be the top priority for every students, a vast and pleasant departure from his old school. And where else would he find friends that would buy him coffee and invest themselves into his exam possibly even further than him? In fact, the only worthwhile thing he had learned at his old school was that straight boys would never be allies. That however, no longer seemed to be the case as Jeff bounded back in balancing four disposable cups with his two hands, elbow, and chin.
"London Fog for Nicky. Two tea bags. I know. I remembered. Drip for me, three creams. White chocolate macchiato with extra whip and an extra shot for our zombie on death row," he rattled off, handing out the drinks.
"Zombies are already-"
"Don't start with me, Nicky. I heard it as I said it," Jeff sighed, detouring from his seat across the library. "And of course, I would never forget about Wesley, our fearless Warbler leader. Mocha cappuccino."
Blaine watched captivated as Wes lifted an eyebrow but took his drink. "Warbler council does not accept bribes, Jeffery."
"Ahh, and yet you just did."
"Not a bribe if you don't get the solo."
"Well if you change your mind you know where to find me." And as if three tables over was too hard to navigate, Jeff proceeded to perform some strange pointing dance with his index fingers.
Blaine caught Wes' eye and a small part of him wanted to wholly deny knowing his table mates but he instead found himself pulling out the chair next to his for Wes to join if he ever did feel the need to tweak the Warbler set list. Hearing Nick and Jeff talk about show choir constantly had begun to stir something in Blaine. He knew he'd missed auditions for that season but maybe he could try his hand at bribing. Mocha cappuccino wasn't hard to remember.
"How are those quadratic equations coming, Anderson?"
Right, test first. No sense risking extortion charges if he couldn't even meet the IQ requirements. "Parabollically," he answered. Wes just rolled his eyes and turned back to his own work. Blaine took his queue and did the same.
His resolve faded quickly though, before his coffee even had a chance to go cold. It was just too frustrating because this wasn't even an IQ test. It was… he didn't even know what. Cruel and unusual punishment came to mind though. Because he could do it. He could learn the material there was just too much of it. Despite what Nick had said, it wasn't just quadratic equations after all. It was probability, mole hills, electron configurations, two dimensional acceleration, mitochondria, Gulf wars, World Wars, Passé Composé, Imparfait, semi colons, and Hamlet too. The list just got longer and longer and as Nick and Jeff tried to help, they just added to it because apparently sig figs and unit conversions are important to mole hill calculations. Come Monday, he had no hope of passing. No one from a public system did. So why would they have opened their oak doors to him in the first place? Let him begin to build a new life simply to rip it away. It was like someone had tossed him a life raft and after he struggling to climb on, tired and weak, he discovered it had been punctured. Was a semester's tuition really worth toying with someone like that? Why did they get the power to decide so? Sometimes it seemed that everybody had the power over him. Someone decided who was allowed to take who to a dance. Someone else decided that teasing would never amount to anything serious. Someone else decided this would be his new school and someone else would decide if he was smart and if he could stay.
Under the table, Blaine's knee bounced, the caffeine and sugar coursing through his veins, encouraging him to finally take that power away from everyone else, into his own hands, and run straight for the door.