A/N: I'm finally back with a new chapter! Hopefully it's worth the wait. Welcome to all the new readers and thanks as always for all the reviews, favorites, and follows. It makes me happy to see that people are still enjoying this story.
The next day Andrew, Mina, Rae, and Chad were waiting at their normal spot in front of the school before morning classes began. "I wonder where Darien is," Rae mused. "It's not like him to be late."
"It might have something to do with Beryl's disappearance too," Mina added. "I haven't seen her all morning."
"Maybe he snapped and got rid of her," Chad suggested. "He finally figured out that she's really the queen of the dark kingdom who has been using her evil powers of manipulation this whole time. Once he figured out what she was up to he rescued his princess then used his ninja powers to knock her into a galaxy far, far away."
The group stared at Chad as if he grew another head. "You seriously need an intervention," Rae finally said. "Your TV addiction is getting beyond ridiculous."
"In any case I'm sure Beryl got what she deserved after Darien dealt with her," Andrew commented. "He wouldn't be stupid enough to get himself in trouble in the process."
"But you never know. We all know what happens when Darien gets angry." Chad slammed his fist on a nearby tree. "Hulk Smash!"
"Speaking of the devil, there he is," Mina said pointing to him. They looked and saw Darien walking with Serena and her brother towards the school. Her brother ran off to meet up with another girl while Darien and Serena continued on the path towards the school. He was engrossed in a conversation with Serena and was about to pass the group until Mina spoke up. "Good morning to you too, Darien," she said.
Darien glanced at them. "Oh, hey," he said quickly before looking away.
They watched the pair walk into the school together continuing their conversation as if they were never interrupted. "How rude!" Rae exclaimed with a hand on her hip.
"Well he did say hey," Chad noted. "And he was talking to Meatball Head at the same time so clearly he was distracted."
"It's like he did it on purpose," Mina said with a huff. "I don't like being ignored."
"We know, dear," Andrew said before kissing her on the cheek. "I'm sure he didn't mean it." The warning bell rang. "We'll just catch up with him later." The group headed inside and went their separate ways to their first classes.
"So that was when Mr. Miller decided that we didn't have any homework for the day," Chad was saying to Andrew as they got in the lunch line.
"Nice!" Andrew replied. "I should have transferred to your classes when I had the chance." He sighed as they got their trays. He noticed something strange as they made their way through the line. Students, including Beryl, were in the kitchen at different stations serving food and drinks.
"Check out Beryl's new uniform," Chad snickered. They looked down the line and saw Beryl with her hair tied back wearing a black hairnet, plastic gloves, and a pink apron that said 'kiss the cook.' She was currently serving mashed potatoes and gravy with a scowl on her face.
"Looks like she couldn't talk herself out of that one," Andrew noted.
When they got to the mashed potatoes Chad smirked at Beryl. "So if you give me mashed potatoes do I get a kiss?" He proceeded to make smooching noises.
Beryl rolled her eyes at him and slammed a scoop of mashed potatoes onto his tray. "Go to hell," she muttered. The head lunch lady walked by just as Beryl made her comment and rolled her eyes at her. "I mean, would you like some gravy to go with that?" she asked sweetly.
"No thanks," Chad answered as he scrunched his face at the potatoes. "I didn't really want these. Can you take it back?"
"Nope, sorry. The food isn't sanitary after it touches your tray." She looked at Andrew. "Mashed potatoes?" she asked nicely.
"Not from you. You probably put laxatives in it to get back at everyone."
Beryl rolled her eyes. "I didn't cook these, moron."
The head lunch lady walked by Beryl again. "Looks like I found a volunteer for trash duty too."
"B-but…"
"But nothing. Like Ms. H. said, bullying is a serious issue and you're going to be an example of what happens when you keep doing it. Anything else?"
Beryl sighed. "No, ma'am."
Chad and Andrew laughed as they moved past her and paid for their food. "Someone needs to get a picture of her in that outfit."
"Yeah," Andrew agreed. "I wonder how long they have to work back there." They took a seat at their table and waited for their girlfriends to arrive. Andrew saw Darien sitting at the table with Serena, Lita Kingston, and Amy Anderson and was confused when he saw Lita taking out multiple dishes of food from a tote bag. He couldn't believe how much food she was taking out. She set what looked like two pies in the middle of the table and then opened a container that revealed an assorted bunch of sandwiches. She then proceeded to pass out plates and napkins and it made Andrew feel like he was in an alternate universe. There was no way a tough girl like Lita was that domesticated. It just didn't make sense.
Mina and Rae arrived at the table excitedly. "Oh, my God," Mina gushed. "Did you guys see Beryl?"
"I never thought I'd see the day," Rae added. "I took a picture when she wasn't looking and I'm totally posting it on Instagram. Hashtag: Beryl the Lunch Lady. No filter necessary."
Chad peeked over her shoulder to look at the picture and burst into laughter. "A woman after my own heart!" he exclaimed before kissing her cheek. "Send it to me. I can use it for blackmail."
A teacher was walking by the table and handed them all a flyer. "What's this?" The words 'No Bullying' was printed on top of an animated cartoon that depicted a group of kids making fun of someone else with a giant X marked through it. "Bullying in any capacity will not be tolerated in this school," Andrew read aloud. "If you see or hear of any bullying incidents please report it to a teacher or principal immediately. Any student who violates bullying policy will be forced to complete community service hours at the school."
"So is that why Beryl and her crew are serving lunches in the kitchen?" Rae asked. "Because of yesterday?"
"I guess so," Andrew said. "Hopefully she'll learn her lesson and back off."
"But it's not that serious. It's not like she beat Meatball Head up or something. It was just harmless fun."
"Well apparently it's serious enough for the principal to issue a warning so I'd be careful about posting that picture of Beryl if I were you, Rae."
"You're probably right. But I'm still keeping it just in case."
"Lita, these chicken wraps are delicious," Serena praised as she took another bite. "You brought enough to feed an entire army!"
"I can't believe you brought two pies too," Amy added. "We can't possibly eat all this in one sitting."
"Speak for yourself," Darien said as he reached for one of the pies.
Lita swatted his hand away. "Ah, ah, ah," she exclaimed. She moved his hand to the other pie. "You can eat this one." Darien removed the aluminum foil to reveal a beautiful apple pie. "This one is for you, Serena." Lita removed some of the aluminum foil from the other pie pan. "Since you missed it the first time I made you your own fruit pizza. I even put extra strawberries on it."
"Aww thank you, Lita. That's so sweet of you."
"You deserve it, girl. I felt bad about what happened to you yesterday and thought you could use some more cheering up." She rolled her eyes. "If I see Beryl I'm going to knock her out!"
"That won't be necessary, Lita," Amy said. "Beryl is already being disciplined. I heard she and everyone involved with yesterday's events are on cafeteria duty for an entire month." A teacher came to their table and handed each of them a flyer.
"Bullying in any capacity will not be tolerated in this school," Darien read aloud. "If you see or hear of any bullying incidents please report it to a teacher or principal immediately. Any student who violates bullying policy will be forced to complete community service hours at the school."
"Good," Amy exclaimed. "It's about time Ms. H. took action."
"Yeah," Lita agreed. "I'm glad something good is coming out of all of this craziness."
"Plus all this extra food," Serena added. "I think Amy is right, Lita. There's no way we're gonna be able to eat all this."
"Hello? That's why I always bring aluminum foil and Tupperware with me." She took out said foil and containers from her tote bag. "I'm always prepared."
"Why did you cook so much food in the first place?" Darien asked as he took another chicken wrap. "Not that I'm complaining."
"I was mad after you told me what happened with Beryl yesterday. And then I was downright pissed after we got that ice cream so I went home and started cooking like crazy because cooking is my stress reliever." She laughed nervously. "This is only half the food I made last night."
"Well I'm glad you took your anger out on the food and not another person," Serena said.
"Yeah, but I would have loved to rearrange Beryl's face. You should have called me for backup, Darien." Lita held her fists up. "Thunder and Lightning could have handled business while you rescued Serena."
"You've named your fists?" Amy deadpanned.
"Duh. All superheroes need cool names for their superpowers." They all shared a laugh and continued eating their lunches peacefully.
Serena and Darien were in their Sociology class listening to Mr. Peterson finish his lecture. He checked the time and smiled. "Good, five minutes of class left. Just enough time for me to pass out your next assignment." He picked up a stack of papers from his desk and handed them out. "As usual, the instructions are on the worksheet. Your reports are due by Friday and I expect to see everyone participate tomorrow. If you have any questions let me know."
"What exactly are we participating in tomorrow?" Darien asked as he received a worksheet.
Serena skimmed it then read it out loud. "Part one: watch a television show or movie and make notes about how the entertainment industry depicts social stereotypes. Part two: with your partner's help, dress like someone who does not represent your social stereotype (i.e. jock, prep, cheerleader, nerd, etc.) and report your experience. Part three: compare and contrast entertainment's depiction of social stereotypes and your personal experience living as a different stereotype."
"I think you should be a prep or a cheerleader," Darien suggested to her. "It would totally throw everyone off, but at the same time it's still you because you're always so cheerful anyway."
"Challenge accepted. I'm sure I can pull something together. I think you could totally pull off being a nerd for the day."
"Well I have some glasses I can wear, but I don't own any kind dorky clothing and I don't intend to buy a whole new outfit for one social experiment."
"I'm sure you have something in your closet you can use. It's just a matter of mixing and matching."
"Do you wanna come over and help me find something? We could also watch a show together so we can get the first part of our report out of the way."
"Good idea. And thanks to Lita we already have plenty of snacks to share."
"Sammy can come over too if he wants."
Serena laughed. "He already told me he was walking Mika to her house and he'd be over there for a few hours… you know, because they're just friends." Darien smiled at that. The final bell rang and she and Darien gathered their things. "Do you need anything from your locker?"
Darien thought for a moment as he packed his backpack. He didn't have too much homework to do since he was ahead in most of his classes anyway. But more importantly than that he still wasn't in the mood to face Andrew or his other friends and he didn't want to run the risk of running into them. "I have all I need," he finally said. "Do you need anything?"
"Not really." They left the classroom and made their way to Darien's apartment.
As soon as the final bell rang, Andrew headed to Mina's classroom to pick her up. "Thank God that's over," she said when she came out of the classroom.
"Yeah," Andrew said absently as he took her hand. He pulled her with him as he hurried to Darien's locker.
"What's the rush?" she asked as she walked faster to keep up with him.
"I want to meet up with Darien." They turned a corner where they normally saw Darien at his locker, but he was nowhere to be found. "Where is he?"
"Over there." Mina pointed towards the exit behind him. Andrew turned around just in time to see Darien leaving the school with Serena. "I told you he's ignoring us on purpose."
Andrew frowned. "I'm sure it's a big misunderstanding."
"Whatever makes you feel better," Mina muttered.
Andrew thought the same thing. As much as he wished the opposite was true his girlfriend was right. He knew something was off after school yesterday when Darien left with Serena and barely spoke to him. He tried to call and text him while he was at work to see if he could talk to him about it, but he never returned his messages. Today's events just confirmed what he was trying to deny and a bad feeling settled in the pit of his stomach. He knew a face to face confrontation was inevitable. "I'll talk to him later," he finally said. "Let's go find Rae and Chad."
After flipping through some channels, Serena and Darien decided to watch the Big Bang Theory together. Serena had never seen the show before so Darien filled her in on a few details whenever she had any questions. "I still can't believe you've never seen this before," Darien said.
"Well, my parents do put limits on what we can and cannot watch on TV," Serena replied. "It is a pretty funny show."
A knocking at the door interrupted them. "I'll be back," Darien said as he got up. He opened the door and glared at the person in front of him. "What are you doing here?"
"I can't visit my best friend?" Andrew asked. "I just want to talk. Can I come in?"
"No." Andrew gave him a confused look. "Serena is here and we're working on our homework."
Andrew looked over Darien's shoulder and saw Serena sitting on the sofa in the den laughing at something on the TV. There were snacks scattered about and she looked very comfortable there. "Yeah…you guys look so busy."
Darien rolled his eyes. "If you don't have anything important to say then you can leave."
He started to close the door until Andrew put his foot in the way. "I'm not leaving until I talk to you."
Darien sighed and bit back the sarcastic comment he wanted to make about him talking too much already. Instead he came out of his apartment and closed the door behind him. "Fine, talk."
"What the hell is wrong with you?"
Darien shrugged. "Nothing."
"Don't give me that. You're obviously mad at me about something. What did I do?"
"You didn't do anything."
"Then what's the problem?"
"You didn't do anything," he repeated. "That's the problem."
"What are you…?" Andrew stopped himself as he thought about what Darien just said. "Is this about yesterday? I already tried to explain what happened to you. We all rejected the invitation to Beryl's event and none of us went to the courtyard because we knew you'd be pissed if we did. We did that for you because you're our friend, but apparently that's not good enough because you're still pissed off."
"But you of all people knew exactly why Beryl was targeting Serena. This wasn't random. She went after her to get back at me and you didn't do anything to stop her. You may as well have gone out there with her because you're as much to blame as everyone else who actually went through with it."
"You're blowing this way out of proportion! It's not like she got hurt…"
"Are you kidding me?" Darien all but shouted. "Oh that's right you weren't there so you don't know anything. You didn't see everyone passing around that humiliating picture of her in the courtyard. You didn't see everyone laughing at her while she sat there too horrified to do anything about it. You didn't have to console her and try to convince her that everyone in the school doesn't hate her. You didn't have to watch her pretend to be brave while she explained what happened to the principal. You didn't watch her break down all over again when she turned her phone back on and saw hundreds of hateful text messages from blocked numbers while her friends were trying to cheer her up with ice cream after school. You didn't have to explain to her parents what happened to her when she didn't have the strength or energy to do it herself. So don't you dare try to tell me I'm blowing this out of proportion because Serena was in more pain than you could possibly imagine."
"Darien, I'm sorry…"
"I don't want to hear it. I'm sorry I thought I had friends I could trust to at least have the decency to help someone I clearly care about, but I guess your hate for someone who happens to be just a little different from you is much deeper than I thought." He sighed. "I'm done talking so if you'll excuse me I have homework to do." He went back into his apartment and slammed the door in Andrew's face.
"Darien, wait!"
Darien ignored him and locked the door as Andrew continued knocking. He came back into the den and took a seat next to Serena. "Is everything ok?" she asked.
"Everything's fine," he replied as he grabbed the remote and turned up the volume.
Serena looked towards the door and frowned as the knocking continued. "Who was at the door? And why are they still knocking?"
"It's no one important." The knocking finally stopped. "See? Not important."
"What happened?"
"Nothing. Are you done playing 20 questions yet?" Serena sighed. She got up and started walking away from him. Darien turned off the television and hurried after her. When he caught up he stepped in front of her to block her path. "Serena, please don't leave," he begged. "I didn't mean to snap at you like that."
"I know. You obviously need some time to process the 'nothing' that happened out there so I just got up to get a drink." She walked around him into the kitchen. Darien followed her and took a seat at the kitchen table. "Do you want anything?"
Darien watched her in amazement as she automatically took two cups out of the cupboard and made two glasses of water for them. Less than a minute ago he reverted to his old ways and blew up at her over nothing. And once again she was considerate enough to patiently put his feelings ahead of her own. He wasn't sure if he'd ever get used to her kindness but he certainly appreciated it. She took a seat next to him and placed one of the glasses in front of him. "Thank you," he said before taking a drink.
"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked after a while.
He sighed. "Sometimes it feels like there's no one I can trust. It's like what's the point if everyone I get close to eventually betrays me anyway?" He looked up at her. "But then I remember there's people like you who actually exist and thoughts about not being able to trust anyone just seem silly. I know I've put you through a lot and I don't deserve anything from you, but thank you for never giving up on me."
"I know we've been through a lot, but things have gotten better. I also know deep down beyond the tough guy act and past all that anger is something good. I still believe God isn't done with you yet and that's never going to change. That's why I won't give up on you. And no matter what happens, good or bad, you can always trust me."
"I know." She smiled at him. "So… can you help me figure out something to wear tomorrow?"
"Only if you promise me something."
"Anything."
She waited a moment. "Promise me you'll make things right with Andrew and your other friends." Darien made a face at her. "Don't look at me like that, Darien. All that anger and bitterness you're holding against them will eventually destroy you. You have to forgive them."
Darien thought about it for a moment. He knew she was right and even though he didn't want to, the way she spoke to him convinced him that he had to at least try. "Ok," he finally said.
"You promise?"
"I promise."
"Good... now do you trust me to find the right outfit for you or what?"
He smiled at her and stood up. "Follow me." He led her to his bedroom and gave her full access to his closet and drawers almost afraid of what she had in store for him.
A/N: Hope you liked it. I'm going out of town in a couple of weeks, but I'm gonna try to get another chapter up before I leave (no promises though).