Chapter Ten
Double D and Ed sat in the student's lounge while the taller of the two boys flipped through the pages of a TV guide catalog. With a marker in one hand, he combed through the book and marked movie after movie. Ever since the party both he and May had started talking more and engaged in a number of movie marathons. Double D was glad to see a friendship blossom between the two of them. Ed only deserved the best in life, and no longer living in fear of your dormmate was a comfort any of the Eds could relate with.
Ed had created a detailed list of films he considered to be essential, and with his vast knowledge on the subject it was shaping up to be quite a task. Most nights the two of them would watch a movie or two, but Double D didn't know if May was doing this because she was interested in the films and Ed's trivia or if she just enjoyed the young man's company. It seemed innocent enough regardless, and it made Ed happy, so it was alright with Double D.
The girl in question came around the corner and waved a meek greeting to the two of them. "Good afternoon, May. How was your day?" Double D asked with a smile.
"Hey Double D." she returned, "It was alright."
Upon hearing her voice Ed perked up, "May!" he shouted with an infectious smile. "You're just in time. Tonight, they're playing Lumberjack Werewolves 1 and 2!" he bounced in his seat.
May sat down next to him, "Aren't those the same movies by the guy who made Bloodbath: The Reckoning?" she asked.
"Uh-huh." Ed nodded, "He even used the same actors because nobody else would work with him."
"Well as ghastly as all of this sounds, if you two will excuse me, I have some studying to do." Double D said as he flashed them a smile. He collected his things and stood ready to retire to his room.
"Jeez Double D, dontcha ever take a break?" May asked him.
"Whatever do you mean?" he stopped.
"We just finished midterms last week. Take a break before you burn yourself out." she shrugged.
Double D chuckled. He never would have guessed a Kanker would be showing concern for his wellbeing, how the times had changed. "While I appreciate your concern, May, I must ensure you that I'm okay. This is how I relax." he replied.
"Some people have movies, like us. Double D has his books and stuff." Ed added for his friend's benefit. May seemed satisfied with his answer and waved as Double D returned the small gesture and departed down the hall that led to his room.
He opened the door and was surprised to see Marie laying on her bed with the laptop in front of her. Her eyes were narrowed and overall, she seemed displeased, to say the least. The young man greeted her but she only grunted in response, that told him all he needed to know so he sat down at his desk and opened his notebook and the corresponding textbook to go over his notes from the day.
As he progressed through the chapter, he was ripped from his thought process every time Marie swore, sighed like a train whistle, or slammed her fist into her mattress. He flinched each time and kept telling himself he should mind his own business, but with each outburst, her discomfort and frustrations were more evident and harder to ignore. Double D cursed himself for being so empathetic.
He turned in his chair to look at her. She was biting her lip and her visible eye was straining, almost bulging out of her head as she seethed with rage. "Is everything alright, Marie?" he squeaked.
"Fucking no!" she hissed without taking her eyes off of the screen.
He lowered his shoulders, he should have kept his move shut. "What's the matter?"
"It's this stupid bullshit!" she gestured at the laptop and almost smacked it in the process. It was an action that might have broken it in half given the amount of force she exuded. Before Double D could venture a response, she continued, "This stupid professor is making us do this stupid homework on the stupid computer and it's so stupid! It doesn't even work!" she emphasized her point by smashing the enter key in quick succession.
Double D pinched the bridge of his nose, "Maybe I can take a look at it." he offered.
She turned her gaze to him for the first time that evening and peered at him with a suspicious eye. "Fine." she barked, "But I'm not getting up."
Double D kicked the wheeled office chair over to her bed and she handed him the laptop. It was math related to quadratics and the formulas associated with the various types. The program gave her a problem and asked her to use the information to plug it into the graph finding the vertex and axis of symmetry. His excellent brain examined the webpage and the problem, already working out both how to use the program and to solve the problem.
"You probably can already see the problem. But for every one I get wrong, it makes me do two more." she sighed.
Edd's eyes widened as he registered the true issue. She had yet to get one of the questions right and had racked up a total of forty eight questions she had to do to pass the assignment.
"The only reason why I'm doing this bullshit is because of the stupid midterm." she muttered under her breath loud enough for Double D to hear.
"What about the midterm?" he asked.
"I kinda bombed it." she shrugged.
"You what!?" he gasped as he fell back into his chair.
"I don't need the third degree, okay? It's already enough with Lee riding my ass. I don't need you doing it. Unless I ask." she said the last part with her trademark mischievous grin.
"Why didn't you tell me, Marie?" he asked, ignoring her innuendo. "I could have helped you. We could have developed a study plan for you, there's only five weeks left in the semester and if you don't turn your grades around…" he trailed off as the implications set in, his own little world collapsed around him.
"Yeah, I know. That's why I'm trying with this stuff but math's not my thing." she pointed back at the laptop.
"It is a difficult language to learn." he muttered in agreement as he studied the problem again, "Very well Marie. I'll help you."
"I didn't ask." her eyes narrowed.
"Don't think of it as a charity or a handout. This is…one friend helping another."
"Friend?" she asked. Unimpressed.
"Of course. Despite our convoluted history together I do consider you that." he admitted. It was true. The Kankers had always given the Eds a hard time, it was a part of their dynamic. But as they had gotten more involved in their social circle over the course of high school, Double D started to notice something much to his distress. The Kankers were always there, but they were loyal and devoted. Any one of them would do anything for their muse. It was both embarrassing and comforting knowing he fell under their umbrella of protection.
"You can't friendzone me."
"Let's just focus on the problems." he redirected.
She took the laptop from him, "Don't worry about it. You've got your own stuff goin' on."
"Not enough that I can't help a friend."
"Oh come on, I've seen your complicated day planner. You have everything planned out by the hour." he looked at her with a confused expression, "I go through your stuff when you're not around." she explained with a shrug.
His eyes almost shot out of his head, "Marie!" he shouted.
"Relax, it's not anything new. I've been going through your stuff since we were kids." she winked.
Double D sighed again and tried to redirect the conversation, "I assure you, Marie, I can take the time to help you. The sooner we start the better, and considering time is against us we should get started now."
"It's cool. Don't worry about it."
"I most certainly am worried about it. These grades may not seem like much now, but this is your future we're talking about."
"Yeah, I get that. But…" she trailed off.
"But what?"
"It's not like it really matters, at the end of the day."
"So, you keep telling me. I'm struggling to understand your reasoning."
"You wouldn't get it." She sank down into her bed. Marie didn't like being put under a microscope, by anyone. Double D was just better at putting her in that situation than most.
"I can try." he said. His voice was steady and quiet. It wasn't his usual tone, it was softer, with more emotion packed into it. She could count on her fingers the number of times she'd heard him use this tone in their seven years of knowing each other, but she knew what it meant and the connotations it carried.
She clamped her eyes shut and released the most dramatic and overblown sigh she could muster. This wasn't a conversation she wanted to have with anyone, not really. But with him, it would only be that much more difficult. He was sweet and smart, but this was a concept she knew his powerful mind wouldn't be able to process.
"It doesn't matter because it doesn't." she relented after struggling to put the right words together. Double D only cocked an eyebrow and gave her a quizzical expression, so she continued. "I'm not you. I'm not Nazz. I'm not that guy from back home who always wore that stupid red hat. I'm me. I don't come from a happy middle-class family in the cul-de-sac. I don't come from any sort of pedigree or money, and I don't bring anything to the table. My grades were shit in high school, I probably skipped more days than I showed up, I come from a broken home with an alcoholic mom who depended on child support checks from a trio of deadbeats who missed more payments than they came through on."
She paused and tried to gauge his reaction but for his part, he sat there, an unreadable expression on his face as the wheels turned behind his eyes. He was listening and thinking, considering what she said, and trying to understand it. She couldn't even pretend to hate him for being such a good guy, even though at times like this she wished she could.
"I'm not trying to ask for pity or for you to feel sorry for me. It is what it is. Hell, you already knew all of this. People like me don't get the happy ending. We don't get to run away to college and get a degree and start making money. When you're poor you stay poor. There's not a light at the end of the tunnel for me, and there's no pot of gold at the end of my rainbow." she admitted. As much as these thoughts and insecurities played in her mind every day saying them was proving to be a challenge. She cleared her throat and struggled to swallow the emotions that were beginning to bubble to the surface.
"What about your sisters?" he asked after a brief pause. It was simple and honest. Double D to his core, always worried about everyone around him.
"Same thing, but I can't rain on their parade. Lee's convinced this is how we pull ourselves out of it, and May's just happy enough being along for the ride. I'm more realistic than they are. I know that this isn't going to work out." she whispered the last sentence. The strain of saying it too much to bear.
"But you made it this far." the boy offered.
"Yeah, by the skin of our teeth. We're only here because of grants and stuff. Once those dry up there's no way any of us could afford to go here. And that's assuming they don't kick us out for other reasons. Like grades, or attendance, or attitude problems. They'll make up some bullshit reason to kick us out."
"How can you say that?"
She laughed, it wasn't a loud or boisterous laugh. It was a quiet and sad one. "You don't see it because you can't. You're smart and handsome as all get out. You're a nice guy from a nice family in a nice neighborhood. You don't see how other people look at us because they've never looked at you like that. When you come from where I came from people have expectations for you. That you'll get pregnant by some scumbag, be destitute your whole life, and never make it out of the trailer park and that's what everybody wants. Hell, it's amazing the three of us made it through high school."
"I don't understand."
"That's what I'm saying. Look, I suck at explain' things, but there's nothin' I could say that would help you understand it because it's the kind of thing you have to experience to understand."
He dropped his gaze as the gears turned in his head.
"I knew coming into this thing with the expectation that it would be a semester or two of fun at most. The best case for me is that I find a job that pays more than minimum wage and don't get addicted to anything too hard. I'm not going to be some…thing. I'm not going to be anything. You, I mean you were the valedictorian, top of our class, you're going places. People are lookin' at you, waitin' on you to do something great. I know I am. But for every one of you, there is…there's the kids who don't exactly check any of those boxes. Half the teachers back in Peach Creek probably expect me to be in jail by now."
A moment of silence filled the room and Marie struggled to keep her emotions in check and Double D performed the mental gymnastics to wrap his head around something even he knew he couldn't understand. But, whenever he encountered a problem he couldn't think his way through it become more than a problem, it became a challenge, and in this regard, he never balked at challenges. This was his wheelhouse. Eddy had a knack for coming into money, for better or worse, and Ed had more knowledge about movies and cinema than anyone else he knew, on top of his impressive physical feats. Double D was the thinker, he was the brains of the operation and if anyone was equipped to handle this, it was him.
"It doesn't have to be that way." he muttered but found his mouth drier than he had first expected. She chuckled and shook her head, but before she could reply he continued, "I can help you. Together we can get your grades up and with the right degree you'll be able to have significantly more options than you have right now."
"But it doesn't matter. You help me through this semester? Awesome. But that's just buying me time. The grades are just a part of it. They'll find a way to get rid of me when the time comes. If it's not grades it'll be something else."
"How can you be so sure?"
"We're talking in circles at this point." she sighed.
Double D decided that he needed to change up his strategy. She wasn't going to let him try and use his logic because she didn't think it applied to her situation. That was something he struggled to understand, but it seemed like to him she had given up before she had even started. So that meant he would have to convince her to stay for reasons other than the ones he thought were valuable. If she had already banished the thought of high education, expanding her knowledge, and getting a degree he would have to divert her attention to something else.
"So, you're just going to give up?" he asked. It got her attention. She might not be movable on one front, but that didn't mean her walls couldn't be broken through from a different angle.
Her eyes narrowed and her lips tightened into a razor thin line as she eyed him with contempt. Double D might not have known much about her on a personal level and his knowledge regarding the opposite sex was limited as best, but he did know she was a Kanker, and Kankers were stubborn.
"You're just going to let them win? To let them tell you what you are and can be?"
She clenched her jaw as he continued to challenge her. Out of all the strategies she could have thought he'd take this one wasn't even in the same galaxy. Universe. Hell, it wasn't even in the same reality.
"I thought you were more determined than that Marie." he added as he shifted his weight and turned in his chair before he rolled it back to his desk, "I never would have guessed you would have been the type to give up so easily." he added the cherry to the top and fought the urge not to grin when he heard her jump up from the bed. He'd have to thank Eddy, and maybe Jimmy for that matter, for showing him that sometimes a more cunning solution was the right way.
She slammed both of her hands onto his shoulders and spun him around, stopping him when he faced her. She still wore her agitated expression and she moved less than an inch away from his face. "Fine." she spat, "Do your damn thing."
Double D tried not to let his pleasure for himself show. He wasn't the type to be smug, but sometimes it was a hard feeling to flush in the face of victory. Instead, he decided to pour his happiness and enthusiasm into teaching her what she needed to know. He was going to be the best teacher he could be, and he was going to convince her she could succeed in college if it was the last thing he did and considering who he was dealing with, that was a possibility.