"Temptations. They're everywhere around us. Every day, we come face to face with temptation."
The narration on the old video was dour and extremely serious. There was not a speck of humor to be found in the darkened room.
The protagonist of the grainy film was sporting a haircut that could only be described as a feathered helmet— he was supposed to represent the average American teen. He was being lured with an over-the-shoulder shot of a busty woman offering him a cigarette… Or it could have been marijuana, but honestly, with the film's age, it was anyone's guess.
He was supposed to reflect the room.
Yet the room was mostly girls, a handful of boys, most of them young men of color from working-class families.
How relatable…
Danny took stock of the bored and partially tense expressions painting each face.
Kwan was yawning behind him, and Wes had been distracted by picking at the scratches on his face.
The only one with any passing interest in the film was Star. She was a straight-A student, and her unstoppable, naive enthusiasm had to have been to blame. Paulina, meanwhile, had been absentmindedly filing her nails; she was mostly a straight-A student because she sat next to Star.
Some brave souls who attempted to lighten the mood would probably be met with the cracking sound of Ms Testlaff's swagger stick against their desk.
"My girl— talkin' bout my girl…" Tucker crooned in a near spot-on impression of The Temptations.
As you can imagine, Tucker was the one with the most frequent strikes.
This wisecrack would probably be the least offensive reference he'd make all day, but nonetheless, this earned a cold glare from beyond Testlaff's aviators.
This prompted Sam to rummage through her bag to find something to stuff in her partner's mouth. Which, by all means, he didn't mind. It ended up being a loosely wadded algebra packet and fruit leather.
It's not an exceptionally hard film to make fun of, either. It was likely a rerecording of an even older movie, only transferred onto VHS for budget and necessity. Danny honestly expected the movie to delve into how the effects of 'reefer' would jeopardize the protagonist's ability to participate in the draft.
"But Stella, the prom's tomorrow!"
"All the more reason to have some fun tonight, Tommy! We should meet Steve at the docks to get the real stuff."
The ghost boy felt his face involuntarily contort into a grimace.
What is it about clearly thirty-year-old actors in bad wigs trying to cling to their youth?
The last time he watched something this cheesy, he was at the drive-in with Dash. The guy seemed to have this schadenfreude for old movies that no one else in their peer group possessed.
Paying a glance to his class partner, Baxter's paper was completely blank. The jock was loosely holding his pencil, it rested on the sheet not moving. Still staring at the desk, completely shell-shocked.
Compelled to speak, Danny attempted, "Dash, are you—"
From the front of the room, Ms Testlaff snapped, "No talking!"
With a scowl, the ghost boy scoffed—
Retrieving his binder from the corner of the table, Danny fingered through the poorly organized contents to get to where he kept his loose-leaf notebook paper. He hastily tore a sheet off, not even caring of the contents on it.
The film interjected with its hamfisted narration, "Uh-oh. Looks like Tommy is face to face with temptation itself, and it looks exactly like a 'good' time with his girlfriend."
Give me a break… The ghost boy thought with indifference to the screen as he started scribbling his note down. His nose scrunched up in a mixture of embarrassment and disgust, like the movie was rotting before them.
There was a scatter of similar reactions throughout the room.
Dash, reacting to the film, rubbed his eyes, squeezing his tear ducts— he sighed. His expression softened upon finding Danny handed him a piece of paper, before squinting to read the text.
Guilt gnawed at the back of Danny's neck as he realized Dash must've taken out his contacts last night.
Yeah, of course he did, idiot, he was gonna go to bed before you showed up—
He adjusted the paper in his hands, getting it close to his face.
Clearing his throat, Danny's gaze locked back onto the projector—
"Temptation wears many masks in order for you to fall under its control. And that's why you have to remember about the power of no."
The next cut of the film followed the young man returning to his car and leaving his girlfriend behind, as the title card dropped. Like the narrator and tone of the film, the title font was uniform, clean, and precise.
In the dim light of the classroom, the ghost boy could see Testlaff mouthing along to the narration. He could have sworn he saw her mouth curl into the 'o' shape for 'no'.
Danny couldn't believe it. He refused to believe that he was actually supposed to take this seriously. His face sank further against the fist he used to prop up his head.
Something nudged his shoulder—
Dash had returned the note.
"It's hard hearing that you've reached your max potential before you're even allowed to drive, but thanks for the concern, spaceman."
"You look like you had just as bad a night as I did."
There were no cutesy embellishments or flourishes, no doodles hidden in the margins.
The honeymoon phase ended abruptly.
Like a bird being downed and skidding across a road. It felt like Dash's warmth was flickering; it was changing.
Danny felt his posture straighten at the bluntness of the message. He grabbed his pencil and hurriedly scribbled another vague lie.
"I was having trouble sleeping. I was thinking about grades, about you—"
He tried to show some restraint, and erased frequently, conflicted on what he could say.
"—'n crap. Wes got put in the same class I did."
That sounded believable. He folded the paper and passed it back, watching Dash intently.
Dash unfolded the note, his expression undecipherable. He read it, then looked away. A muscle in his neck seemed to flex and tense—
Is he buying this? Danny wrung his hands, quietly toying with the remnants of the paper stuck in his binder. Shredding a discarded worksheet.
He glanced at the screen.
"When you reach the age of independence, you have to remember there's no do-overs in the game of life."
The film faded up on some guy sitting backwards in a metal folding chair in painfully high shorts— he was wearing some kind of sports uniform. His afro was cut into a dated blocky style and had a bumblebee yellow pick comb stuck into it.
"Hi. I'm Vern Valentine— or as you know me on the court, "Velvet" and I play for the Michigan Pistons."
"So, you're growing up," Vern began, catching a ball that was thrown to him from off-screen.
"And just like in basketball, you gotta learn to play the game. That means understanding your body and knowing how to protect yourself. Now, there are some nasty opponents out there, like… STDs. Chlamydia, Herpes, Gonorrhea, Syphilis and the big one, AIDS—"
OH SWEET MERCIFUL CHRIST— Danny was feeling his blood pressure fluctuating with alarming speed, the pressure in his chest so intense it felt like his ribs might crack. If he wasn't clinging to the last frayed thread of his composure, a hysterical laugh, the kind that signals a complete unraveling of his sanity in the face of this utterly absurdist week he was experiencing. Danny was sure this was what it was to be drunk, or on morphine— he couldn't be completely sure.
Good news, he was about to find out.
"They can really foul you up. So, remember, kids always use a rubber. It's like a good zone defense. It'll keep those opponents from scoring."
Vern grinned, his face lighting up the grainy, fuzzy film, then bounced the basketball a few times. "And if you ever find yourself in a tight spot, remember the power of 'no.' It's like a game-winning block."
No one dared to even smirk at the onslaught of sports puns.
Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh… Danny desperately wanted to let his head fall on his desk. He kept stealing back to Dash with an unaffected and defeated glazed-over look on his face.
From the corner of the room, Sam pointed out, "Didn't Velvet Valentine get suspended on drug charges…?"
A projectile from the front of the room was hurled at her, causing several students to duck, except Dash.
Tucker made sure to pull her out of the line of fire.
"Today, we're gonna be talking about some important stuff…" Vern's monologue continued, you could almost believe he wasn't reading off cue cards and speaking from the heart.
"Like hormonal changes and how you start growin' hair in places you wouldn't thought possible—"
There was another soft nudge on Danny's shoulder.
Dash slid the note back.
The ghost boy tore into it— a pulse thrumming in his ears.
"Did you want me to 'talk' to Wes?"
Danny tried to be relieved… But couldn't. The sudden coldness in the jock's eyes made his stomach drop. His physicality was completely rigid, he refused to make eye contact.
This felt like a huge step backward. Danny was sure this wasn't the kind of guy Dash wanted to be. He knew it.
Was Danny turning him into this? Like he had with Valerie?
This was a new fear that whispered to him, and it was going to claw its way to consume all of his thoughts.
After taking several moments to process the message, the ghost boy blinked and picked up his pencil.
"No, it's fine, Dash, I can handle Wes. Don't worry about it—"
He found himself erasing and struggling over the shape of his words. Danny never once paid any attention to the neatness of his handwriting before, but it suddenly occurred to him how illegible his chicken scratch was.
Everything was fine. It had to be.
Pressing harder and harder on the pencil, Fenton finally addressed it in some capacity, "What happened last night?"
Danny had to know. He had to hear it from Dash.
What did he think happened?
With trembling hands, he folded the note over and passed it back.
His gaze fixed on the grainy image of Vern Valentine, who was now demonstrating the proper way to 'palm a basketball' while discussing the importance of self-esteem and confidence. According to the PSA, they were something that the youth severely lacked, like potassium and vitamin D, both of which can be found in whole milk. That started a chain of whispers about the factual accuracy of the lesson.
The timing of this situation could not have been worse if he tried.
Velvet continued to outline the sections and chapters of the film, and it was beginning to sink in how long an hour class period could feel.
Just answer me.
Danny couldn't control his leg bouncing underneath the table. He tried to rest it against the table, only to cause the whole thing to shake.
Answer me. Answer me. Answer me.
He was terrified of the response, but he was certain he would die without it. That was the frenzy, born from the cold fire of guilt, that threatened to consume him.
Please…
Danny kept repeating a prayer for absolution. He didn't even notice when his lips began to move imperceptibly.
"One of the first things you notice with puberty is your heightened emotions. Suddenly, things that meant nothing now mean everything." Vern continued his diatribe in a charismatic severity, not losing a smile that emanated an approachability to the subject matter, "Everything starts to make you sweat."
"What shouldn't ever be a worry is those you surround yourself with, ya dig? In this presentation, we will be covering how to identify good influences in your life with some trust exercises you can practice at school, church, and at home."
Dash chuckled sardonically at this statement. Really, it was barely perceivable as a laugh, more like a frustrated nasal sigh— that expelled more air than it retrieved.
At the noise, Fenton perked up. Desperate for any sign of a response.
From behind them, Wes mumbled to himself before leaning back in his chair and kicking Danny's, "This is such a crock—"
Testlaff hushed the crowd of students growing restless and confused, her swagger stick tapping ominously in her palm.
Rolling his pencil into his palm, Dash began to write. Danny became fixated on his hands, taking in every detail about them. The veins, the bruises, the chipped black nail polish he never seemed to notice before. He was surprised by the golden ring with the green gem in a teardrop cut, as it didn't seem to fit Dash… though he seemed to have a more vintage sense of style.
Danny hypothesized that it must have belonged to his mother. Maybe a habit he picked up to feel closer to her despite her absence. It was the kind of observation Jazz would make, so he was certain it had to be corr—
The ghost boy peered over his shoulder to see Dash etch the words onto the page—
"You probably already know."
…
At least, that's what Danny thought it said as his vision started to wane and blur. What little light there was from the projector was dizzying. So he elected to shut his eyes tight. The ghost boy secretly hoped that when he opened them again, he would be somewhere else entirely.
Everything slowed to a halt.
Nausea waltzed with his throbbing migraine. Colors flickered and danced against his eyelids.
That gentle nudge against his shoulder came, and Danny clasped his hand tightly around the note. He crumpled it within his fist. And together it landed on the desk with a muted thud.
Danny knew what it said.
He knew.
To look again would only confirm the hurt, the sharp twisting pain in his gut.
A breath hit his ear. "Everything good?"
In a clenched reply, Danny forced out a murmured, "Ye—Yeah. Yeah, just a headache, Dash…"
How could he ask? Is he playing with me at this point?
There's no possible way he could have figured it out, the guy barely passed sixth-grade algebra.
He's a moron! Certifiably!
Even if I were to come out and say in no uncertain terms and say I was the Phantom, he would never believe me.
Against his will, Fenton found his teeth grinding together.
… He's just being Dash.
And that thought persisted.
If Dash did know, would he try to get a reaction out of me like this?
Gently, the quarterback had extended his pinkie finger of his right hand to brush against Danny's left.
The smallest of gestures.
It was a moment of comfort allowed under the eyes of everyone around them.
It was breathing room.
… I'm such a jackass.
Danny exhaled a sigh and finally caught Dash's glance in the darkened classroom. Dash couldn't force a smile to placate Danny, but it was comforting nonetheless, just to see his eyes.
Despite everything, he must really, truly like me…
I can't keep doing this.
Hesitantly, Danny reciprocated the gesture.
"Now, kids, sometimes you gotta face the music. You can't pretend everything's fine when it's not."
Vern Valentine had stood from his metal chair, swinging his leg over the seat and spinning the ball on his pointer finger.
"You can't dribble around the truth, 'cuz then you'll get called for traveling."
…
The film passed.
Kidney stones pass similarly. Every minute dragged, stewed, and steeped in a clammy room. Every second seemed to last an embarrassing eternity. Yet somehow it all stood still. How was it still nine-forty-seven in the morning?
How is there still twenty more minutes of class?
During the matinee of the miracle of birth, followed by an animated examination of how sperm cells penetrate an ovum—
Wait, isn't this out of order?
Coach Testlaff began handing out even more paperwork and little boxes in the dark room. It brought to mind that thing the priests do at Tucker's church while they comb through the aisle, wielding a swinging pendulum of incense. But instead of cleansing the space and providing calm, it just told Danny the torture was to continue.
Danny feared opening those little cardboard boxes more so than a coffin.
God, I miss the Box Ghost. Truly.
When the lights came on, both boys were still… not exactly holding hands.
There was still hesitancy on Danny's part to pull away, but he was still the first to retreat to his side of the desk. While Dash didn't even flinch at the light.
As the credits played, the synth music gradually faded, and Testlaff stepped out from behind her desk. She clapped her hands together to announce the next task: contraceptives.
"Now, wasn't that just a blast? And only one kid threw up this time. Who had Kenzie in the barf pool?"
A small scattering of students raised their hands, including Paulina, who was preoccupied with her nails—
Ms Testlaff rested her hands on her hips, "Alright, I owe all of you at least a dollar twenty-five. I was for sure thinking Mikey would be the squelcher…"
"Hey!"
"Well, can you blame me, Mikey— look at you!" Ms Testlaff lowered her glasses very briefly to more accurately insult one of her students.
You had to wonder if European schools were better or if this was just how nature conditioned the beast known as the high school physical education teacher—
Testlaff looked at her clipboard, "In the first desk column, you and your desk partner will be going over the pros and cons of oral birth control."
She then walked to the second column, "For you lot, in your boxes you will be going over vaginal implants and their symptoms."
Danny could have sworn he heard a boy openly weeping towards the back row.
Barking, Coach Tetslaff detested any sign of emotion in her general vicinity, "There's no crying in baseball or in this classroom!"
Under his breath, Fenton asked his class partner, "How do you put up with this every day?"
Dash sighed humorously, "It's amazing what you get used to."
The gym teacher proceeded on her path forward, before addressing Danny's row, "Column three! In your boxes, you will be figuring out how to use condoms, and you will be able to address the pros and cons by the end of your time here."
Great— the ghost boy thought.
This is gonna cause some kind of spiral, because I was already thinking about Dash's breath on my neck an—
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH—
Danny quickly kicked his shin into the table leg.
"Fenton!"
"Ye-yes! Yes? …Coach T?" With a hiss of pain, Danny pulled his head from glaring at the table to face his gym teacher and peers staring at him like he was housing a chest burster.
He had the feeling he spoke too loudly, from all the confused glances in his direction.
Ms Testlaff snorted, "Try to stay awake for this one, alright?"
The ghost boy groused before hunching further over his desk in pain, "Yes… Coach T."
Going forward with her lesson plan, Testlaff barreled along.
Her final stop was row four, Sam and Tucker in the first chair.
"Column Four, you will notice that you have no boxes. That is because your method of contraception is abstinence. You, along with your table partner, will continue as normal and present your findings with the rest of the class tomorrow, all without talking or mentioning sex in any way."
To this, Sam immediately stood up, "Wait, that's not fair! How are we supposed to complete the lesson without talking about sex?"
Her demands fell on the apathy of her fellow students.
The class all collectively groaned. There was no escape from Sam Manson's soapbox.
Ms Testlaff crossed her arms. She often butted heads with the goth, so this was to be expected. Didn't matter what it was— uniform violations, lack of effort, lack of enthusiasm with any effort provided, listening to music to make the task of exercise slightly more bearable, etcetera.
"That's the challenge, Ms Manson. You and Mr Foley have to get creative. Think interpretive dance. Think mime. Think… the power of suggestion." She suggested nonchalantly, "Y'know, body language."
Cheeks completely flushed, Sam's frustration and mortification hit a boiling point: "That's completely asinine!"
Tucker was scanning over their assignment sheets, letting his class partner argue their grade from an A down to a C.
"Abstinence is not only not a method of contraception— it's sided against women, rooted in archaic religious structure!"
Nodding from his seat, Tucker snapped his fingers supportively while wondering how he was gonna fake Sam's handwriting for this assignment—
Sam argued impassionedly, "I believe in sexual liberation for women, and I should have the right to sleep with whoever I want!"
Tucker tore his eyes away from the worksheets. You could've sworn his eyes were about to bulge from his head. He was relaxed and leaning back in his chair, to nearly falling out of it.
Ms Testlaff pinched her tear ducts and stood on her exasperated hill, "Ms Manson, my curriculum doesn't have a chapter about 'religious structure'— it's a chapter around 'preventing unwanted pregnancies' —"
"If that were true, shouldn't we be covering abortions?!" Sam slammed her palm on her desk, emphasizing her point, "Abstinence doesn't protect anyone from assault! It's just about taking autonomy away from women through outdated morality."
As the argument continued, students kept bouncing back between the participants.
A student from the back, Isaiah Henley, some jock that was on the football team with Dash, barely a background character stepped out from behind his desk in the fourth row, "Okay, Manson we get it— you want to slut it up."
This caused an outburst of nervous laughter and eyerolls among the crowd.
"But for the love of God, can we get on with this?!"
The weight of the disruption shifted back to Sam, the class awaiting a snarky reply, but she was already so worked up— she could keep arguing, make no mistake about that. Sam could argue a topic until the heat death of the universe, but she needed to prep for a new opponent.
—This time, Tucker was the one to get out of his chair. In his rush, he almost threw the chair into the desk behind him, and he turned around. No one seemed to expect that. He hesitated slightly, glancing at Sam, before she gave a small nod.
With the goahead, Foley calmly articulated, "She has a point, dickhead. We don't need anymore brain dead sexist mouth-breathers like you running around. So maybe you might need more of an idea on what to do with a girl than just pray and wish— huh? Implying that you could pull any tail besides Pritchett's leftovers, of course."
A few people who could read between the lines let out some scandalized awe.
Simultaneously, Kwan and Dash let out a quiet, "Damn…"
Which certainly didn't help Henley beat the no bitches allegation.
The geek paid another look in the goth's direction, and this earned him a snort of approval from her.
"Sam's just looking out for us. If y'all weren't so afraid of your nonexistent junk, you might realize that." Tucker crossed his arms and popped his beret up with his thumb.
Danny was startled by Tucker's sudden confidence. Perhaps Sam was rubbing off on him?
Unexpectedly, Dash clapped in response with a light chuckle, probably the happiest Danny had seen him all morning, "Hell yeah."
This caused Paulina and Kwan to look at each other, communicating something silently. Probably that they need to check Dash into the nearest ward.
Danny perched his brows in bewilderment— since when did he care about Sam's tangents?
"Ooooh, like I'm scared of Foley and his freaky little girlfriend. Can't either of you just put a cork in it for one class period?!"
With the sharp bleat of her whistle, all eyes fell on Testlaff again.
Everyone except Dash, Kwan, and Wes grabbed their ears in pain—
Testlaff wet her lips before letting the whistle fall against her chest, "ALRIGHT! ENOUGH!"
There was a beat of silence. Silence thick enough to have spread on a morning everything bagel with a side of coffee. Which happened to be brazenly on display at Testlaff's desk.
"Any more name-calling or theatrics, and you will be running laps until your knees give out! I wanna see butts in seats, and heads down! Understand?!"
No one uttered a word as Testlaff returned to her station.
"I expect these presentations to be done by tomorrow morning, you have the rest of class to work on it." She began to gesticulate wildly like trying to inspire a herd of idle sheep to move out of the road, "Go! Go! Go!"
With the outline and stakes eloquently delivered, all the students broke frantically into their pairings and started on the assignment. The silence filled like sands in the hourglass with the sound of paper rippling and fluttering— pencils scribbling away in desperate attempts to appear busy.
Dash and Danny's gazes snagged on each other, a brief, uncomfortable tether in the lull of class, like accidentally brushing hands in the dark. It was a look that said 'We have to talk— we need to talk, but not now… not ever maybe.'
Neither one of them moved to open the box with the tension between them.
Gingerly, Danny broached the topic at hand, "So…"
"Yeah…" Dash nodded, his voice thick in a slight downward inflection.
Behind them, Wes and Kwan were getting started on their project.
"Aw, man, how am I supposed to make a balloon dog with this?" Kwan tore into his table's package and was disappointed by the flimsy plastic rings.
Weston wasn't disappointed as he was completely boggled— "What am I even looking at?" He poked at the flexible disc and inspected the tube that came with it, turning it over in his hand.
Squinting at the label, he read aloud, "Spermicide…?"
Adjusting her sneakers out of the way, having propped them up on her desk, Testlaff elaborated with a shrug, "I ran out of fake fruit, so you and Byun-Ji are studying the female condom, I repurposed some yogurt containers from the teacher's lounge so you could practice inserting them that way."
Both boys dropped the box's contents back onto the desk in horror—
"Insert it? Where? Into what?" Wes quietly scavenged around the kit for more clues.
Some girls from the first row giggled at their incompetence.
"It's probably better that way, all I had left was a fake carrot and eggplant— and I really didn't feel like fielding any questions about that." Testlaff had on a knowing smirk as she looked over her clipboard and began to eat her bagel.
"I'd better been the eggplant," Kwan grumbled under his breath.
Wes found the case the discs came in and opened a compartment at the bottom, "Hold it, I-I think I found the directions."
Discovering the slip of paper, Wes unfolded it. And unfolded it again. And unfolded it some more until he was wrestling with a sheet that covered the table with something that more resembled a road map than steps any adult was expected to follow.
"Are you looking at it upside down?" The linebacker asked.
Wes scratched his head, "I-I can't tell, dude. These look like instructions for building a spaceship, not—" Wes adjusted his posture, having lost track of their project pieces already, "Not whatever this… weird disc thing is."
"Bro, it's not a PlayStation—"
Now having a different angle on the illustration, Wes pointed at a particularly confusing section of swirling lines, "Is… is this supposed to be the vagina or…?"
"Wait—" Peering over Wes' shoulder, Kwan pointed at a completely different part of the drawing, "Then what's this?"
"Wh-What is that?" Wes placed a finger on the page and attempted to trace a line to a description.
"It's not rocket science, gentlemen, thousands of women do it every day. Just follow the pictures." Testlaff offered unhelpful encouragement from a distance.
"Which way is supposed to be up?" Wes frustratedly rotated the whole sheet around the table—
Kwan was growing impatient with the whole thing, and attempted to attach the diaphragm to the outside of the container, only to have it slip off anticlimactically, "I just wanted to make balloons! Ugh!"
Dash couldn't help but snicker at the antics surrounding them, a manic but genuine release of pressure, "Oh my god, this is so stupid."
The knot in Danny's chest loosened at the sound. He tried for an awkward smile, "I don't know how you're still laughing."
"It's… It's just the juxtaposition of my life," He admitted wearily, his shoulders trembling, with more laughter and an unfathomable amount of nerves.
"Almost get murdered by a ghost at night, next day it's—" Dash pointed with his pencil at the box between them, "it's this."
"If I don't laugh, then… wh-what else can I do?" The jock rubbed at his bleary eyes, before letting out dry humorless chuckles— he was resigned to the hysteria.
Does he think I was trying to—?
"Uh…" Danny wanted to correct him— he absolutely had to. He had to exercise every part of his being not to come straight out and say he was the Phantom of Amity Park out loud.
Cracking open the box, Danny figured it was better to dive in head first than to linger on that question.
Spilling the contents onto the table, there were a few long ribbons with a variety of condoms. Flavored, Scented, Ribbed, Textured, Latex, Lambskin, Warming.
Warming?
The image of it all burned into Danny's mind. He pushed a large sigh from his chest and got to work.
Dash curled his nose at the now sarcastic amount of condoms decorating their desk, before remarking, "Well, I guess we're really gonna get to know each other now, huh?"
He poked at a lambskin one, "You think this is what Nine Inch Nails was talking about in Closer?"
The unexpected joke caused Danny to fluster, "Since—since when do you listen to Nine Inch Nails?"
Dash fiddled with the wrapper, trying to find the opening, "Since the CD store takes US currency, Fenton."
"Well, the—the goal of the assignment is to find the one with the best odds of preventing STDs and pregnancy, and then put that one on the…" The ghost boy trailed off when he picked up the plastic banana on the table, before quickly deciding against it, "The model."
"So, that would eliminate anything flavored or scented, 'cuz that stuff just screams cheap and itchy like a five-alarm fire," Baxter stated while propping his face on his hand.
"R-Right." Danny couldn't maintain prolonged eye contact while they were talking about this. So, instead, he kept counting the speckles along the ceiling tiles. He scratched the back of his head and fidgeted.
He couldn't look at Dash, haunted by the image of his thoughts squeezing through a pinhole in his mind, only to bloom into unwanted revelations projected onto the back of his head.
What if he knows I'm a liar?
You're a fraud— you're a fraud.
What if he knows I'm thinking about him now, all the time?
Oh my god, Creep. You're a creep.
What if he knows how I think about him?
Convinced his thoughts weren't contained within his skull, but leaking out, puddling around them on the floor.
"Um… the latex ones are considered the safest option. But overall, there's still a twenty-five percent chance of failure across the board."
"Guess that rules out the glow-in-the-dark ones too—" Dash sighed, in a dramatic, put-upon fashion, "Which is a shame 'cuz they would really bring out your eyes."
A strangled gasp caught in Danny's throat, halfway between a laugh and a hitched breath. A small crack in his carefully composed and constructed wall of indifference from a very odd kind of compliment.
"Dash," He uttered, when he regained enough sense to speak.
In reply, Baxter absentmindedly asked, "Yeah?"
Unaware that he said anything off-color.
"Do you think you can do this…" Fenton leaned back in his chair, softly he offered, "I-I can take over if you—"
Abruptly, Dash's hands stopped toying with the kit, "S-sorry, sorry… I can— I'll be serious."
The jock scooted in his chair and adjusted his posture to show his commitment, "Serious as a heart attack. Promise."
"Alright… then let's have a heart attack." Danny reviewed the directions for the assignment.
"It says we have to read all the instructions on each sleeve carefully, and test each one for the breakage point before putting it on the… " Danny's glance fell on the fake fruit, "The thing."
With raised brows, Baxter blinked, "breakage point?"
"I-I dunno, I guess we have to… stress test them?"
"... huh."
The awkward silence between them came crawling back. Well, save for Danny's knee bouncing against the table with the steady beat of a tattoo gun.
…
They exchanged a look of mutual, almost comical bewilderment at the sheer absurdity of what they were expected to do.
One of them should probably do… something.
Dash picked up a bandolier of the latex ones and squinted at a wrapper—
"C-Carefully… " He tilted his head this way and that, the tiny print blurring into an indecipherable mess without his usual eyewear. Dash couldn't grasp the shape of the words.
"... Wow, this is… I-I can't uh…"
Gently chastising his partner, Fenton held out his hand to take the package from him, "Okay, the one with the eyes should take the lead, and I guess you can be the hands."
Dash snorted at this and adjusted his chair to face Danny, handing him one of the condoms by ripping it off the ribbon. In passing it along, Dash scooted closer, placing his hand on the back of Danny's chair, and leaned against the table, so they could both read it.
That wall of composure was all but demolished by the casualness of the quarterback. Clearing his throat, Danny now had to cope with having his chair invaded— "Uh—Okay, so you're gonna sit… There now. That's fine… that's cool… Okay— um… So, uh 'Step one: carefully tear open the wrapper.'"
The ghost boy's internal monologue screamed otherwise, every nerve ending suddenly hyper-aware of Dash's proximity.
"Cool. Cool. Cool." Dash repeated while fiddling with another one of the packages. Fumbling with the peel-away tabs. Pawing at it, the slick plastic offered absolutely no purchase.
"Oh yeah, I think I'm… beginning to understand how I was conceived because these things are—" After his nail failed again to make contact with the tab, instead scratching the skin of his fingers, Dash frustratedly closed his eyes and laughed, "These things are deceptively complicated."
Danny couldn't help but chuckle too. Nervous in the hope that it wouldn't betray the lump in his throat, and every guilt-laced apology would just come tumbling out in a stew of word vomit.
Taking the condom wrapper between his teeth, Dash tore it open across the top, spitting the spiked edge of the seam on the floor like it was sunflower seeds ejected with the practiced precision of being bored at the bottom of the ninth inning.
"Alright, what's next, boss?" The quarterback then paused briefly, furrowing his brow, "Okay, I see why these have flavors now, cuz the standard edition—"
Danny's face flushed a new shade of furious crimson— and he was deeply certain that his eyes were flashing green on top of that.
"Moving on!"
Behind them, Wes and Kwan were still grappling with the female form. Judging by the increasingly panicked screams and yelling, it was not going well.
"No, you have to apply the cream first and then insert it, dumbass!"
"Don't yell at me!"
Wes' white-knuckle iron-grip on the instructions for the diaphragm had rendered them even more incomprehensible. It was stuck in a permanent crumple. He wailed, "Where's the arrow? Where's the stupid friggin' arrow?"
While handling the Spermicide cream, Kwan squeezed too hard on the tube, causing it to explode the paste onto his clean black shirt that his mom ironed for him— "ARE YOU KIDDIN' ME?"
Wes closed his eyes and growled, wishing for silence but receiving none, "It-it just doesn't make sense how this would fit in with this piece—"
A few desks over, Paulina meticulously filed a chipped nail, seemingly immune to the surrounding chaos.
Unhelpfully, she suggested to her linebacker boyfriend, "You're gonna wanna soak that in club soda when you get home."
Her partner, Star Robinson, was scribbling some things in her notebook. Probably characters from that pony show she liked.
Star had stuck her tongue out while perfecting the tail on her horse doodle. "Aren't you on the pill, Lina?"
"Yep." Paulina said, while blowing away the dust from her nails, "My auntie convinced Daddy to get me on it 'cuz it would make my skin glow, and make me less cranky on my period."
Leaning closer to her drawing until she was about a nose away, Star started penciling in the grass field her pony would be frolicking in. "That's so cool."
She showed her illustration to Paulina, "Have you ever thought if you'd be a Unicorn or a Pegasus?"
On the opposite side of the classroom with Sam and Tucker.
How are we supposed to do this presentation?
Sam rested her hands on the back of her neck, at a complete loss, the picture of utter defeat. Her usual fiery spirit was dampened and suffocated by enforced silence.
If Testlaff didn't believe gum took seven years to digest, Sam would admit this would be a stroke of genius on the gym teacher's part.
Tucker rolled his pencil along the desk in a repeated motion, over and over, a small irritated rhythm, "I'm surprised you don't have any ideas, you're, like, into that Nouveau French Cinema stuff, right? And most of that is silent?"
She returned an icy glare.
"It's just a thought." Tucker shrugged, "I dunno— how about— how about uh… we take a page out of your peaceful protest anarchist guide book? Go green peace on their asses?"
Sam blinked in confusion, her glare softening slightly.
She rocked forward in her chair.
So, just don't do the assignment at all?
"Exactly!" Tucker snapped his fingers, "By not doing anything, it's an interpretive piece, accurate to the subject, and doesn't require us embarrassing ourselves."
Judging by Sam's ecstatic expression, she was satisfied with the outcome Tucker reached.
And it was all the thanks he needed.
The soft thwack of a plastic condom slipping off a curved surface drew attention to the next row. Dash was creased in concentration that bordered on pain, and was attempting to demonstrate the proper application on the stubbornly smooth plastic banana. His fingers kept sliding, and the thin latex rolled back on itself like a recalcitrant sock.
"The books really make this seem a lot smoother than it is…" Dash groused.
"Books?" Danny questioned for his own amusement, "What kind of books are you reading?"
Face dusted in pink, Dash shook his head, "Er— mostly historical… fiction? Fantasy literature? Like uh… the ones with the hobbits…"
The jock returned to the task at hand, he lined up the plastic rings to try and roll on the sheath onto the fake banana instead if launching it towards the front wall next to the white board like all his prior attemps.
Danny didn't buy it for a single second: "Yeah, like, Samurai prince and Pharaoh taking Manhattan and the same lover is real literature."
"Wait, have I-I… have I mentioned that to you?" Baxter turned to look over his shoulder, his face washed in an unreadable expression.
The ghost boy tilted his head to the side, "Hm?"
"...That book. The Samurai Prince adventure series?" Dash answered with scrutiny.
Shit— Fenton felt his stomach drop, Danny shrugged and crossed his arms together in bid for casualness, "I-I saw it laying around during your party last year, amongst the red solo cups… empty pizza boxes. Just struck me as funny, is all, especially next to all the bodybuilder magazines."
Dash stared at him for a few moments, it was intense as he processed the overly rehearsed excuse. It's like he was trying to piece together a half-remembered dream… or in this case, a nightmare.
Only armed with a weak smile, Danny steadied his legs, which were urging him to phase through the floor and into the depths of the Earth.
Before Dash could pry any further into the too-convenient excuse, Fenton quickly made a play for the model and the condom.
Danny's fingers suddenly became incredibly focused on the uncooperative latex, smoothing out wrinkles that weren't there, "See, the thing— the thing is here, these are tricky mostly because the ring here is supposed to rest against the base of— but since it's just a shaf— since it's just uh… since it's just a banana there's not any um anything to—"
The quarterback inched his chair away in reaction to the rashness and graceless motion. Their hands brushed again, Danny's skin was completely clammy, and he was fraught with tremors.
"...Right, that party." Dash scratched his cheek, but his intensity didn't waver, "Um… D-Did you happen to see anything else that struck you?"
"H-Honestly… uh, I-I just was mostly keeping to myself, trying to stay out of the way. No one really wanted to t-talk to…" Fenton had both components of the project and was trying to fend off any follow-up questions—
"No one uh… no one wanted to-to talk to me." The ghost boy repeated.
…
"I wanted to talk to you."
It was so quiet under the classroom buzz, but Danny was sure he heard it, even if he just imagined it.
He peeked up at Dash, and the quarterback was focused on the clock that hung over the door. He was facing away, but the tips of his ears were rosy.
The bell rang.
Students gathered their supplies, still talking and arguing amongst each other. Though they all lingered, having known better that while the bell can ring, Testlaff had to have the final word.
This was enough to rouse Coach from her desk, "Okay, class, we'll pick this up again…" She yawned, "Tomorrow…. I'm expecting to see some thorough presentations."
Ms Testlaff stretched, extending her arms over her head, and popping her neck, "And if you thought this experience was uncomfortable and traumatizing— please remember I have to do this about… six more times today."
She pushed her aviators up her nose, "So, congratulations, at least you're not alone!"