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Part XII: 1988- End of Innocence
They had reached the middle of the lake, the deepest part. On the far end, lights from the windows of the big lake houses twinkled in the dark. Jason tried to suss which one was the Devlin house. Would any lights be on there? Might Pamela be even now returning from wherever she'd been, none the worse for wear?
But, like it as not, the house was dark. They were alone, and would be getting no help.
Leo looked from Kirk to Sam, "My people?" he repeated incredulously, hacking a thick gob of blood onto the deck between them, as much from pain as affront, "I don't have any people," for the first time, his voice sounded close to breaking, "I could tell you she was safe and sound and I didn't harm a hair on her head and you'd kill me anyway. You..." he looked at Sam, "You've wanted me dead for a long time. Ever since I showed up, because looking at me meant you weren't special. If I could get into your stupid fancy school, what does that say about..."
Sam belted him. Leo coughed brokenly, one eye swelling fast as a slow, miserable laugh crawled up his throat.
"I raped her," he croaked at last, "I held her down muffled her screams with my lips. I took her to get back at you, for everything you've done to me, every time you pushed and punched and prodded, thinking I was too weak, too stupid, too alone to resist...I raped her," he broke off, his face shining with tears, "I ripped her clothes off like an animal, bit her and tore her and let her scream my name and after I was done I left her lying on the ground to die."
Shaking with the force of his words, a ghastly, bloody smile lighting up his once pretty face, he finished, "That's what I did to her."
-Jason, Leo, and Sam
Kirk didn't want to hear anymore as he wrapped his hands around Leo's throat in an instant, squeezing hard on the boy's throat. Feeling Leo's legs kick back instinctively against the struggle, Kirk lifted Leo's head and dunked it in the water with his right hand, his left trying to keep it submerged. He didn't notice but angry tears were streaming down his face as he tried to keep Leo down. His breathing became shallow, his face red with grief and frustration and shame. Leo's words rang in his mind over and over.
"I raped her..."
"I raped her..."
"I raped her..."
He didn't even notice when Leo stopped struggling.
Silence hung over the little boat like a shroud. A soft wind hissed against the sides. Jason's hands felt frozen to the oar shafts.
Leo wasn't moving anymore. He was slumped over the side of the boat, legs splayed out at odd angles. The moon cast an unreal spotlight on his head under the water, his black curls swayed like seaweed around a face none of them could see...and maybe for the best.
Sam was the first to move, leaning forward to roughly tug the prone form up from the water. Jason cried out, turning away from the sight, so that he only heard the hollow diagnosis:
"Dead."
As easily as if he were remarking on the weather. There was no malice nor pride nor fear in it...only, maybe, the ghost of a bad shock, shuttled way off into the back, for necessity's sake.
-Jason and Sam
Jason's cry is what caused Kirk to let go, though his movement was slow, almost gentle, treating Leo with more care after death than he ever did before. The hot emotions of anger and vengeance were soon distilled by a spiraling grief and shock, his heart falling into his stomach, his face growing pale, and his lip quivering but unable to utter words at what they had just done. He was becoming so sick, Kirk had to stifle the urge to vomit.
They sat there on the lake, quiet for a few minutes. The chirping of cicadas and the rustling of wind through the trees was all that could be heard.
Finally, Kirk spoke in a shell of his voice. "Let's..." He made some vague gesture from Leo to the water, finding himself unable to finish the command. Kirk averted his gaze from the body entirely, as if he were scared it would stare back with indignation or judgement. His eyes dwelt on the moonlight shimmering on the water until the deed was done.
Jason gave him a look, trying to parse through Kirk's meaning, but feeling he already understood. Sam, evidently, needed no further prompting, however. Nodding resolutely, he lifted the body without a second glance and hurled it over the side.
Only then did Jason turn slowly back to the rippling surface, and the faint suggestion of a form slowly sinking below.
He wasn't sure what the others expected. A body in the water was supposed to float, wasn't it? Eventually, Leo would bob back to the surface, floating there in the moonlight for all to see.
Sam perched at the prow, looking down at the water. His bared muscles had an eerie sheen with the sweat of his exertions. His expression was steely and unchanging as it scrutinized the lake.
No body surfaced. Leo may as well have been consumed by the water.
"We should go back," Sam said at length.
-Jason and Sam
Kirk didn't look to his friend. He barely even acknowledged him. All he was able to muster was a solemn lowering of the head, which to some would constitute as nod, to others barely as a sign of human life.
Regardless, they rowed away from the site of the grisly deed.
***
Quinn hadn't exchanged any words with Fitz the whole time, which was a rarity. Maybe he was scared that the more he talked, the more weakness he risked revealing. Not that he figured Fitz minded, but Quinn himself certainly did. He simply focused on his finally-lit Marlboro, trying not to focus on much else.
Eventually, the boat came ashore, with three on board...not four.
"Hey," Quinn stepped forward, curious. "What happ..."
Kirk shot Quinn an icy glare, which told him enough. He put out his smoke, letting out a shaky breath, taken aback by what they had actually done tonight.
-Kirk and Quinn
Fitz blanched at the reduced party's grim return to shore. One haunted look from Jason killed a dozen questions in their cradles.
"Nobody says a word about what happened tonight," said Sam, husky but clear, "Doesn't matter who asks or why. You weren't here, you saw nothing, you did nothing..." he sighed, "It's over."
"But..." Fitz squeaked despite himself.
"But nothing."
He'd been going to ask about Pamela. It was quite clear to Fitz what must've happened to the Gypsy. But the reason they'd set out on this escapade to begin with had been Kirk's sister...
"Not a word," Sam emphasized, "That's the end of it."
As if he could make an end just by calling it so.
-Fitz, Jason, and Sam
What felt like an eternal silence followed Sam's warning.
"C'mon," Kirk spoke at last, his voice hoarse, wracked by the night's grief. "I'll drive you guys home."
Without another word, the friends entered the damaged Benz and drove off to town, the memory of what transpired at Wren Lake forever following them like a shadow.
***
Thunder rumbled in the distance, the harbinger of a springtime storm. The night air hummed with a cruelly expectant energy, a sense that at any moment the still calm would break and all hell would break loose.
Maybe it already had.
Pamela's pumps beat a frenetic patter on the cracked asphalt of the convenience store parking lot. One of the heels threatened to snap off, forcing her to walk with a drunken, lopsided slant.
She wore her jacket pulled up as high as she could manage, though she passed almost nobody...certainly nobody likely to recognize her.
"Come on, come on..." she muttered at the payphone, rifling through her handbag for loose change, finally finding a quarter to suit her purposes.
A car peeled out of the lot behind her, neon-red headlights blaring like a warning flare. Shaking her head, Pamela dialed the number she'd had scribbled on the back of an old receipt at the bottom of her wallet.
"Hello?" recognizing the voice on the other end brought tears to her eyes, "Oh, Vicki, thank God. It's Pam. L-listen..." she gripped the phone in trembling hands, "I have to tell you something."
-Pamela
* * *
Jamie's room was cloaked in darkness at this late hour of the night. All that could be heard was that thunder, warning of an incoming storm, booming some miles away. Perhaps Jamie was sound asleep. Perhaps she wasn't.
The figure that resided in the shadows, partly obscured by the fluttering curtains, did not care in this moment. "Something terrible has happened."
Jamie awoke with a start at the noise, and almost screamed at the person inside the room with her.
"Do not fear, mon cher. It is only me." Galdamez emerged from the darkness, though perhaps Jamie had a right to be scared, for he sound unrecognizable. The usual fantastical whimsy was drained from his voice, replaced with a melancholic sobriety that sounded odd coming from the paranormal professor.
"What happened?" She asked, after her heart rate slowed down considerably, "Wait...did I miss it? THE tragedy?"
"I am unsure...perhaps..." Galdamez looked out to the window, observing the trees rustling in the wind. "If I knew what the tragedy was, honeychild, you and your friends would not be on this journey of discovery. And yet..." He paused, pondering, "I feel a great malevolent energy in the cosmos. Something senseless, immoral, and worse yet, easily avoidable, has transpired. The spirits of Evil have much to celebrate tonight." Furrowing his brow mournfully, Galdamez turned back to face Jamie, his expression wracked with concern. "If this was one of the links in the chain of la morte, and you have failed to bear witness to it, as per the incantation..." He struggled to continue, words failing him in this moment. "...pray for yourself and your fellow time-travelers. Because the path back to the present for all of you has become much, much more treacherous."
And on that, Galdamez left Jamie's room, closing the door behind him, leaving her much to contemplate.
The gloomy weather persisted into the morning. Heavy gray clouds and cold, wet winds hung over the lake, which appeared almost black in the drained light.
Laura observed the foul weather through the kitchen window as she watched the coffee perk. She had passed a sleepless night, the baby only recently giving up her agitations to rest. Every now and then her eye would steal over to the Devlin landline on the paneled wall beside the fridge before she remembered the list of people who'd have noticed her not being home last night amounted to precisely zero.
"You're home," she remarked lightly at the sound of footsteps.
Pamela looked at her darkly, "What are you doing here?"
"Well, your Dad's checks haven't bounced yet, and that's good enough for me."
The younger girl made a sour face. She had dressed in her usual chic wardrobe, though Laura couldn't help but notice she'd neglected her makeup, which only emphasized the fact that she clearly hadn't gotten any sleep either.
"Late night, huh?"
Pamela grimaced, grabbing a Nutribar from the fridge, which was evidently going to be breakfast, "Not any of your business, is it?"
"I figure it is, since it's on your account I was stuck here last night."
"Bullshit," she said hollowly, "You're not happy unless you're complaining about something."
"Welcome to womanhood, honey. It doesn't get any easier."
Pamela gave her a particularly frightening look that was enough to put Laura off the questioning, "Well, at least your brother found you."
"What?" she asked in a sharp tone of surprise.
"Or not," Laura shrugged, "He went out looking for you last night, is what I figured. The whole bunch of them."
Pamela's expression grew somehow more nauseated. The Nutribar went into her jacket pocket, unwrapped. Without so much as a last glance, she took off in a flash. Laura heard the front door slam shut behind her.
***
At her wit's end, Paula stepped out onto the front porch before her mother could look up from her calisthenics to ask her who that strange man blocking the driveway in his Olds was.
"She's not here!" she called bitterly, stalking down the walkway to the car, "So you can stop casing the joint."
Sam was leaning in his driver's seat, his usual surliness seeming to soften at her approach, "If she were here, that's what you'd say anyway."
"Not that you'd take the hint," she folded her arms, "Seriously, I haven't seen her, same as you."
Sam's grip tightened on the wheel, the knuckles whitening, "Great."
"What was the plan? Stalk around out here to make your case? Real Prince Charming, huh, Sammy?"
"...can't blame a guy for trying," but his voice had a hollow, resigned quality to it. His shoulders relaxed, but only just, "Need a ride?"
Pamela pulled a face, "Where?"
"School," he gave her a look, "We do that, don't we?"
Paula indicated her own bookbag, "I guess so. What, am I supposed to get out of your car in the school parking lot and start an avalanche of grody rumors just to take the sting off Pam…"
"You want a ride or not?" he raised his voice only slightly, but it was enough to send hackles up and down Paula's arms.
"Fine," she tossed her back into the passenger seat, "No speeding. It's too early and I'm already sick."
"Tell me about it."
Paula chuckled despite herself at the joke, but he wasn't laughing.
***
"No morning row today, I bet."
Jason looked at Fitz as though he'd grown a second head, "Are you freaking serious?"
"It was very seriously meant," he was twisting his hands about, looking up and down the school hallway as if he expecting a SWAT team to come charging out of the lockers, "I had the most terrible nightmares."
"You weren't even there," Jason interrupted, more coldly than he'd meant, "What could you be dreaming about?"
"I have a very active imagination!" Fitz squeaked the words out, "I still can't believe it. Kirk, and Sam, and you…"
"Not me," Jason interrupted hoarsely, "I didn't do anything."
The words hung in the air, their gravity sinking in like a stone around his neck.
"In any case, I can't see how we muddle through the big debate today."
"T-the what?"
"The class presidential debate! It is, in fact, today, and after all that ludicrosity yesterday…I mean with Father Schiano, of course, not what happened later, but that too for different reasons…I don't know how we'll come out of this with our noses clean!"
He must've seen the look on Jason's face because he haltingly added, "But that's the least of our worries!" without much enthusiasm.
***
His alarm had been blaring for a few minutes. Jimmy heard it but didn't get up. Weak light wafted through an open window, a soft breeze scented like rain stirring dusty drapes.
Slowly, he turned to the closed door, aware of the sounds of his sister moving through the house. She'd be wondering what was taking him so long.
He should get up, he knew that. There were a lot of things he should be doing, if he only knew how to start. If he'd only…
In a sudden spasm of anger, he yanked the alarm clock from the wall. Silence returned, but he didn't feel better.
He just felt empty.
-Laura, Pamela, Paula, Sam, Fitz, Jason, and Jimmy
His palms were sweaty, his heart palpitating, his right foot endlessly tapping the floorboards...
He hadn't slept all night. For hours, he felt like he was going throw up his guts, the events of last night replaying in his head over and over, on a loop. Above the fatigue and the nerves, he was frustrated more than anything, hating himself for feeling weak, especially now...when so much was at stake...
Good vibes...radical vibes...good vibes...tubular vibes...GOOD VIBES...YOU GOT THIS, YOU GOT THIS...
He could hear the crowd amassing beyond the curtain, the noise of auditorium seats unfolding open, the sound of great expectations...
Expectations you'll meet, expectations whose asses you will firmly KICK, expectations who don't mean a damn thing...
The tapping of a microphone beyond the curtains silenced his thoughts. Some words followed, but his hearing somehow felt out of focus, only hearing a few select words. "Debate...class president...St. George's Preparatory School...Harry Quigley..."
He straightened his posture, slicked back his hair, slapped himself a few times, jumped up and down...
"...and Quinn Maddox."
Like the prince he was always expected to be, Quinn marched on stage with the presence of a WWF star. Gone was the guilt-wrought, anxious, pathetic excuse for a Maddox. The masses of St. George's Preparatory School bore witness to a leader among men, a big man on campus rivalling the status of his own friend Kirk Devlin, and above all...hopefully...their future class president.
The masses surely received Quinn as such, as they were not ones to forget the blessings of his parties, plentiful with free beer and cigarettes. Was their affection bought? Perhaps. But in this dog-eat-dog world, whoever has the most biscuits wins...
...and scrawny, four-eyed, sickly, Democrat Harry Quigley was wanting for biscuits. Why, the wimp seemed to be barely taller than his own podium. Quinn hardly felt it was fair to pound such weak competition into the ground. This debate was merely a formality. By the end of this election, the geek would be the high school equivalent of Jimmy Carter getting his ass kicked by Ronald Reagan. Even better, he probably wouldn't get more votes than a third-party candidate. Fitz would probably get more votes than the nerd. Quinn had this in the bag, he knew he had this in the bag...
...so why did Quinn feel the nagging urge to constantly remind himself that he had it in the bag?
The moderator gave the floor for opening statements. Harry gave some stammering verbal diarrhea about fixing the water fountain on the third floor and installing a bike rack outside the school. Quinn would have made some witty remarks but that nervous nausea returned, suddenly becoming overcome with hot flashes. He wiped his brow, finding it damper with sweat than he would have liked. His heart beat faster and faster. Somehow, the lights became harsher, brighter, nearly blinding him. Every time he blinked, Quinn saw that boat, gliding on the dark waters of Wren Lake, with four kids, soon to be only three...
"Coward."
Quinn gasped as he turned to his left to find his father, with his Johnny Unitas haircut and smoking jacket, clay pipe firmly set in his mouth. "Dad?" He tried to say, but he found himself incapable of speech. Against the bright light, Quinn's father was cloaked entirely in silhouette, making his presence seem more than mortal, ethereal even.
"What's the matter, son?" He spoke in his usual gravelly tone, which he so often employed when commanding Quinn to pull himself up by his bootstraps. "You lost your smart mouth? Your gift of gab? Your deceptive silver tongue?"
"I..." Quinn croaked, immediately reaching for his throat.
"You choose the strangest times to shut up..." The elder Maddox exhaled a smoke ring. "...such as last night."
Quinn found himself short of breath, perhaps because of that cursed smoke, as he tried to steady himself on the podium, causing the microphone to screeeeeeeeeeeeeech.
"Perhaps the boy had it coming," the father posited to the son. "But you clearly don't think that way, do you, son?"
Quinn wheezed, clutching his chest. His heart was racing faster and faster. The image of the boat flashed again.
"The Maddoxes always speak their minds, stick up for what they think is right, never back down..." His voice escalated higher and higher, each word packed with more and more disappointment. "It's what separates a leader from a patsy. Isn't that right, Pa?"
"That's right." Quinn flinched at the hand at his back, nearly reeling back and knocking over the podium.
For there stood his grandfather, Winston Maddox, his visage made mysterious by the stage lights and his figure only more imposing.
"Good God, look at you." He spoke with an even more powerful voice, like a young man, though Quinn never met him as such, making the sour old man he knew for only a few years seem almost inhuman. "How do you expect to ever become a leader of men, not even to mention a leader of this rabble? It should be in your blood."
"I'm..." Quinn panted, his throat starting to burn up, rasping at the flash of the boat rowing away. "...so...sorry..."
"Stow your lily-livered apologies!" Winston Maddox roared, sounding more animal than man. "But I'm sure you apologize to your so-called 'friends'...the ones who you play crony with. Your father is nobody's crony in the courtroom, and I surely wasn't a crony in the operating room..."
"...and I surely wasn't when I was in office."
Quinn turned sharply at the sound of another, even more monstrous voice from the right, emanating from the revered Ellis Maddox, who once upon a time was the mayor of this humble town. "Please..." He whimpered, barely able to peep a word at the huge figure, cast in shadow. In that darkness, Quinn could only make out that cursed boat, with four boys, soon to be three...
"Oh, what changes in not even a century." Ellis Maddox clicked his tongue with a disapproval that slithered underneath Quinn's skin and penetrated his heart. "This is what becomes of my family? The heir to my great name? My legacy? A pampered prince who passively watches the world go by him, unable to take a stand in the little he believes in?"
"UNACCEPTABLE!"
Quinn cried aloud at another voice from behind, cavernous and distorted. He turned, finding the biggest, most imposing figure of them all. The founder of the Maddox fortune himself, Delywn Maddox!
"YOU WILL FOREVER STAGNATE IN OUR SHADOWS, BOY!" The hellish figure scolded Quinn, who once again saw that damned, sinful boat sailing away while he did nothing. "IF YOU CAN'T EVEN SPEAK YOUR MIND AGAINST THOSE FOOLS YOU CALL FRIENDS, HOW CAN YOU EVER EXPECT TO STEP OUT AND MAKE YOUR OWN LEGACY IN THE WORLD?!"
The youngest Maddox of them all let out a dreadful moan, weeping openly, buckling underneath the pressure that was quickly mounting on his shoulders.
"CRY, BOY! CRY! DISGRACE THE MADDOX NAME FURTHER! THE DAMAGE IS ALREADY DONE!"
"You'll never amount to anything. You can't even govern your own conscience."
"You were born with everything, yet all you do is fail. Everything you do fails..."
"You're a failure, son. A pathetic, weak, failure."
Quinn bellowed out a roar of resentful frustration that echoed across the auditorium. His sights turned on his father as he charged and tackled the man who always sought to put him down, always quick to remind Quinn the integrity of the family name. But in this moment, as he pummeled his father, beating him relentlessly, Quinn did not care to think about preserving the legacy, about meeting those great expectations. His face reddened with anger, streaked with tears.
But it was a losing battle, as with each punch, the boat flashed in his vision again and again and again. And each time, the other Maddoxes cursed, "Failure. Failure. FAILURE." Quinn could not escape it. Try as he might, he found himself forever bound, forever inferior.
The last thing he remembered was being dragged off away by people unseen, made faceless by his blind, impotent rage. Faint cries echoed as he was pulled away, Quinn only being able to hear a few words ("...stop...the hell...enough...") before he blacked out.
***
"Oh," Fitz had screamed after it was all over, "This is terrible!"
Which was a decent enough descriptor as far as Jason was concerned. The day had already been passing with a sluggish malevolence, an aura of menace clinging to every second. He'd begun to wonder if this was just going to be his life now.
He saw Paula once on the way to homeroom, striding a few steps ahead of Sam. He didn't know what to make of it, and the sight of Sam made him sick, so he quickened his pace and passed his girlfriend without so much as a greeting.
Kirk, likewise, was nowhere to be found, but Jason tried not to think too much about this. He was a senior, after all, and they had no classes together. Then again, if he'd cut school, Jason couldn't say he blamed him.
He couldn't really say he blamed anybody without coming off pretty badly.
Needless to say, he'd had no desire to show his face at the debate, but he wasn't really surprised to see Quinn was doing his part. What was surprising was seeing Quinn completely lose his head and go for his opponent's throat.
"He's killing him!" Fitz screamed, "Oh! Oh! Do something!"
All around, people were doing things. Quinn was pulled off Quigley, shouting incoherently, his eyes maddened and unfocused. Jason wasn't...couldn't...bring himself to look. He thought of the boat on the lake, Leo thrashing helplessly under the water, the equally unfocused glint in the eyes of his friends as they watched the life ebb from Leo's body...
By the time things had quieted down enough for Fitz to run up to the stage (at a safe distance) and exclaim how terrible it all was, Jason couldn't bear it any longer. He got to his feet himself but, instead of approaching the stage, raced from the auditorium.
"Cool your jets, prep!" one of the skate-heads called after him as he went, but he didn't pay any mind, barreling down the hall and through the nearest bathroom door.
Adding insult to psychic injury, he saw Leo's dead face reflected in the toilet water, which expedited the upchuck if nothing else.
"Ugh," muttered a voice, "This is the girl's bathroom, you know."
He whirled around, back against the base of the toilet, "P-P-Pamela!"
Kirk's sister was pale and her eyes red, though he supposed he looked at least as bad as she, "What happened to you?"
He blinked, "W-w-what happened to you?"
Her eyes flashed, her expression hardening, "Why don't you tell me first?"
-Jason, Fitz, and Pamela
"A black eye, a broken nose, two teeth knocked out, one knocked in and then spat out, and a concussion..." Headmaster Trexel's reprimands shown no end in sight as he rounded on Quinn in his office. It was quite a show, one that had hordes of students peeking through the window's closed blinds and huddling around the door. Perhaps these measures were unnecessary, though, considering Trexel's lecture could be heard in the science labs upstairs, the janitor's closet downstairs, the teachers' lounge towards the west and the auditorium (the site of Quinn's incident) towards the east.
Indeed, the disciplining of Quinn Maddox might as well have been a public broadcast.
"...all of this enacted on Harry Quigley, an Honor Roll student, the president of the Chess Club, the president of the AV Club, and a boy who by all accounts means well and has NEVER inflicted any harm on ANYONE in all his years at St. George's Preparatory School..."
If anything, the person was paying the least attention to Trexel's condemnation of Quinn Maddox was Quinn Maddox. The boy was a shell of himself, dazed and light-headed, the events of what transpired on that stage a murky haze. What could easily be interpreted as a shame was really a fatigued incomprehension, feebly attempting to understand his own actions.
The words of his ancestors echoing in his ear didn't help either.
"...this has got to be the most despicable, most uncalled for act of brutality I have witnessed in my 45 years as headmaster of this fine institution, now forever tarnished by that, that display of yours!" His face as red as a tomato ready to burst, Trexel roared, "DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY FOR YOURSELF, MR. MADDOX?!?!?!"
Quinn was quiet, groggily scratching his nose as he tried to process this barrage. "Did...did I actually do that?"
"DON'T PLAY COY WITH ME!" Trexel was back to his lecturing, prompting several of the boys outside to giggle childishly. "If I had any sense, I'd make you forfeit this election! But the idealistic whimsies of democracy insist that you be judged by your peers! Bah!" Regaining a posture of dignity, his hand tucked away in his blazer, he added, "Although I trust that if our schooling has had any effect on helping these boys grow into decent men, you will lose in a landslide, as you ought to!"
Some of Texel's spit landed on Quinn, causing him to wince.
"Of course, I can always expel you..."
That caught Quinn's attention, causing his heart to skip a beat. The words "failure" and "unacceptable" rang in his head so loudly, his head began to ache.
"...but after discussing this matter with your father, I believe a suspension of two weeks will do."
Quinn buried his face in his hands, able to breathe once more. Somehow, he was relieved yet even more downtrodden as he was before upon hearing his father saving him from the severest academic fate.
"Remember this, Mr. Maddox," Trexel wagged his finger authoritatively. "If you father wasn't an esteemed alumnus and generous donor of this academy..."
"...I'd be out of here." He released a belabored sigh, continuously rubbing his eyes to relieve the stress he was currently suffering. "I know."
"Good." Trexel adjusted his suit jacket, the lecture having finally concluded. "Now get out of my office."
And so Quinn did, opening the door to find dozens of his fellow students staring back at him like he had two noses. Usually, Quinn would have made some joke telling them to give him some space...but he didn't have the energy for that. Not now.
Quinn just averted his gaze and turned left for the stairwell so he could finally get out of this place.
Sal was downstairs cooking breakfast for herself and Jimmy, daddy dearest had long been to work, and their mother had escaped the maternal duties for whatever it was that kept her life feeling fulfilled.
Four over medium eggs sizzled in the pan, as she poured orange juice in two glasses before taking a swig out of the carton.
A limp lit cigarette was dangling from her fingers. She was wearing an oversized black sabbath Tee acted as her pajamas.
Jimmy slowly descended the stairs, bare feet producing soft padded thumps on the carpeted surface. Shadows flitted through the Venetian blinds in the living room, cars passing by in the street outside.
Instinctively, he knew he had overslept. He'd be missing school and, apparently, he wasn't the only one.
"What's this?" he asked hoarsely, pausing in the kitchen doorway at the sight of his sister standing over the stove.
-Jimmy
"You act like you've never seen me cook before."
Sal retorted as she took a drag from the cigarette, as she took the eggs from the pan to the plates.
"I don't know, you had a rough day or two, thought a day off would do you some good."
"Rough," he echoed flatly, "Yeah, I guess I have."
He approached the counter, watching Sal's movements. He'd never have described his sister as domestic, and she didn't look the part either, in her band tee and with the cig hanging from her lips.
"You hear from Leo?" he asked abruptly, before he could think better of it.
-Jimmy
"Um..no actually."
She said, her tone off, as her brow furrowed.
"I don't know last time we saw each other things got a little weird."
She said, she hoped that it wouldn't be that way for too long. Leo was a great friend to Jimmy, and too her...well she just didn't want the next time they saw each other to be awkward.
She scooped grits from the pot, she couldn't believe she had actually gotten them right this time, just the right amount of thick without being dry or chunky.
She handed Jimmy his plate and glass, before making her own, covering the grits in cheese pepper and hot sauce. Adding the hot sauce to her over medium eggs as well.
"Want some?"
Jimmy thought if he so much as looked at food, he'd be sick, but he just nodded by way of answer.
Should he tell her? He felt like he had to tell someone, and who else but his sister? But how to describe it, how to even begin...?
"What happened?" he asked bluntly, "T-the last time you saw him?"
As if her answer to the question in any way would make him feel better about his.
-Jimmy
Sal kind of half smiled and shook her head as she put her own plate and glass on the table.
"I don't know, we just...We kind of had this moment or whatever. We were dancing in my room and...it's stupid, he's just a really sweet guy, better than most of them anyway."
Jimmy put his hands on the back of his chair, leaning forward, "That's, uh...that sounds nice. What, was he gonna sweep you off your feet when I wasn't looking?"
His knuckled whitened against the chair; he couldn't relax his grip.
"You like him?" he asked at length, his voice measured, if tight.
-Jimmy
She made herself laugh, to try and brush it off.
"Oh yeah right, like I'd be caught dead falling for your dorky friend."
But she looked down at her food, thinking about it, about how it wouldn't be so bad. About how Leo was the July decent guy she knew.
He is kind of cute when he thinks he's being charming
She shook her head, clearing the thoughts from her head.
"Eat your food dork."
"Right," he said at length, "How could you've gotten it past me?"
There were, of course, a lot of things he hadn't noticed. Sal falling for Leo wouldn't rank the top of the list.
Tell her. Tell someone. She may be able to help, she may even understand...
Sal had always been better about the big picture than he was, even if by so much. Try as he might, though, listening to her false laugh, seeing the fixed expression in her eyes, twisted around like a knife in his gut.
How could he tell her what Leo had told him without destroying her? It wouldn't be fair.
"I'm, uh, headed up to his place," he managed finally, "Figure I'd better see how he's doing."
-Jimmy
"Okay, just eat a few bites for me, I don't want her thinking I don't feed you when your stomach growls."
Sal said, obviously meaning Leo's mother. Even though she knew the old witch would act as if he was being starved even if he weighed three hundred pounds.
"And don't go anywhere Sam and those guys hang out, I don't want you coming home bloody, and take a jacket in case it gets cold."
Jimmy hesitated at the mention of Sam. In his mind's eye, he could see Leo at the window, panting and sweat-stained.
"You have to listen to me. I won't even ask you to believe me, just..." one shaking hand pressed down on his, "Listen."
"I'll stick to my corner if they do," he said finally. For a brief, insane moment, he almost asked Sal to come with him, but that wouldn't be right. He had a sickly feeling that whatever he was about to learn wouldn't be good for her.
And, selfishly, he wanted to face this alone.
"Thanks," he said finally, sitting at the table, "For, um...for waiting up for me."
He might've said more, but he couldn't bring himself to. Silent and sullen, he forced himself to eat.
-Jimmy