by Ruth Houston
He nodded, looking thankful for my tact. "We've been having hard practices too. We'll probably down to two-a-days by the end of the week."
I winced. "That sucks." Two-a-days were exactly that – two practices a day, one early in the morning before class, the other, straight after school.
"Tell me about it," he said, though rather cheerfully. "At least it's playing time though, right? And it's all about the sport."
I agreed, and we drove the rest of the way in comfortable silence.
Perhaps ten minutes later we pulled up to the front of my house. (Was it just me, or was I always being dropped off by people?)
"Thanks for the ride," I said, "I really mean it. I'd probably still be back there, a frozen corpse with my pride being my downfall, had it not been for you."
Martin grinned, and I couldn't help smiling back – he was contagious like that. "Any time."
"Okay, see you around," was all I said, before getting out.
"Wait!" he yelled when I was halfway up the drive. I turned back and glanced at him.
"Can I… have your number?" He had to half-shout to compensate for the physical distance and the strong wind.
I smiled, walked back to his car, and gave it to him. He didn't write it down, simply nodded and assured me he would remember it. I didn't doubt it – if this guy could remember my name and an incident that happened over ten months ago, he could remember my number, if it was important to him.
"You know where I live, too," I teased. "Now you have two things from me, and I have nothing from you."
"You will, soon enough," he winked, and I contained my laughter at his confidence.
"I'll hold you to it," I grinned, and departed again with a half-wave.
Only when I was safely inside and closing the door did I see him drive off, his shining black BMW looking just slightly out of place on my street of middle-class houses.
Chapter Ten: What is Honor?
Zack
It was perhaps the second week of November when Eva left for a weekend to stay at her mom's.
I stood in front of her house on Friday afternoon, still unwilling to say goodbye to her.
"It's just for a weekend, Zack," she said gently. "I'm thirty minutes away." The wind was picking up wisps of her blonde hair, and I tucked a strand behind her ear.
"I know," I said, pulling her into my arms and burying my face in the crook of her neck. "Still." I kissed her collarbone.
"My mom's watching us," she giggled.
"Who cares?" I said, kissing her again.
She pulled away slightly. "Zack," she said, "We still haven't figured everything out yet. I just…" Her voice failed her for a moment. "I'm really sorry, Zack, I just don't want you to get your hopes up, okay?"
I nodded. "I'm going to miss you, anyway."
"Me too," she said as I reluctantly let her go. I watched from the front steps as she got in the passenger's seat and got in, her mom giving me a backward wave. Eva blew me a kiss, and I waved at her.
I stood there for a moment, hands in pockets, just staring off down the street where Eva had disappeared. 'Me too.' The words echoed in my head and disappointment filled me.
"Hey," Tristan's voice said from behind me. I turned around.
"Why don't you come in for a while? You know, just hang out. Winter's here," he shrugged.
"Why didn't she come out?" I asked, pushing a hand through my unruly curls. "I'm sure Eva would have wanted to say bye to her."
"Maybe she didn't feel like intruding on you guys," Winter's voice interrupted us from behind. She had just stepped out of the house.
"Besides, I already said goodbye to her," she explained. "Figured you guys would want some privacy. Boyfriend and girlfriend and all that."
"Come on in," Tristan jerked his thumb toward the house. I followed them slowly. I had asked Tristan about a week ago, ever so casually, if there was anything between him and Winter. He had seemed surprised. "Romantically? Me and Winter?" He had laughed. "Of course not. She's like my little sister. We'd never be romantically interested in each other." I believed him, and it had cooled my resentment toward Winter. So she hadn't been lying to me. I had made up my mind to be nicer to her than I usually was.
Presently, we ended up sitting at the dining table, the three of us, eating chips and drinking soda. Apparently all the little kids were at the park; Anthony had brought them out for the afternoon.
"How many bags of chips you think we can eat?" Winter asked thoughtfully as she popped a Dorito in her mouth.
"Oh, man," Tristan groaned. "I don't want a Pizza Night replay, thanks." He rubbed his stomach with a painful expression on his face.
She grinned. "I could have thrown up on command that night if you had asked me to."
"I almost went into cardiac arrest," he replied with a serious face.
"No," Winter gasped dramatically.
"Yes," Tristan said with a fake-malicious grin. "By the way, are you ever planning on returning my clothes? My closet is two pairs of boxers, one pair of track sweats, one football sweater, one beater, and two pairs of socks short," he ticked them off on his fingers.
"No, they're comfortable, so I don't think they'll be back in your closet anytime soon," Winter smirked.
I was out of the conversation, but didn't mind. I would never admit it, but Winter and Tristan did have some kind of brother-sister relationship that I found fascinating. I wondered how I had ever thought they were a couple in the first place.
"No honor among thieves, eh, Zack?" Tristan asked me in defeat.
"Guess not," I agreed, taking a swig of Coke.
Winter gasped and stood up indignantly. "What is 'honor'?" she asked, pitching her voice like a man's and with an English accent. "'Can honor set a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No.'" I was mildly surprised she could quote so easily. She must have some kind of super-human memory or something, but I took it all in stride. I always knew Winter was extremely talented in many ways, if some not as obvious as others. "'Honor hath no skill in surgery, then? No. What is honor? A word. – '"
Tristan interrupted, standing up as well. "'–What is in that word honor? What is that honor? Air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it?' Uh…. Tuesday. No, Wednesday. Oh, yea. 'He that died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it – ?'"
"' – No,'" I continued, standing up because I felt dwarfed by these two when I was sitting. "''Tis insensible, then. Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I'll none of it. Honor is a mere scutcheon –'"
"'And so ends my catechism,'" the three of us finished together, all grinning.
"Oh, the philosophy of Sir John Falstaff," Winter sighed sarcastically as we sat down. "Such a scallywag, too."
"He convinced himself that honor was nothing," Tristan said thoughtfully. "He faked death to escape death himself, then pretended he was the one who killed Hotspur. Poor Hotspur. 'Worms, dear Percy.'"
We were all quiet for a moment. "Then indeed, he had no honor," I concluded. "Well, I'm sure all our English teachers would be ecstatic that we decide to spend our free time reciting lines from Shakespeare and discussing King Henry the Fourth."
"You know," Winter said, "I think I read somewhere that King Henry the Fourth, Part One was extremely popular back then. Shakespeare then wrote Part Two, and both plays pleased his audiences greatly. Everyone loved Falstaff. His name was changed though – at first it was Oldcastle, but then due to some political sham or other, Shakespeare was forced to change it to Falstaff."
Tristan and I stared at her. "I thought you hated everything to do with English," Tristan said.
"I don't mind Shakespeare," Winter shrugged. "The words can be hard to understand, but still, reading it sounds pretty cool. And dramatic," she added on.
"Honor," I said quietly. The small speech by Falstaff we had just recited had triggered something in my mind. Honor. An unsettling feeling took over my stomach, and a wisp of
a memory dragged out in the open of my mind.
"What was that, Zack?" Tristan asked, crunching on a chip.
"Nothing," I shook my head. The physical motion in itself helped to push my previous thoughts into the back of my mind for now, but still, they stayed there, lurking just under the surface. No, I didn't want to think about these things right now. Not here in Eva's house, in the company of Tristan and Winter.
We made small talk for a while. At length, Tristan sighed. "Much as I'd like to stay here and discuss the literary works of Master William," – he grinned – "I've got football practice. I can bring you home now, Winter, or you can wait until I get home," he said.
"I can always drop her off," I offered without thinking.
Tristan nodded and turned to her. "Okay then, whatever you feel like. If I don't see you later, have a good weekend."
"You too," Winter said, kissing him on the cheek. "Have fun at practice."
"We'll be up to two-a-days by next week," Tristan muttered grimly.
"I know, I heard from Martin Rifkin," she replied as Tristan left the room. He gave a wave of his hand to indicate he had heard.
My ears perked up. "Martin Rifkin?" I said, something stirring in my heart.
"Yea. He gave me a ride home the other day. You don't have to stay if you don't want to," she said, changing subjects subtly and quickly.
"No, I'll stay for a while, if that's alright," I said. "Nothing else better to do."
She rolled her chocolate eyes but didn't comment.
"So what was that about Martin Rifkin?" Why was he giving her rides home? And why did I want to know?
"It was nothing," she said. "I already told you. He just gave me a ride home after tennis practice one day. That's all. Why?"
"Nothing," I said, something tightening in my chest. Something like… Wait, don't finish that sentence, Zack. Remember? Dangerous waters.
We were quiet for a moment. Winter ate some more chips. "So how are things with Eva?" she ventured to ask.
"Pretty good, I guess," I said.
"Do you miss her?"
I nodded. "I hope she misses me more."
Winter laughed. "What an ego you have, Zackary Crowne."
"What can I say?" I smirked.
"Don't say anything. So you guys are still doing okay, right?" she asked.
"Yea," I said, suspicious now. Her tone was deceptively casual. "We're fine."
"Are you sure?" Winter asked.
I watched as she tied up her hair. Eva had once said that it was a nervous habit of Winter's to play around with her hair. "Why do you ask?" I countered carefully.
She shrugged. "I don't know… It's nothing, really –"
"Winter," I interrupted her. "Just tell me what it is."
"You guys haven't gone on a date in a while…" she played around with her soda can, running her fingertips around the circumference of the top. "Just wondering if you guys were cool, you know."
I sighed. She had noticed. "Yea," I said softly. "I guess we're okay…"
"You guess?" she raised her eyebrows, her eyes staring straight into mine. "You better be sure. If you hurt her, you will die, either by my hand or Tristan's."
"We've been having a bit of a falling out lately," I admitted after a moment. "I'm not quite sure where it happened. I guess we're still willing to try to stick it through, but I think she's giving up on it."
"Are you guys friends?"
The answer to that question caught in my throat. I had never thought about it. Were we? I laughed bitterly. "I have never had any friends," I smiled sardonically.
Winter
"What do you mean?" I asked, my brow furrowing. "What about Brock Davis?" What was he talking about, he never had any friends?
"Brock Davis and I are hardly friends. We simply hang out with each other at school. If I was ever in a situation where I needed saving, he would never feel obligated to help me out. Likewise, I'm not sure I would help him out either."
I watched his golden eyes, concentrating so hard on the floral pattern of the table cloth. I had wanted to pick apart his brain on the subject of Eva, but this was more interesting… and at the same time, it disturbed something in my heart.
Suddenly, realization dawned on me. A hunch, perhaps a hint, into the private life of Zackary Crowne.
"Acceptance is a funny thing," I said carefully. "It's even more interesting when you base a relationship on it."
He looked up at me sharply. So I had figured out a part of him after all. He nodded.
"I don't mean to pry," I said slowly, "But would you care to talk about it?"
"There's nothing to talk about," he smiled humorlessly.
"I'm sure there lots to talk about," I said softly. "I can't believe you when you say that you've never had friends."
He shook his head, looking rather disbelieving. "No," he said. "Friends aren't a necessary part of life."
Since he was expecting me to disagree with him, I said something to surprise him. "You're right," I said.
He looked up at me, and I was rewarded with his startled expression.
Before I plunged on, I sent a small thanks to C.S. Lewis in his grave for giving me my argument. "Friendship perhaps is not necessary for survival," I paraphrased one of his famous quotes. "You don't need it to survive, right?" I asked Zack, waiting for his agreement.
He nodded again, but didn't say anything. He was watching me closely.
"What do you need to survive? Food, water, air… Those you need to live. Friendship is like art, or music," I continued on, keeping my gaze on a mounted photo behind him. Samantha and Anthony and Denise, the three of them at the beach. "You don't need it to survive in this world. But, think about it, what would life be like without friends?"
"I don't have to think about it," he said, a bitter tone I had never heard before creeping into his voice.
"No," I said. "Perhaps you don't. Perhaps friendship is not vital to survival; it has no survival value… but maybe it gives value to survival."
"Are you saying I have no reason to live?"
"No, no," I said quickly, returning my gaze to his. I should have known he would have taken it like this. "I'm just saying… life is pretty meaningless without things like friendship, don't you think?"
"Maybe there are reasons to avoid friendship in the first place," Zack said thoughtfully, carefully keeping his gaze on the chip bag.
"Do you envy Eva and me?" I asked instead of replying to his musing.
"Do I envy you and Eva? Yes I do, very much," he said truthfully.
"I get that a lot," I continued. "People always say, well look at that Eva and Winter, they're such good friends, it must be wonderful to have a best friend like them."
"It must be," he agreed.
"And it is," I said. "Just think about it."
-Zack-
I sighed. Why was she telling me all this, anyway? Like I said (and she even agreed)friendship was not a necessary 'part of survival', so why should I go looking for it?
Hmm, I think that once in a while Winter suffers from a decided lack of sanity.
"Gum?"
I looked at her, startled. "Sorry?" I said.
She was holding out a packet of gum. "Would you like a piece?" Her dark chocolate eyes encouraged me to accept.
I shrugged. "Sure. Thanks."
She neatly popped the white rectangle out of the foil package onto my waiting hand. She was already working on a piece of her own by the time I stuck mine into my mouth.
We sat there in silence for a while. I watched Winter discreetly, glancing at her from time to time. She chewed her gum quietly, not opening her mouth once, and I was glad to know she didn't have that highly annoying habit of popping it or chewing it with her mouth wide open. I mean, half the female population at Branner High chews gum to look cool, but honestly now, who really wants to see what you have in your mouth?
"This stuff's good," I commented. "What is it?"
She pulled it out of her pocket again.
"Eclipse," she said, sliding it across the table for me to see. "Peppermint. It's my favorite."
I took it in my hands. "You like to chew gum?"
She nodded. "Tastes good. I chew it in class – never been caught before, not even by Mrs. Richards."
I chuckled.
"What?" she said, her brow furrowing just a bit.
"Mrs. Richards has caught everybody before. Don't tell me you've never been caught by her."
"I'm serious," she said, looking rather astonished that I didn't believe her. "Never. I've never been caught before."
"You've gotta teach me that super sneaky way of chewing gum you have, then," I said. "I don't chew it often, but every time I do it in class, I get caught, no matter how discreet about it I try to be."
Winter smiled. "It's not hard," she said. "Just don't open your mouth if you don't have to. When you have to talk, even if it's a whisper to your friend, stick in all the way in the back of your mouth on one side, between your upper molar and the inside of your mouth. That's the hardest part of your mouth to see. And don't tilt your head back when you laugh, because if you do, people can see it. Common sense stuff, really."
I nodded. "I'll keep all that in mind," I said, sliding the paper packet back towards her. "Thanks. Eclipse. I'll have to remember that, too."
We were quiet again, each immersed in our own thoughts. The funny thing was, I didn't feel compelled to say anything to patch up the silence, and I'm sure she didn't feel the need to either – it was like we both knew that the other needed the time to think.
Suddenly, the shrill ring of a phone interrupted. I was pretty sure we both jumped a little. I watched as Winter pulled a cell phone out of her back pocket.
"Hello?" She paused. "Oh, hey Martin! What's up?"
I narrowed my eyes. Martin Rifkin?
He was obviously talking at the moment. Her eyes met mine for a second, then darted back down to her soda can.
"Mmhmm," she agreed to whatever he was saying. "Sure, I'd love to. Tomorrow? What time? … Four? Sounds great. The one downtown, right? … Okay. Can you call before you come? … Thanks…. Please, can I treat? I owe – " she broke off. "No, Martin, I'll pay, okay? I do owe you… great! …I know, I can't believe you remembered it!" He said something, and she laughed. "Thanks. So I'll talk to you later? Okay, bye."