Love Storm

by Ruth Houston

  "Luckily, you are not me," I said acidly, then paused for a second. "Or maybe unluckily." I smirked.

  He seemed rather taken aback from my quick change of demeanor, and said, "Uh, yeah…dunno what would be the best answer in this situation," he muttered to himself.

  "And, you have to admit," I added, in a superior tone, "You are biased against Zack."

  "If you want to make peace with Crowne too I guess you could," Martin said reluctantly.

  "If I can even get him to talk to me first," I muttered darkly. "I tried this morning and he acted like I was invisible or something. Gav's not speaking to me either."

  He shrugged. "Hey," he said, "Sorry to change the subject, but Eva called me last night."

  "Oh?" I arched an eyebrow.

  "Yeah," Martin said slowly, frowning. "Did you know that her dad –"

  "Yeah." I exhaled the word. "Got a fiancée. And you really shouldn't have brought it up because it's supposed to be a secret," I added irritably, instantly regretting the tone of voice I had used. I realized it was unfair of me to unleash all my frustration on Martin. No one else seemed very keen to hold a conversation with me unless it involved some groundless finger pointing and insults. Would you mind not snapping at the only person who's willing to talk to you? I scolded myself.

  Some form of an apology must have shown on my face because he said lightly, "I know you and Eva are best friends and I know she tells you everything, so I figured it'd be harmless to bring it up with you."

  I nodded. "Sorry I've been so grouchy," I mumbled sheepishly.

  "No problem. Let's go eat lunch."

  "Yeah," I sighed. "Let's go. No, please not to the cafeteria," I said when he moved off in that direction. "Let's just…go eat outside or something."

  "Sure, whatever you want," Martin said cheerily, whistling a little tune as we stepped outside into the bright sunlight.

  "What are you so happy about?" I asked gruffly as we strolled on the lawn, looking for a place to sit. "Oh, let's go sit by the wall, I haven't eaten lunch there since Eva moved away."

  "Okay. And nothing," Martin beamed in answer to my question. "I'm always this happy, remember?"

  I rolled my eyes as we sat down next to each other on the grass with our backs against the wall in the shade. It was made of stone, roughly four and a half feet high, and it was old – as old as Branner High itself, which only looked as new as it did because of some major remodeling six years ago. There was a plaque on the other side with the date 1923 on it, to give you an idea of its age. It was originally constructed as one of the perimeters of the school, but today, it was merely a crumbling stone structure smack dab in the middle of the east lawn. It was a nice place to sit for lunch – there was a huge willow tree at one end of the wall providing shade, and a sunny spot on the other. Eva and I used to use this to our utmost advantage, getting rid of our horrible sock tans by positioning ourselves in the shade with just our bare feet sticking out into the sunlight.

  "So, you ready for the Calculus test tomorrow?" Martin asked as we opened our lunches.

  "Yeah," I said around a mouthful of apple. "You?"

  "Sure, why not?" he grinned.

  "You going to the dance on Friday?" I asked.

  "Eh, what? The dance? No," he said, appearing to think the question and answer irrelevant to how he would do on the Calculus test. I suppose he thought right, but I was too preoccupied to notice.

  "I see," I nodded, taking another bite of the apple. "Hey, how's football?"

  "Uh…good. Yeah, you must have heard about how Bellmont forfeited last Thursday. Because their coach is weird and doesn't like them playing in the rain."

  I nodded again. "So you finished that book for English after all, huh?" I guessed.

  He looked bewildered. "Which one?"

  "I don't know, whichever one you were telling me you hadn't finished yet," I explained very specifically, waving it off. "And anyway," I said thoughtfully to myself, "You didn't have a game, because they did forfeit. So you must have finished it. The book, I mean."

  "Um…yeah," Martin said, obviously failing to see the logic behind this. "So…" he hedged.

  "Yeah, and I was late getting home that day," I continued, frowning. "Got yelled at by my mother again. Do you have any idea what a roux is?" I demanded.

  "No, I don't think I do, really," he said, looking positively alarmed by now. "Are you –"

  "Me neither! Not until my mom told me to watch over it for her when she went to use the bathroom," I said. "Apparently it's just water and flour. How can you burn water and flour? But I burned it," I said mournfully, "And got shouted at again. How do you burn water and flour?" I asked again.

  "I have…no clue," he said, in a rather cautious way.

  "Ugh, same here," I agreed gloomily, done with my apple now. I took out my sandwich and tossed the apple core back into my empty brown paper bag. "And my cell phone's out of batteries again!"

  "I'm sorry," Martin said emphatically, a rather wild look in his eyes.

  "Not your fault my cell's out of batteries. And Eva wanted me to call her tonight," I said quietly, taking a bite of my sandwich, and even as I talked new thoughts popped in where the old one was, one after another, sometimes more than one at once, tumbling over each other.

  "You should call her then," Martin said.

  "I should," I murmured, trying to bring my attention back to the thought about Eva, for Martin's sake. Stress did this to me, and I suppose it must have been near torture to hold a conversation with me when I was so frazzled.

  "You should."

  "I will. And I'll have to ask her what she wants for her birthday," I sighed. "She's so hard to shop for."

  "Tell me about it," Martin said, speaking quickly as if eager to keep me on one subject. "What do you think I should get her?"

  "I dunno," I said absently, because yet another new thread had niggled its way to the front unbidden, "Did you know that Abercrombie and Fitch smells like money?"

  "No, I did not. Hey," he said tightly, "Are you feeling alright?"

  "Good as I'll be under the circumstances, anyway," I answered wryly. "Oh, yeah, I've been meaning to ask you –"

  "No, don't ask me anything else!" Martin blurted out. "Don't, please. I know you get extremely short-tempered and stuff when you're tense, but no one ever warned me about all these sudden topic changes!"

  "I'm sorry," I groaned, "I can't help it. I don't even really realize I'm doing it sometimes. Tristan was the person who first informed me about it." I shook my head, trying to clear it. "It's just that when I'm stressed I get all these things running through my head at the same time and they just all converge into this big mess, and I'm sorry," I concluded lamely. Okay, that was poor sentence structure.

  Martin smiled. "That's okay," he said understandingly. "Hey, do you hear something?"

  At first I thought he had said it out of the blue just to get me to stop talking to him about all these seemingly random things (which were not, in fact, random; they connected perfectly in my head, though I'm sure you would not enjoy a detailed analysis of the connections), but then I realized I did hear it – voices, coming from the other side of the wall. It was probably just the punky goth people or something, whatever they like to be called. They were having an animated conversation about…some band or concert or something. I shut up right away and we eavesdropped. I was glad for the distraction though, because for now, the mess of thoughts in my head could be pushed to the back. The conversation from the other side of the wall sounded more or less like this:

  "No man, we are totally not chilling at your house before, remember what happened last time?" a guy's voice said.

  Everyone else cracked up. "I thought your mom was gonna have a heart attack when she saw us!" another male voice chortled.

  "Hey," someone else said defensively, "She didn't know we were gonna be hanging before, you can't blame her. I had no idea she was home, she was supposed to be out…I dunno, grocery shopping or whatever."
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  "Yeah man, don't take a crack at his mom, that's not cool," a fourth voice agreed.

  "I wasn't taking a crack at his mom," the second voice replied in astonishment. "I was just saying, she looked really shocked, is all. It was funny. You were laughing too, Brian. Anyway man, you're coming, right? Not too heartbroken to join your pals for a good concert? It'll be just like old times."

  Someone new chuckled. "Sure, I'll come," said a very familiar voice. "No, I'm not too heartbroken."

  Someone made a disapproving click with their tongue. The fourth voice said, "Dude, forget about her. She's a two-timing bitch."

  "I wasn't going out with her in the first place though," that fifth voice replied. Where had I heard that voice before?

  "Well that's good then. It means you won't be too heartbroken to be our DD, right?" one of the other guys said. "Mack doesn't make a good DD, the last time we gave him that responsibility we woke up in the car on the side of the highway with no gas."

  That familiar voice chuckled again. "Yeah, I'll be DD for you guys. I drive a sedan though, so three of you will have to squish in the back."

  "I CALL SHOTGUN!" four voices yelled at the same time.

  "I said it first!"

  "Who are you shitting, dude? I said it first."

  "No, no, no, I called it first, man, I get shotgun, I get shotgun!"

  "NO YOU DON'T!" three other voices roared.

  "Brian does not get shotgun, he always reclines his seat so whoever's sitting behind him has no leg room!"

  "Hey! I do not!"

  "Yes you do!"

  "No I don't!"

  "YES YOU DO!"

  "I do get shotgun?"

  "Yes, you – shit!"

  "Marc, why'd you say that you idiot?!"

  "AHAHAHAHA!" Brian was laughing his head off. "I love that trick, it gets you guys every time!"

  "Everyone shut up!" someone yelled. Brian was still giggling madly. "It's Zack's car, he gets to decide! Alright man, who's it gonna be? (Pick me, I want shotgun!)"

  I pressed my knuckles to my lips. No wonder that voice had sounded so familiar. So Zack was back to his old self, hanging out with different crowds. I automatically took another bite of my sandwich, though I was no longer hungry. Come to think of it, I hadn't been hungry in the first place.

  "I'm guessing Brian got shotgun last time, so he should let someone else have it," Zack said. His voice, light with amusement, struck something in my chest, and it hurt. "Hmm. George is too crazy to sit in the front, I can't have someone like that distracting me while I drive." I could hear a grin in his voice.

  "Amen!" someone piped in.

  "Marc, you almost let Brian have shotgun this time so I guess the honor goes to your bro over there."

  "YEAH, BABY!" someone whooped. "Mack wins, once again!"

  Three other voices groaned.

  "Stop talking about yourself in the third person, would you? It makes me embarrassed to admit we're related," someone grumbled.

  The triumphant person had jumped up and was doing a victory dance. Since the wall was only four and a half feet tall, I could see the head and shoulders of a guy dressed in a black t-shirt who had white blonde hair in spikes and pale skin. Suddenly he looked over the wall to my side and saw me sitting there, a half-eaten apple in my hand, watching him dance.

  "Whoa, hey there," he said, his dance coming to a halt.

  "Uh, hi," I replied.

  "Mack, are you chatting up another girl?" one of the faceless voices asked from the other side.

  "Yup. She's pretty," Mack said enthusiastically. "I'm Mack."

  "Nice to meet you," I smiled nervously. Martin shifted uneasily next to me and shot me a look that clearly said, 'Watch what you say.' He knew Zack was on the other side and had heard one of the guys call me a bitch.

  "Aww, do you already have a boyfriend?" Mack said, looking at Martin disappointedly.

  "Nope, he's just my good friend. He's actually my best friend's boyfriend," I said.

  "Ooh, I see," he said, looking pleased. "What's your name?"

  I bit my lip, looking up at him from where I was still sitting on the ground. "I'm Winter," I said softly.

  "Winter?" Mack said blankly. "Wait…wait, wait, wait, you're…?"

  "Hey!" someone exclaimed. I could hear scuffling noises coming from the other side as three other people scrambled up. Aw, holy crap-o-moly, what now?

  Three new faces stared down at me. Zack's was not among them. Oh jeez, how do I get myself into these situations? And I hate it when strangers stare at me. I am not an animal in a zoo, thank you very much.

  I had to stand up too. It's rather unnerving when four tall guys dressed in black are staring down at you. Granted, they were still looking down to see me when I stood up, but it was a little closer to eye level.

  "What did you say your name was?" One of the other guys asked. I recognized his voice as Brian's.

  "Winter," Zack said resignedly, his face and shoulders appearing too. "That's Winter." He wouldn't meet my eyes.

  "Hey, Mack's right, she's pretty hot," another guy said. I was guessing this was Marc because he looked a lot like his blonde brother.

  The fourth person shoved him. "Have you no tact at all?" he hissed.

  Martin stood as well to back me up.

  "Oh, got yourself another boyfriend already?" the fourth person said nastily. Putting names with the number of people present, I assumed this was George.

  "He's not my boyfriend," I explained again.

  "Yeah, right," George sneered.

  Zack had only just seemed to notice Martin was present. "What are you doing here?" he asked sharply.

  "I was eating lunch with Winter," Martin replied coolly. "And unless that's illegal I think you should just back off and stop while you're ahead, Crowne."

  "Hey, pretty boy, don't talk to Zack like that," Marc said, scowling. He elbowed his brother.

  "Yeah," Mack said, half-heartedly. His eyes kept darting between everyone – his friends and Zack one on side, Martin and me on the other. He alone seemed to realize what an unfair verbal fight it was – five against two.

  "Yeah, you're just a stupid jock," Brian said rudely.

  "Hey, watch who you're calling stupid!" I snapped, temper rising. "And don't make generalizations like that."

  "I can make whatever generalizations I want to," he retorted.

  "I can put a stereotype on you, if you want," George drawled. "You're a prep and a slut to boot who uses her free time to hurt other people like our friend Zack here."

  Wow. Never in my life had I been called a prep or a slut. Until that moment, that is. "Oh yeah? Well if I'm a prep and a slut then you're obviously some punk who spends his free time getting high and drinking alcohol like his life depends on it. And has a major attitude problem to boot," I said venomously.

  Mack was hiding a grin. "This girl has guts, no one talks to George like that," he whispered audibly to Marc.

  "Shut up, Mack!" the other three glowered at him.

  Zack still hadn't said much up to this point and when I glanced at him I found he was staring hard at me.

  "Zack," I said softly, desperately, "You have to believe me. I was never going out with Gavin –"

  "'I was never going out him,'" George mimicked in a whiny, falsetto voice.

  "Hey ass-wipe, shut the fuck up," I barked. I glared at him then turned back to Zack. He spoke before I could continue.

  "I told you that you could stop lying already," he said quietly.

  "Yeah, stop lying to our faces," Brian added fiercely.

  "You can shut the fuck up too, jerk," I said. "Zack, listen to me, please –"

  "Ah, get over yourself," George cut in. "Just 'cause you're pretty you think he likes you? You think he still likes you after what you did to him?"

  "Flattered though I am that you think I'm pretty, I thought I told you," I said through gritted teeth, "To shut. The fuck. Up. Are you really such a loser that you make butting into other people's
business a personal hobby?"

  Marc laughed unpleasantly. "Man, George was right, you really are a bitch."

  At this statement, something akin to displeasure flickered in Zack's eyes for the briefest of moments, and Martin made a movement behind me. I stopped him with a hand. "Don't," I muttered. "They're not worth it."

  "Hey guys, maybe we should back off a little," Mack interjected. "This is between Winter and Zack. Maybe we should let it stay that way."

  I gave him the smallest of grateful smiles.

  Just then the bell rang. Lunch was over.

  "Yeah, that's right, go on to class now, you little straight-A slut," George sneered contemptuously. What the hell? Straight-A slut? Oooh, I'm really hurt now. This guy knows exactly how to hit where it stings the most, he does. I suppressed the automatic urge to roll my eyes. "Run along with your bodyguard and leave Zack alone."

  "Why don't you go get stoned and jump off a bridge and let me worry about whether or not I want to leave Zack alone?" I said sweetly. "Later, Mack," I waved at the blonde kid who shrugged just slightly as if to say, 'Sorry about all this,' as Martin and I walked back toward the school building.

  "I swear to god," Martin exploded as soon as we were out of earshot, "That little punk! You should have let me deck him, Winter –"

  "Leave it," I said tiredly. "They just want to pick a fight for the hell of it. Don't give them the pleasure. Mack's right, it's between me and Zack."

  xxxxx

  When in despair, do as all desperate people do – ring yo' shrink, dude.

  "Tristan?"

  "Win!" He sounded excited and happy to hear from me. "'Sup? I'm glad you called! Now I have an excuse to stop studying for my Lit test tomorrow."

  I laughed. "Working hard?"

  "Hell yeah. They put your nose to the grindstone in college, I'm telling you. What's going on? Something big must have happened if you're calling me long distance."

  "Yeah…" I said slowly. "It's about Zack…"

  I told him the whole story, and finished it with, "And Martin told me to make peace with both of them, which I've been trying to do, but it's hard when they don't want to listen to you."

  "Well, Martin's only right about one thing."

  "What's that?"

  "Make peace with Gavin. Don't make peace with Zack."