by bret Wellman
When we reached her first hour it was about to begin. She started to walk in but turned back. “You’re going to be late.”
“Most likely.” I shrugged.
“Will I see you again before gym?”
“Lunch?”
She nodded then turned into the classroom. The teacher, a round man with a mustache that curled at the ends, was right there waiting and closed the door in my face. The hallway immediately started to look more barren.
I hurried to class in a rush not to be too late. I glanced into all the barren classrooms as I passed, about two of every three were empty. They had tarps over the desks making them look haunted.
There was a time when the population here would have been booming and all the classrooms would have been full. Long before I was born the death rate under the Kingdom had risen, and as that happened people started moving inward leaving the borders of the country less populated.
The information came seemingly out of nowhere, as if remembering a forgotten dream. I had to clear my head before I walked into my first hour.
The room was loud when I stepped inside my first hour. Class hadn’t started yet and most of the students were talking amongst each other. If the teacher saw me coming in late, he pretended not to notice.
Neal was waiting impatiently at my desk when I sat down.
“Are you going out with Brianna Frost?” He asked immediately.
Is that what we looked like this morning? “No, we’re just friends.”
“Really?” He sounded disappointed. “well, that’s the word going around.”
“The word?” I took in an aggravated breath. “What word?”
“I’m sorry dude.” He blurted out, looking ashamed.
I turned so I could see his face better. “What did you do Neal?”
He hesitated, a pleading look on his face. “It’s not my fault, the way you two always look at each other and then this morning. You have to be, I can see it.”
“Neal, who did you tell?” I cut him off.
“Everyone!” He burst. “I told everyone.”
I cupped my hands over my face and shook my head. At that moment it felt like the universe was pushing Brianna away. I wonder how she is going to react to this one. Hey Brianna remember how I just forced you to move in with me? Well on top of that everyone thinks we are dating now so yea… great.
“I’m sorry dude.” Neal pleaded. “I didn’t know.”
“It’s cool.” I shrugged and pretended to turn my attention toward the teacher who was now trying to call the class to order.
How many people thought we were dating? I wondered. Why hadn’t Neal asked me first? If it wasn’t one thing it was another, couldn’t my life just stay how it was for a bit.
Neal kept trying to apologize through the rest of the class. At first I kept telling him it was okay but after a while I mostly ignored him and kept my attention on the teacher.
On my way to my next class I couldn’t help but notice the abundance of passing glances in my direction. News traveled like wild fire in this school. Why did these people even care, hadn’t a teacher been executed a little while back? This was hardly news compared to that.
Neal was beginning a new string of apologies when I cut him off. “Seriously don’t worry about it, where’s your girlfriend by the way?”
“My girlfriend?” He was clearly taken off guard by my change in subject. “Well, I had to tell her to take a hike. She was holding me back.”
“She broke up with you didn’t she?”
Neal seemed taken aback by what I had just said and after a sigh he said “Yea, she said I was a loser.” His shoulders slumped even more than usual.
At that moment I realized that I’d been pretty hard on him. I had just been trying to joke around, how was I supposed to know he had been dumped? It’s not like he had told me. “Are you ok?” I asked trying to be sympathetic.
He stared at the floor and nodded.
“I think she was only after you.” He whispered looking sullen and defeated.
“You think what?” I said in a sudden outburst.
“She told me. She was just trying to get close to you.”
“That’s horrible. Good thing she’s gone then, you don’t need a girl like that.”
“Yea.”
“You can do better anyways.”
“No.” He huffed. “Look at me, she was right, I am a loser.”
“What?” I snapped. “Don’t listen to what she says. You’re a good guy, girls like you. They think you’re sweet.”
“Come on.” His shoulders sank like he was carrying something heavy. “I’m a loser, before you came here I never had a girlfriend and that’s why.”
“You’re losing.” I said, not quite sure where the statement had come from.
Neal looked skeptical. “What?”
The words came out of my mouth no sooner than they had entered my head. “I said you are losing Neal. A hundred percent of the battles you don’t fight, you are losing.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Do you think the Kingdom would have been here if the people had stood up and fought it? No, it wouldn’t have stood a chance. Too many people looked the other way Neal, too many people said it wasn’t their fight.”
He was beginning to look nervous. “Keep your voice down.” he whispered.
“You say you’re a loser” I continued, if anything growing louder. “You shy away from every girl you meet. But those are your battles Neal and you’re losing them. You’re not a loser, stop trying to be one. Stand up and fight!”
Judging by the look on his face, you would have thought I had just slapped him. He didn’t look convinced, though I did sense something, hope maybe.
“I’ll prove it to you.” I said half to myself.
“I don’t see how.”
Two kids were sitting in the front office. It was hard to miss the fact that one was pointing right at me as he spoke to his friend. I ignored them as best I could and kept walking past.
“You have to be willing to do whatever I tell you.” If I set him on the right path, With Brianna’s help he might actually stand a chance of getting a date.
“Ok.” He said. “I’m not going to have to do anything embarrassing am I?”
“It’s only embarrassing if you think of it that way, try thinking of it as talking to someone in your family, or a guy even.”
“I don’t know, I get nervous.”
“Every time you start to feel your nerves getting to you just take a breath deep into your stomach to calm yourself down, that’s what I do. Now what do you say, are you ready to step up to that plate? ” I said, trying to copy that mischievous smile that Adrian did so well.
“What are you going to make me do?”
“What needs to be done.” I shrugged, he looked scared.
“Come on dude. I don’t think I can do this.” His voice was shaky, it sounded like he was about to have a panic attack.
“Just relax, I haven’t even told you what you’re going to do yet.”
“That only makes it worse.” He raked a shaky hand through his hair.
“It’s not that bad.”
“It’s horrible.”
He looked like a man about to be executed. I haven’t even told him what to do and just the thought alone was starting to make him perspire. Trying to get him to go through with this was going to be impossible.
“Relax, Brianna and I will be with you the whole time.” This seemed to frighten him even more.
“Brianna’s going to be watching?” He said.
I stopped walking, we had reached my class.
“Is there something wrong with that?”
“She’s the hottest girl in school. She’ll make it worse.”
“She is going to be behind the scenes, working in your favor. She can add a lot of credibility to this mission.”
“Mission? You make it sound like this is some kind of battle.”
&nbs
p; I placed my hand on his shoulder in an attempt to calm him down. “I won’t make you do anything you’re not comfortable doing, ok?”
I waited for his shaky nod before walking into the classroom. He was still standing outside of the room when the bell went off. I watched his head snap up and he took off down the hall.
The teacher started the class by giving us a reading assignment, we were to spend the hour reading “The Faithful Kingdom”. I cringed, the book was basically four hundred pages of people being killed because they had rebelled against the government. I’m ninety percent sure that half the stuff didn’t happen and the rest was changed around to make the Kingdom look like the good guy.
Don’t get me wrong, the reading helped to make the hour go by faster, I just couldn’t believe the teacher was going to make us do a book report on this crap.
Science was relatively boring, the teacher made us study straight from the books. It sucked but I was just happy no one brought up the rumor that Brianna and I were dating. Maybe Neal hadn’t told as many people as I had thought.
Neal found me again on my way to lunch. His nerves seemed to have settled since I had last seen him.
“I’m ready.” He announced in a determined voice.
“Ready for what?” I knew what he was ready for I just couldn’t believe it. He had been so down about it earlier.
“I’ll do whatever you tell me to.”
“Hey that’s the spirit! I spent most of last hour thinking of what you can…”
“Hey, guys.” Brianna interrupted as she walked up from behind us. She smiled when I turned in her direction. The smell of coconut was on her skin.
The color ran from Neal’s face. “I’m not ready.” he said in full relapse. “I’m not, I’m not ready.”
“Relax, you’re going to be fine.” I said, trying to once again calm him down to his previous state
“Are you ok?” Brianna asked.
He just nodded.
“How is your day so far?” I asked Brianna, hoping the change in subject would bring Neal out of his stupor.
“Lame, I can’t wait to get back to the house. Everybody keeps asking what I have been doing lately. They literally get angry when I say nothing. It’s like they are prying, you don’t think they know we moved in together do you?”
I shrugged, pretending that I had no idea that they were most likely trying to get her to confess to going out with me.
Inside the cafeteria I couldn’t help but notice that at any given moment at least one person was staring in our direction. I was going to have to do something about Neal’s rumor before Brianna found out. What, I had no idea.
I led us into the lunch line, Neal had a sack lunch and went straight to the table. I didn’t think Brianna had any money so I offered to buy her food. I was a little bit embarrassed as I handed the cashier Lillie’s shiny credit card.
“Why does everybody keep staring at us?” She asked when we were walking toward our lunch table.
I shrugged to buy time while I thought of a good way to explain. “Funny story.”
One of Brianna’s friends, an attractive blond haired girl, stood up from a near table, stopping me before I could go on.
“You two look cute together.” She said like we already knew.
“We do?” Brianna asked.
I wanted to crawl in a hole and hide. The whole thing was unraveling right in front of me, I felt like I was free falling.
“When did you ask her out?” She turned to me.
‘And there it is’ I thought to myself
“Well I,”
“Nobody asked me out.” Brianna cut in before I could come up with an excuse.
“You guys are dating, aren’t you?” The girl sounded confused and slightly irritated.
“Nikki, who in the world told you we were dating?” Brianna asked.
I could feel the temperature in the room rising. A bead of sweat rolled down the back of my neck. What could I say? Now more than ever I wished I had my old brain so I could think my way out of this.
“Oh please Brianna, everybody knows it.” She looked angry and started to walk away. “Fine if you don’t want to tell me. That’s your business.”
I stood there speechless as I tried to think of something to say. I could see Neal peeking his head over the other kids at the lunch table. The whole lunch room was abuzz with noise and people walking and sitting at tables.
“What’s going on?” Brianna asked after a moment.
“Apparently Neal went around telling people we were dating.” I finally said.
“Why?”
“I guess it looked to him like we were.”
“That explains the weird questions I have been getting all day. She said as we made our way to the lunch table. Nobody seemed to notice us as we sat down at the far end of the table by ourselves.
I wasn’t sure if I should say anything so I decided the best idea was to just eat my bagel. When I was done with it she still hadn’t spoken so I decided it might be best if I said something.
“What should we do about it?” I was desperate to make her say something, anything. “If you want I will go around and personally tell every single person in the school we’re not dating.”
She frowned. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I don’t?”
“Unless you want to.” Suddenly she sounded self-conscious.
“What do you want?” I asked.
She stared at her food, blushing. “Maybe we could just go with it?”
“Tell everyone that we are dating?” I couldn’t believe what I had just heard.
“You probably don’t want to.” She said, looking back down at the table.
“I do.” I said in a rush. “I mean that sounds like a great idea.”
She glanced back up. “It does?”
“Yes, I mean, it’s the easiest way right?”
“It will save us the trouble of telling every single person the truth I guess.” She said.
“Okay so as far as the rest of the world is concerned we are dating. In a way it could be a good cover for why we moved in together. Two love sick teens jumping in deep, so soon. People will call it idiotic but they will also believe it.” I would have to run it by Adrian but with a little tweaking the story might check out. Of course that still leaves why Spencer and the rest of the family moved in.
“So how do we act now?” She asked.
I thought as I picked at my french fries. “I don’t see why we would act any different.” I said between bites.
“You’re probably right.” She nodded. “It’s just that I’ve never dated anyone before. Blake was the closest I’ve ever had to a boyfriend. We really haven’t been free for all that long, I don’t know how normal couples should behave.”
“I know.” The Kingdom would have never allowed it.
“Could you imagine what kind of ramifications we would face if the Kingdom knew what we were doing?” She asked.
“It wouldn’t be pretty.” I said, the punishment would be down right horrible. “Solitary confinement with a daily whipping.” I guessed.
“They would probably make us stand on red hot metal.”
I shuddered thinking of the Kingdom’s more inventive ways of punishment. In truth, they didn’t really make you stand on the metal as much as run across it until you were gasping for breath and your feet were all blistered and burnt.
“They did that to the girls too?” I would have figured that that one was for boys only.
“They didn’t see us as girls, only soldiers.” She said like it was common knowledge.
“Did they ever use their stun guns on you?” I asked.
She nodded. “If we knew it was going to happen we went to the bathroom beforehand. Things could get pretty gross if you didn’t”
“What about when they lock you in a room and blew hundreds of angry wasps through the vents?”
“Did you know how that started? The Kingdom thought children were afraid of bee
s. It was a two-fer, we got punished whilst learning to face our fears. One time after they did that my eyes swelled shut.” She said it like it was no big deal.
“I spent three days in the clinic after they did that to me.” I said.
Her eyes got wide as if she had just realized something important. “I hate it when they poisoned our food.” She dropped the rest of her bagel down on her plate. “Then when we get sick from the food, they made us run laps.”
I set my food down as well. It was hard to eat while remembering the horrible things they would put in our food to punish us. Of course Adrian, Lillie and I had never fallen for it, we would pick at the food we decided wasn’t poisoned. Sometimes it would make our guardians angry and they would punish us in other ways. We chose to eat the poison a few times, not wanting to face whatever other punishment they had cooked up.
“They stopped poisoning our food after three physical users died.”
“Is that why?” She asked, scrunching up her face. “I always wondered.”
“After you guys escaped they brought back the poison for a while. They wanted to make sure no one else would try to follow.” I said, trying not to think about the things the Kingdom had done to us in that following week after they had left.
“They did?” Brianna gasped. “William I’m so sorry. We didn’t know”
“It’s ok. They were going to end up doing it eventually anyway.” The truth was that they wanted us to be hard. The strongest metal came from the hottest fires, they were just turning up the heat. That was how Adrian had explained it one day when we were little.
She looked down at the table like she had done something wrong. “Thank you.”
“You guys are dating!” I heard Neal yell from the other side of the table.
I didn’t want to turn and acknowledge him. It was hard to put on a smile and face the world with such memories running through your head.
“Why do you say that?” I said without turning away from her.
“Because you act like you are.” He pointed out. It was remarkable how much more outgoing he was with all his friends around him.
I watched as Brianna’s face changed from ashen to calm in the blink of an eye, the poker face of an assassin. In an instant she was wearing a mask that hid her true emotions, the pain of what the Kingdom had done to us.