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SORRY FOR FALSE ALARM IN CASE SOMEONE HAS THE STORY ON ALERTS. I WAS CORRECTING A COUPLE TYPOS THAT ANNOYED THE HELL OUT OF ME. I HAVE RE-WRITTEN THE NEXT CHAPTER ABOUT 35749 TIMES BEFORE DECIDING THAT IT WAS BETTER THE WAY IT WAS BEFORE. IT'LL BE UP TONIGHT. I JUST HAVE TO PROOF-READ IT AND STUFF BEFORE POSTING. SORRY ABOUT BEING SO DAMN SLOW...




The following morning I woke up early. It was a school day, and though the classes weren't starting until noon, I was already sitting by the kitchen table sipping my coffee around 8am.
I was slightly nervous about going to school, or more accurately I dreaded running into Gerard somewhere in the campus area. For some reason, I was fairly sure things would not be any less awkward between us after what happened yesterday.

And what exactly did happen? I guess I could say that I got what I wanted and leave it at that, but a nagging voice in the back of my mind was persistantly trying to give me second thoughts.

I got what I wanted, so shouldn't the wanting end at that? Did I want more or did I want something else? Yesterday had left me more than satisfied, physically, but mentally I did not feel what I'd expected. The dance of victory never rocked my body and the expression on my face wasn't a thrilled, but a glum one.

After my second cup of coffee Frank shuffled into the kitchen. He'd been asleep on the couch when I'd come home last night. Asleep, or passed out. We hadn't talked since his dramatic storming out of a chinese restaurant - stunt, and I wasn't sure if things were supposed to be awkward or not.


"Morning" I offered.


"..Morning" Came his reply, but not soon enough to leave the hesitation unnoticed.


He poured himself a cup of coffee and sat next to me. In about two seconds Mikey followed Frankie's lead and appeared in the room, fumbling with the coffee maker to brew more of the addicting liquid.

This was nice, I thought. We were like a little, strange as fuck, family, all gathered here in the sunny kitchen to start a new day together. I wondered briefly if this was the only kind of family I would ever have, and decided again to hold on to my friends harder than I often did. I needed to be reminded of the fact that these people were all that I had, and if I didn't want to end up slowly dying alone in a care home with a week old diaper in my pants and a rosy-cheeked, annoyingly happy nurse being the only one to ever bother to speak to me, I'd have to pay more attention to how I treated these people.

My eyes wandered back and forth from the messy, smelly-looking Frank to the dead tired Mikey who looked so different and unfamiliar without his glasses. His sand-coloured hair looked like a haystack and a few stray strands stuck to his slightly sweaty cheek. What a handsome bunch we were.

He cleared his throat in a way that brought out his sudden discomfort, and I looked up with little interest.


"So uhm.. Em-" He started "Have you like thought about getting a job at some point?"

What a strange question. I just quit one because of your constant nagging, Mikes.


"... At some point, sure, yeah.." I tried.


"I mean it's just that the rent is due and it doesn't seem like you're capable of contributing, so I just thought it would be something you should consider. I go to college too, and I have a part-time job at Barnes and Nobles. You should think about it.."


"I'll pay the next month's rent." I declared, feeling a little embarrassed at how he brought it up at breakfast table.

Frank knew all about my finance so it didn't make much sense to get all uncomfortable around him while Mikey called on my lack of money, but a slight defiance was awoken.

"I didn't mean that, you know it. You don't have the pay the whole rent next month, just that when you're settled with this school thing I think you should try and figure something out." He looked me dead in the eye and I hated the way he made himself look like the older, responsible one while I was left to be the little sister getting his advice.


"I'll pay the whole damn thing, Mikes. Don't worry about it. I got it covered."


Needless to point out, I didn't, but the situation called for the lie. I would get the money for sure, I had an entire month on me. I'd made more money in less time in the past in moments of despair.

Mikey gave me a tiny smile and left the room after pouring himself a refill.
Frank let out a grunt that was partly a snore and partly a sigh and he looked much like even he wasn't entirely sure whether he was awake or not.
I gave him a slight nudge.
Bringing the cup to his lips, he stared at the wall ahead.


"Soo.. Did you have good time with Gerard last night?" He asked, failing horribly at nonchalance.

I decided that sarcasm was the best way to go, not wanting to lie.


"I always have a good time with Gerard. Haven't you noticed?" I gasped with mock astonishment, but Frank didn't let out the chuckle I was waiting for.


My worries from last night re-appeared, and I found myself staring at the side of his head, trying so hard to push all my ideas of the Frank I knew aside and see him as a perfect stranger.
Could he be gay? Did he act like a gay person? When did he last have a girlfriend?

Last week, propably, but they never seemed to last any longer than that. I racked my brain in order to bring back any memories of Frank explaining the reason to his break-ups, but came up empty. Either he never told me, or I just hadn't paid enough attention to remember any of it.
A feeling of sadness dawned on me as I understood it was most likely the latter.

How could it be that, if you stripped off the companionship we shared, I knew so goddamned little about my best friend? I used to know him better, and it shocked me having to admit that somewhere along the way, I had come too preoccuppied with my own sad life to actually pay attention to what was going on in his. I knew the parts that in one way or the other involved me, but the rest was a great big blur.

I wasn't fully in control of my body as my hand shot forward, reaching out to stroke his hair.
He twitched a bit, and turned to look at me with a sly smile on his lips.


"What're you doing?"


"I'm touching your hair." I pointed out the obvious. I wasn't trying to be a smartass, but the thoughts that went through my head prevented me from giving a lot of thought to the conversation at hand.


"I can see that." He suppressed a smile.

I let out a sigh and decided to give straightforwardness a shot.


"Is there something you want to tell me, Frank? Cause you know you can tell me anything." I breathed out, and my heart picked up a faster pace.


In all honesty I didn't even expect him to come out and say it, confess the true state of his sexual preferences, right here and now just because I happened to ask a vaguely curious question.But he might, or atleast it might send him to think about it and possibly consider telling me..
I felt nervous waiting for his answer, though I had little reason to.


"Yes, why not." He turned to gaze into my eyes. He coughed and I detected him preparing himself for something he hadn't intended to say. I was ready.


"I got a pocket dialed by Gerard last night." He spoke showing no emotion.


It took me a shamefully long time to register what he said.
I hadn't actually expected him to say anything, so my brain was rather slow at processing the information it had so suddenly received. I let my hand drop and frowned at the coffee before me. So no answer on the gay subject.. Right.
And then he said.. He said what? A call? From Gerard?


"...When you say pocket dial, you mean-"


"-I mean I got a call that wasn't meant to happen. Usually happens when you leave your phone in your pocket without keylock." He stated matter of factly.


"Right. So, you're telling me this because..?" I had a feeling I wasn't getting something, but I was so used to not catching every single vital little hint thrown at me.


He ran his hand through his hair and muttered something from the corner of his mouth that sounded much like a bunch of curse words.
He was getting worked up for some reason.


"Because you asked if there was something I wanted to tell you. And there is- I wanted to let you know that this was definitely not the way I imagined hearing what I heard." And with that he left the table, leaving the last strained words hanging in the air.
I tried to put them together and understand what about them had him so worked up, but didn't succeed.

Until... Until, the pieces fell on their right places in front of my eyes. The call had taken place when we were at the park. The sounds - oh god the sounds-, I knew what he was talking about!
Frank had fucking overheard us having sex, shit! My face fell and the embarrasment caugh me off guard. I could feel my face flush and burn with a dark red tone even though there was no one left in the room to witness my shame.

I didn't even want to know how much Frank had heard. There wasn't much to hear in a way, since there hadn't been a lot of talking going on.. When had it happened? Perhaps when Gerard had dropped his kind of tight jeans down to hug his knees. That was so bad. I cringed having to do it, but I tried to recall all the sounds from last night, had they been loud? Was I ever going to be able to look Frank in the eye again?

Still, the most mysterious thing about all this was the way he was acting. The Frank I knew would have the time of his life, laughing and cracking jokes and making fun of me as if his life depended on it. He would bow down to some random saint he remembered by name for having gone to a catcholic school and thank his heart out for letting something so hilarious come his way. He would snicker at my blushing and use his talents in producing girly sounds to imitate me. I almost smiled as I thought about the Frank I knew and realized that I was dead on - there was nothing in the world I knew better than Frank's habits in fun making.

And what he said - 'not the way I imagined hearing what I heard' - that comment was so cryptic I couldn't even begin to understand what he had meant by it.
He had imagined Gerard and I having sex but didn't think he'd overhear it through a phone receiver but some other way? It didn't make any damn sense! Frustrated, I shook my head and abandoned the half empty coffee cup by the sink and left the kitchen.

I took some money out of my room, noticing that my little stash of cash was fast reducing and had to admit that Mikey was right, I wasn't going to be able to contribute this month. I felt a bit bad about it, but brushed the feeling off as I went to put my shoes on.

A quick glance at the mirror on the hall wall confirmed what I already knew - the blush on my cheeks hadn't even started to fade. I decided to pull my hair up to a ponytail to create a little cheerier look than what I was capable of with my shoulder-length, heavy hair down.
I had quite dark hair seeing as though I, too, had Italian origins.

My mother was half Italian, but if I didn't know, I wouldn't take her for a half blood. She had dark hair and these prominent, rectangularly arched eyebrows and thin lips. Her skin was olive toned, highlighted by the tons and tons of fake gold jewelry she wore. My father was Irish, but didn't look like the leprecaun people always thought of as soon as I mentioned his nationality.

Frank still stuck to his theory about my father being a tiny, mythical creature, though, saying that it only made sense with my height. But he wasn't one to talk, really.

I had my mother's dark brown hair, only a shade lighter and with a barely noticable reddish tint. My eyes were rather inspectacular, the color was a oh-so-common, unremarkable hazely brown. My skin was fairer than my mother's, but not as ghostly white as my dad's. I had few lost freckles around my nose that mostly appeared in summertime and faded away with the last rays of the hollow autumn sun.

I was content with the way I looked. I'd always been painfully aware of the fact that I was a perfect blend of the stereotypical Italian and Irish looks, but I hardly brought out the best qualities of either. I was pretty average looking, and after discovering that my dark eyelashes hardly needed any mascara and my miraculously pure skin didn't need to be covered with tons of makeup, I decided to stick with cherry lipstick and leave everything else natural. Most of the time, I wasn't really interested in my appearance.

My hair was still a bit too short for a classical ponytail but I tried my best and left the house looking like a little kid with my hair up in a sloppy knot.



*


I found myself in that same class again, the one about history of arts that held absolutely zero interest to me. Men had painted naked women throughout the history, with some sort of linen covering the most intimate zone and an apple on the poor girls hand to remind the great public again that women were cunning and deceitful.
That was all there was to historic art - nude chicks, portraits of the rich, and predictable little bible refrences.
When I pointed that out to the professor, he gave me a look that would've silenced a bitch-fitting two-year-old.


"Ms. Malkin, would you care to come up front for a moment?" He spoke in a tone that made it clear that his request wasn't really a request, but a demand. The would you care part was there just for the sake of formality.


I rose up from my seat, extremely aware of the looks I was receiving. It wasn't like professor Friedrich to interrupt his perfectly organized lecture.
I wondered if I'd finally crossed the line with my tiny, irregular acts of rebellion and snarkiness.

I decided that the best way to deal with this was to unleash my cocky self, the part of me that always came to the rescue when the real Em started to feel the first signs of unsureness.


"I'm always ready for the spotlight, professor." I chuckled as I walked up to the old, scrawny framed man with a pair of glasses that were propably a part of art history itself.


"Good." He smiled at me with spark in his eyes.


I recognized those sparks, growing up with mostly boys as friends had made me understand the meaning of them. He had something up his sleeve, and I wasn't going to like it.
Putting on my brave face, I stood there facing the entire lecture hall full of half-bored students that were only now starting to pay attention to what was happening in this usually so uneventful class.


"I must say that the school's experiement on the online classes was a success." He started.


"Our respectable students submitted a handful of insightful essays which, I suspect, took them all long weekend to write. Also, the reviews submitted by other students were exemplary in developing conversation." The tiny nod he gave spoke of approval.


I knew what this was about.. I never handed in the essays. I vaguely remembered turning on Grace's computer and trying to figure out how to use the freaking world wide web, and I even have slight memories of logging in on the school's web site. But after that, there was pretty much blankness. What did I do after that? What day was it anyway?

I racked my clogged up brain and realized the next thing I remembered was waking up late as hell for the infamous Pencey Prep show in Newark.. And then Ray's car and Gerard and the hassle on the alleyway and the pills again and oh shit - this crazy weekend was coming back to bite me where it hurt..

I felt my face redden as I thought of the humiliation the professor had decided to cause on me.
He was calling me out in front of fifty students who'd apparently done their work to please the guy. I had to be the only one who never handed in anything, why else would he make me stand here alone?


"I say it was a success since most of you-" The way he emphasized the word 'most' did not go unnoticed. "-seemed to grasp the idea rather well. The school has come to the decision to involve online activity in the studies as default."


Now comes the iffy part, I thought as the man turned to look at me.
He extended his left hand as if to present me to the class. Most of them propably thought I was going to be praised for my expectional work. I so wish.


"Ms. Malkin here, can unfortunately not be included. Her essay, I believe, has been read by the majority of you and her reviews on your work did indeed receive attention."


My blood froze. My essays? My reviews?! What the hell - what had I done?
Oh good god, did I in fact continue my school work after that pill that blackened my brain?
I felt like crying and pissing my pants and then crying even harder!


"Now, Ms.Malkin, in case there is an individual in my class who is as of yet unfamiliar with your work, I suggest you read it out loud for my class to hear. I believe, it will be an unforgettable ending to this lecture."


He handed me a stack of papers that I accepted with my eyes half shut. I didn't want to see any of this. I'd rather the world split in half and swallowed me and the papers before I'd have to open my mouth and come face to face with what I guessed was the biggest mistake I'd ever done. I squeezed my shut as if I could make all this disappear.
I cleared my throat and swallowed hard.


"Go on." He encouraged me with an overly friendly tone.


I tentativedly opened one eye to study the front page. On the top I could see my name the way it had to be written to log in to the web site. emmie-dot-malkin. This was bad, I just knew it..

Seeing as though my options were narrowed, and the earth didn't feel like eating me up when I most needed it, I opened my mouth and decided to blurt it all out without reading it first. I would read it mechanically one word at a time and not pay slightest attention to what was coming out of my mouth.

I cleared my throat again, fearing that my voice would shake and betray me. I reminded myself that unapologetic cockiness and apathy was the only way out of this.


"My fellow artistic fuckers." I started and cringed and my chosen headline.


My words brought out a couple muffled chuckles from around my audience. Somehow, instead of putting me to shame, it encouraged me. I took a deep breath and kept reading.


"I see what you butt-suckers did there - I'm sure the stuck up, fossilic professor will be very happy with ya'll. Your essays were oh-so-smart, informative and plain fucking boring." I paused to glance at my fellow students. All eyes were on me, so I quickly dropped my gaze back to the papers.


"Writing something insightful, I believe, was the goal in this shenaningans, and therefore my approach on his subject, I hope, is exactly that. History is secondary. Nobody gives a shit about history. If anyone in this god forsaken institute believes for one second that knowing history will get your ass up to the potition where you are hosting a world-famous gallery of over-priced art, you're absolutely full of shit. That is my take on history. Let's move on to arts. Art is for the untalented. Art is a squiggly line on a blank canvas with a label on it that says 'expressionism'. Art is for pansies who doesn't have the fucking balls to speak their minds and tell it how it is. Art is deceptive and treacherous - it results in speculation instead of knowledge.
Art is taking a shit and declaring it paté. Art is saying that kid down street is special instead of fucking retarded. Art is crossdressing instead of admitting to homosexuality.
Art is a lie. Art is embellishment and sugar-coating. You'll have to excuse me for me foul language, though, cause I'm like super high right now, I took some weird pills from Grace and basically I just want you to know that I hate you all and-"

I paused.

"I'm sorry professor, but I can't understand the rest of it."


He angrily grabbed the papers from my trembling hands.


"You mean the, eh, gheapntka ggruuuf agfdyj?"


"I believe I might've passed out on the keypad, professor." I stated calmly.


The shocked silence of the room was washed away with the first shrill giggles coming from the back row, soon followed by several random sounds of snickering and chuckles.

Someone let out a loud laugh, and I pulled a hesitant, surprised smile that most likely only reflected the panicky state of my mind. I stood there with this grimace-like fake smile on my lips until the professor calmly told me to leave the classroom, which I gratefully did, realizing that I'd only had to read out the essay and got off having to read the reviews I had most likely submitted, too.

The professor had said they'd received attention. Knowing me, receiving attention was never ever a positive thing.

I hurried through the corridor, reaching the hall and after grabbing a cup of coffee from the cafeteria, nearly run through the heavy oak doors out into the fresh air.
I found a vacant bench on the far end of the school yard, by an ancient tree that smelled like honeysuckles.
I let out an exasperated sigh and thought over the last twenty minutes. What a great way to start a school day.

I had a sinking feeling that my college career was fast going on nowhere.
In fact, that sinking feeling applied to my entire freaking life.

I wished I could call Frank but I wasn't sure if it was okay or not, and I hated not knowing. It wasn't meant to be like that between him and I, and it frustrated me to no end that I didn't understand how it had come to this and what was required of me for things to go back the way they were.

I thought about calling Grace, just to have someone to talk to and share this shameful story with and hopefully end up having a laugh about it, but it wasn't Grace I wanted to talk to.
She was too much like myself - very uninterested in anyone else's business and even such a tragicomic story such as this one was most likely to receive nothing but a dry chuckle.

With people I called friends, sitting by my side here on this moist bench, the situation would rapidly start to gain funny sides to it, but sitting here alone with a lukewarm coffee it didn't seem remotely laughable.


One thing was for sure, though, I declared in my mind.
I was never taking those pills again.






Hey peeps, this was originally going to be one long ass chapter, but I decided that it reached a level of overlenght that I wasn't comfortable with. That made absolutely no sense at all. Anyway, the thing with the essay wasn't supposed to be a huge event but that's all this boring cut-off chapter has to offer. I got more coming, cause the next chapter is naturally already written... Rate&Review?