Terry hated it when he and Cerise fought. It always got so intense. Everything with them was always one extreme or the other. Usually it was super awesome but whenever it was bad, it was crazy hella bad.
Andrew laughed his ass off when Cerise had walked out of Clyde’s the other night, spouting shit about PMS or whatever and when Terry had gotten up to follow her he loudly accused him of being pussy whipped and stuff. Cerise did kind of have a point about Andrew being an asshole. Had he always been such a dick or was Terry just noticing it now that he was more mature? Because Terry was definitely more mature since he’d gotten together with Cerise. He had intellectual conversations now and understood more stuff about life and stuff. Cerise was so much smarter than him, as were all her stupid nerd friends but while he always got the impression that Jay and his goddamned afro and his cohorts were laughing at him behind his back, Cerise never made him feel dumb. She was sweet and loving and fun and hot but shit, did she have a fucking temper!
He’d found her at the bus stop outside of Clyde’s and had taken her hand and led her to his car. She’d gotten in without protest but gave him the silent treatment as he drove her home. He didn’t know what to say anyway so they never resolved their fight. Now he wondered if he should pick her up for school as usual or maybe call first to make sure they were still a couple or what.
He got to her house a little earlier than usual in case she decided to take the bus to school. He sat outside, peering in the windows, wondering if he should go ring the bell or what but a second later she came outside and stepped into his car.
“I wasn’t sure you’d show up,” she said.
“I wasn’t sure I should show up,” he replied. “Are you still pissed.”
She sighed. “I’m not pissed. I’m disappointed.”
He drove them to school and asked her to elaborate.
“It just kind of makes me sad that you’re still like that, like how you were last night. It was seriously like high school all over again. You being all cool or whatever. You say that I was ostracising myself by sitting down and reading but I mean, as soon as Andrew showed up you went to play pool with him. What was I supposed to do, just stand there and watch? How would that be fun for anyone? Is that what you expect of a girlfriend? To just like stand by and watch you hang out with other people, not even including me in the conversation? And don’t say I do that to you, ‘cause when we hang out with the guys you’re always included. I don’t ignore you. I ask your opinion, plus like Karine is always there too so even if the guys start talking amongst themselves it’s not like you’re all alone.”
“Ok well…”
“I’m not done,” she said calmly. “I know I sound like a mom from the ‘80s but I feel like Andrew is a bad influence on you. I swear you’re different when he’s around. Usually you’re fun and nice but whenever he’s around it’s like you’re trying to impress him and you do that by being loud and obnoxious and pervy and smoking! Don’t think I forgot about the fucking smoking!” Her voice was rising.
He wanted to defend himself by pointing out that he hadn’t actually smoked a cigarette, he’d just stood there while Andrew smoked but in actuality he had taken a few drags off of Andrew’s cig. Damn her for being right about that and damn her for being so freaking perfect all the time. Was she right about all of it? Was it his fault for ignoring her or was it her fault for not including herself? It was true that he’d basically ignored her when he saw Andrew. His old friend was still fucking tons of chicks all the time and even though Terry was past that he knew that Andrew would think he’d gotten weak, letting himself be controlled by a girl. Most guys were jealous of Terry but Andrew had never been. Everyone agreed that Terry was cooler and hotter than Andrew and yet Andrew had always been able to score more chicks. Terry always told himself it was because Andrew had low standards and Terry preferred quality over quantity but what if he was losing his edge? He wasn’t even eighteen yet, and he’d already tied himself down to one girl. Sure, she was awesome but… but he wasn’t sure what.
They drove around the JAC parking lot for a while and then Terry finally found a spot. They got out of the car but before Cerise started walking towards the school, Terry grabbed her and hugged her. She hugged him back, but her body was stiff, she was still upset.
“I’m sorry,” he said, releasing her and then taking her hands in his. He looked into her eyes. “I’m sorry I ignored you and I’m sorry I smoked. I’m sorry I get pervy when I’m with Andrew. I guess I just…” he shrugged, unsure of how to defend himself. “I dunno, I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry too,” she smiled weakly. “I shouldn’t have walked away when you started playing pool. I guess I could’ve tried harder to be nice to Shit-head, I mean Andrew,” she snickered.
He smirked, rolling his eyes. “Ok yeah, I know he’s kind of a jerk, but he’s still my friend. I mean like Karl and Willy can be jerks too sometimes and you’re still friends with them.”
She nodded, conceding the point. “Does that mean we have to keep hanging out with Andrew?” Her face took on a pained expression.
“I don’t wanna stop being friends with him. He may be a jerk sometimes but he’s always been a good friend to me. I have fun with him.”
“Ok but like, does that mean I have to hang out with him?”
“I don’t wanna have to like, sneak around to see him. God, that just sounds gay,” he chuckled.
“I just feel so uncomfortable around him. He’s so pervy. I just like… my skin crawls when he’s around.”
“So I’m supposed to just like hang out at Clyde ’s without you?”
“Well I mean, I sometimes hang out with the guys without you. Like when we game. You know that RPG thing? I know that would be totally boring for you, so I don’t force you to sit there and endure it.”
“But we already spend so little time together,” he said, trying not to sound too needy. “You’re constantly at rehearsal and soon hockey is gonna start back up and we’ll never see each other if we insist on doing stuff like not together.”
“Yeah,” she shrugged helplessly.
“Is it ok if I invite Andrew out with us next week?” he asked.
“Ugh, so soon again?”
“Well it’s gonna be my birthday so…”
“Oh, right,” she sighed and he tried not to be insulted that she’d apparently forgotten. “Well then yeah, I guess.”
“Ok but we can go to Cunningham’s and you can invite all your drama friends so for sure you won’t be bored if I hang out with Andrew for a bit.”
She smiled and nodded.
So we’re ok?” he asked sweetly.
She nodded again and accepted his kiss. As they walked to the school she mumbled that she hadn’t even mentioned all the girls he’d been scoping out at the bar.
He couldn’t help but laugh. “Hey, I’m allowed to look, aren’t I?”
“You were doing more than looking!” she scoffed. “I mean hell, if I hadn’t been there you probably would have hooked up with one of them right there in the bar!”
“Are you jealous?” he grinned, suddenly feeling light and airy.
“Nooooo,” she insisted.
“Hah! You’re totally jealous,” he laughed.
She protested again and pouted so adorably he almost burst right there. He didn’t even bother analysing why it made him feel so good to know she was jealous but he allowed himself to enjoy the moment and teased her a little bit before assuring her she was the only girl for him. They stood on the steps of Penfield and kissed and Terry was glad he had such an amazingly cute girlfriend. Screw Andrew and his stupid string of ugly ass ho-bags. Cerise was way better than anything that loser was picking up.
The boys hung out in their usual hallway laughing over the events of the previous day. It was decided that the activist infiltration plan had gone spectacularly well and they congratulated themselves on planting a bonus infiltrator in the group without even realising they’d done so. Perhaps it had been done with time travel or perhaps they’d mind-wiped the information from their brains so they’d think it was their first time meeting Lee and his trench coat of sabotage but surely such effective infiltration could only have been accomplished through their genius planning. They agreed that Lee would be allowed to join their group and tried to devise a plan on how to integrate him without seeming like a bunch of school girls inviting a unicorn to a tea party. Perhaps Lee and his righteous trench coat of righteousness wouldn’t even want to drink tea with them.
Vani was of course the most vocal advocate of integration, proving himself once again to be the gayest little straight boy who ever lived by fully admitting to the boy crush. Willy was unsurprisingly against integration, as he feared his new nickname would become Penis, a well-founded fear since they’d already began calling him this. Karl was seemingly indifferent but cautiously hopeful that new blood would revitalize the group. He’d noted that Lee had been wearing a t-shirt with a gaming reference on it so he could probably be trusted. Jay hadn’t noticed the shirt and definitely didn’t think Lee could be trusted, but that was exactly why he was hilarious.
For some reason Jojo was present for this discussion and he seemed to think that Lee was an enormous jerk not to be associated with for any fathomable reason.
“So it’s decided then,” smiled Jay. “Lee is in, Jojo’s out.”
They all laughed and walked off to nowhere in particular, leaving Jojo to think long and hard about what he’d done.
“I’m sorry but I hate Lucie.”
Karine looked up to see Laura tossing her script onto the table in the green room.
“I know, right?” Karine said.
“She’s a fucking loser! She’s so… I dunno, like she does nothing.”
“She’s inert,” agreed Karine.
“Exactly!”
They giggled together while the rest of the cast started piping in, each giving their opinion of which character they hated most and why this was the shittiest play ever and how much Hugh and Fred needed to choose a better script the following semester and how would they convince them and so on.
“We should totally do a musical,” Laura said, bright-eyed.
“Oh my god, totally!” agreed Karine.
Everyone agreed enthusiastically and they all shouted out suggestions. That Tom guy who was totally crushing on Cherry and her little raspberry said that while watching the 3D Alice of Wonderland he’d thought it would make a good musical. Everyone got on board and they all started talking about who would get the Johnny Depp part and who would be Alice
“But is Alice
“But about Helena Bonham Carter?” asked Laura. “She stole that movie. She was totally hilarious! Red queen all the way.”
“I’ll be the white queen, you’ll be the red queen and…” Karine looked over at Cherry. “Cerise can be Alice
Everyone stared at Cerise. Karine felt very proud of herself for being so generous to Cherry. She was just a first-year after all. Laura said as much but Karine insisted that Cerise had the chops for it, since she’d won the drama award in high school.
“Oh wow, she won a high school drama award? Fuck, who hasn’t?”
Everyone laughed along with Laura, including Karine, ‘cause seriously, a stupid high school drama award? Whatever, it was so meaningless. Now that they were in cegep they were doing real plays and Cerise would seriously need to step up her game if she wanted to play in the big leagues.
Laura and Karine began strategising how they’d convince Fred and Hugh to do Alice
There were a couple of options for bussing back to Beaconsfield from St-Anne’s but the boys usually chose the 211 because it came often and was a pretty direct route as long as one didn’t mind hopping over the overpass at good old BHS. Now that they were in cegep they were way beyond all that high school crap and could scoff at any high schoolers they might encounter along the way, which was halfway fun and halfway evocative of flashbacks to ‘Nam. In any case it was standard procedure to finish off the day by gathering at the 211 stop outside of JAC and this is where Jay, Vani and Karl had the opportunity to see something none of them ever thought they’d see.
Willy approached the bust stop accompanied by a girl. Like made of flesh and blood and everything. And it was pretty certain that she was walking with him because they were engaged in conversation, unless she was on the phone or something and he was just talking to himself while stalking her. But no, they were definitely together because he was, whoa, crazy, what?!?! He had just pulled a pack of cigarettes (???) out of his cargo pocket and handed one to her, stuck one in his own mouth and then lit both with a lighter he produced from the same pocket. What the hell?!?! Since when did Willy smoke? Jay exchanged shocked glances with Vani and Karl so he knew they were equally surprised by the sight and he wasn’t last to know about this insane development.
“What the fuck!?” exclaimed Vani, “Mega Twilight Zone action.”
“Since when does Willy smoke? And since when does he hang out with girls or other human beings?” Jay asked in bewilderment, knowing he wouldn’t get an answer but needing to ask all the same just to confirm that he was in fact seeing what was plainly before him.
“I suppose we can deduce from this observation that he is attempting to reach a certain level of cool heretofore unattained,” shrugged Karl.
“And this is how he’s doing it?” laughed Jay. “What a fucking wacktard.”
“Seriously, what a fucking cock-sucker!” spat Vani, appearing more angry than amused.
There were about a dozen other people in line at the bus stop, several of whom were girls and they all looked at Vani after this outburst. Then they looked at Willy, who now stood at the end of the line with the girl, smoking his stupid cigarette of not-at-all-cool.
“No shit,” agreed Karl. “He’s waving it all over the place like it’s a fucking light sabre.”
“Look at the chick desperately trying to dodge it,” snarked Jay. “She’s going all matrix trying not to get hit over the head with all his cock waving.”
A few people in line stifled laughter as Jay did his best Neo impression.
“Aww, seriously,” laughed Vani. “Check her out, she’s got jizz all over her now. Disgusting!”
“Indeed,” agreed Karl. “Look at her. Look at the pain in her eyes. She can’t fucking stand him and he has no idea.”
“It’s pathetic how he keeps on talking to her,” said Jay.
“She so obviously wants to get away,” nodded Vani.
“He’s such a reject.”
“Mega.”
They went on like this until the girl finally walked away, back towards the school. Willy stamped out his cigarette and joined the boys, angrily informing them that he could hear everything they’d just said.
“Yeah, we know,” smiled Karl. “That’s why we held back.”
Several chuckles escaped from randoms in the line-up and Willy burned red. What a fucking loser. They couldn’t have met Lee and his righteous trench coat at a better time ‘cause they might just have to replace Willy once and for all.
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