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[right][code]September Whateverth
Back to School[/code][/right]
[hr]

[color=32cd32]“[b]I’D LEAVE TOO IF I WAS MARRIED TO YOUR FAT ASS, DIANE![/b]”[/color] 

Vicky slammed the front door of her house, threw her arms down by her side, wrinkled her face, and released a steaming sigh of frustration that loudly morphed into a full blown, [b]FUCK![/b] The early birds dropped the worms from their mouths, shocked by the profanity, and scattered. The kitschy, wide plank sign standing next to the door that her mother had lamely painted the word ‘hello’ vertically on it in sloppy cursive with one L noticeably larger than the other fell over, floored by the vulgarity. The rolled up newspaper slipped out of her neighbor’s hands, this interruption to a normal, peaceful suburban morning likely to be the headline for tomorrow’s issue of the Cornell Daily.

[color=32cd32]“Oh! Morning, Mr. Parker,”[/color] said Vicky with a sudden twist of cheer, whatever rage she had carried  outside seemingly had left her body alongside the [b]FUCK![/b] that had reverberated around the cul-de-sac and was now heading out of the neighborhood. 

She gave a big smile and a wave at Mr. Parker as the old man gawked at her, a smile that fell from her face the second she walked past him, mouthing ‘you old motherfucker’ as she rolled her eyes. She hated Mr. Parker. She hated how he thought it was okay to wear a robe outside with nothing under it except for his tighty whities. She hated how he always seemed to have yard work or some other reason to be out anytime she was tanning so he could trap her in a conversation. Mostly, however, she hated him because he was old and fat and boring and how he had been born in Cornell and how he will die in Cornell and how every time she walked by him she couldn’t help but think in abject horror, [i]Oh God one day that could be me![/i]

Vicky hated a lot of things now. She hated her friends for talking shit about her behind her back and ignoring her. She hated Chef because now that he was dead she was single. Also, his funeral had been weird and his mother had made some big ol’ scene about how Vicky didn’t deserve to be there, that Chef would’ve still been alive if they weren’t dating, about blah blah whatever, how was it Vicky’s fault that college boy’s mother had raised such a loser that he was dating a high schooler? Maybe it was better to say that she hated Chef’s mom. She hated her parents, too. She had hated them before, but now she had new things she hated about them. 

She also decided that she kind of hated her magic, because as cool as magic was, the moment she got magic was the same moment her entire life started falling apart. 

But that didn’t matter now, no! Why? Because school was back in session, great, wonderful, stupid, boring, underfunded school, with its cardboard pizza and its massacred student body and it was actually kind of crazy that they were already going back to school, actually, if she thought about it, actually it was, like so many kids were dead. Still, it was a return to normalcy. Normalcy was good. Normalcy meant her friends would stop being such little bitches and repledge their fealty to the fucking queen of Cornell High. So, as with every other normal day of school, Vicky walked down to the end of her street, stood on the corner, and waited for Gwen to come pick her up. 

And waited.

[i]And waited.[/i]

[color=32cd32]“Whatthefuck,”[/color] muttered Vicky under her breath, fusing with the oversized sleeves of Chef’s varsity jacket, the blood all washed out along with the color. She was still unsure if it was a smart idea to wear it, worried that it might make her look desperate for sympathy and attention—which she was—but even more worried what everyone would think if she didn’t wear it. 

[i]Not that I care,[/i] she told herself as she let out a little surprised gasp at the sound of an approaching vehicle. 

Her body sank into the coat as the vehicle turned the corner and revealed itself to be a school bus, the hiss of the air brakes sending a chill up Vicky’s spine, her throat gulping as the door swung open. An eternity passed as she locked eyes with the bus driver. Vicky was not a stupid, friendless bus kid. Only losers rode the bus. She was cool. She was a car kid, even if it had to be someone else’s car because she wasn’t allowed to drive she was still a car kid. It wasn’t like it was her fault she couldn’t drive. The instructor was just a prick. Vicky had been right: if those cones were kids they would’ve moved. 

“Well, ya getting on or not?” asked the bus driver. 

[color=32cd32]“[i]I got a ride,[/i]”[/color] whined Vicky, acting so offended by the frankly outrageous question that the bus driver was taken aback and apologized before closing the door and driving off. 

Vicky stared after the tail lights, frowning. Maybe she should’ve gotten on, actually. There was no way she was going to get in a car with Diane, who was probably still drunk off of last night’s box of wine, and even if she wasn’t it would still mean being in a car with Diane. Her bicycle, maybe? Nah, the sound of the garage door opening would fill her mom with hope, send her rushing out, and then Vicky would be dealing with fucking Diane’s bullshit [i]again[/i]. Absolutely not. 

The bus turned the corner, Vicky waited a few more seconds, and then she started to walk in the same direction with her chin up. It had fallen by the time she got to the end of the neighborhood and ran out of sidewalk, the darkening rain clouds above telling her that this was becoming a bad idea.

Tommy’s two-door car rounded the corner, on the way to school. He drove himself pretty much every day since he had finally finished turning the veritable coffin of diverse microbiology into something indistinguishable from brand new. It was a pretty peaceful experience, being alone in a car and unbeholden to the schedules of either a parent or a bus full of people who didn’t know Tommy’s name.

His dad had [i]words[/i] for him the day after that party. Like any decent parent, he was worried beyond reason. Kids had turned up dead, there were police there and it was the [i]one[/i] time Tommy had actually thrown his hat into that kind of social gathering.

He had to lie about a few things. How could he have explained that he was a wizard now? That a dozen or so people who survived were wizards? The true part was that he just hauled ass home. The false part was that he had done so [i]before[/i] he made sense of anything. And then his mom had her turn at fussing over the entire situation, looking at the cuts he’d received from slipping on shitty alcohol. 

So Tommy was technically on notice. They didn’t want him meandering much. He had places to be and he was the sort of kid who actually did things, but he was expected to be home at a reasonable hour and refrain from dying in a dark alleyway.

He saw Vicky moping on the corner of the street and stopped. The window went down.

[color=a79500]”I think you missed the bus already, it’s usually here earlier.”[/color]

Vicky had tensed when a car pulled up alongside her. There was no relief in her face when she saw that it was just Tommy. 

[Color=32cd32]”I don't ride the bus,”[/color] scoffed Vicky with a flick of her hair, wincing as she felt a raindrop hit her forehead. [Color=32cd32]”Ugh. Just great.“[/color]

 [color=a79500]”...Right.”[/color] He glanced up at the sky. [color=a79500]”Get in. You’ll get soaked waiting there for somebody.”[/color]

[i]Thunk.[/i] The left-side door unlocked. Vicky glared at Tommy, her arms crossed, her mind made up for her the moment she felt a second raindrop. 

[color=32cd32]“Fine, fuck it. I’m texting my friends, though, so you better not stab me,”[/color] she said as she jumped into the passenger seat, tossing her backpack down at her feet as she slid the seat as far back as it could go. It was accompanied by a mysterious clank, the source of the sound imperceptible. She kicked her pearly white sneakers up on the dash as she pulled out her cell, [color=32cd32]“What’s your name again?”[/color]

[color=a79500]”Tommy. And get your damn shoes off the dashboard, or you’re walking.”[/color]

With the doors shut and the windows up, it was easy to hear the [url=https://youtu.be/LeMUR_DIblc?si=U2caOT6tidf8moX4]barely-audible CD[/url] Tommy had on the radio at the moment. The car started to move, and they were off the block in the next minute.

[color=32cd32]“Wow,”[/color] said Vicky as she moved her feet with a huff. She had to admit, it was probably the cleanest boy’s car she had ever been in. Whenever she got a ride with Chef it felt like she was inside of a motorized gym bag. Still, her shoes were clean too.  Ridiculous. [color=32cd32]“Not rude at all.”[/color] 

They came to a stop sign. The way to school was to the left, just a mile or two of awkward silence and Tommy would be free of Vicky. Instead, she said, [color=32cd32]“Take a right here. I need to get some Starbucks.”[/color]

It [i]was[/i] pretty damn clean. Solid black seats that had to be something after-market, not a speck of dust on the dashboard, and weirdly enough, it didn’t seem to have that obnoxious ozone smell new cars often had. Tommy took care of it.

[color=a79500]”Yeah.”[/color] Caffeine sounded good right about now, actually. They went right.

Vicky slumped against the window, at first seemingly content with watching the rain streak down the glass and listening to the quiet tunes. Yet Tommy would be able to feel her eyes on him any time his eyes were on the road, Vicky quickly glancing away anytime his head turned her direction, back to the window, back to the rain, and then always back to him. Studying. Analyzing. The staredown solidified. The next time his head turned she didn’t look away. Instead, she just kept glaring. Until finally she broke the silence, unable to bear it anymore.

[color=32cd32]“So what’s your deal?”[/color]

[color=a79500]”...I have no idea what you mean. Did you prefer to just walk through the rain, or something?”[/color]

[color=32cd32]“Yeah, that. That right here,”[/color] said Vicky, gesturing at Tommy’s whole being. [color=32cd32]“That whole thing. What’s up with that? Like normally anytime I’m in a car with a boy they at least attempt to make some kind of conversation, but you? Pfft. You’re acting like I’m bothering you, so why even stop?”[/color]

[color=a79500]”Why not? Costs pretty much nothing to just give you a ride. And it’s not like we talk much anyway, figured you didn’t have much to say either.”[/color] She was everyone’s favorite bat-swinging Pick Me Girl, and Tommy was that weird kid who could fix things and make coins disappear. She didn’t even remember his name.

[color=a79500]”I guess hanging around Tyler as much as you have, you’ve never heard of the concept of being a decent human being.”[/color]

Vicky let out a hmph. Or had it been a muted laugh acknowledging the truth in Tommy's words? [Color=32cd32]”So a decent human being brings a knife to a party?”[/color]

[color=a79500]”You walk into a place full of people slinging shitty drugs and cheap beer, you bring some way to defend yourself,”[/color] Tommy remarked. [color=a79500]”It’s either that or I pack a gun, and that’s not happening.”[/color]

Vicky raised her eyebrows, genuinely weirded out by the response, and then she let out a small, annoyed sigh. He was fucking with her, right? He had to be fucking with her. 

[color=32cd32]“Yeah, otherwise someone might ask you to do a kegstand or a bong rip. Those parties are [i]sooooo[/i] dangerous,”[/color] teased Vicky.

Her face quickly screwed itself up, her mind catching up with her mouth, a guttural screaming cut through the sad bastard music playing on the stereo as she felt herself soaked once again in warm blood and viscera. Nope nope, nope, nope, nah, nah, nah, she blinked it away. No more talking about that, no more thinking about that. Move on, change the subject, tuck and roll out of the car, something, anything, other than reliving that night.

Vicky bristled and cleared her throat, her tone turning confrontational, [color=32cd32]“What did you mean when you said you figured I didn’t have much to say?”[/color]

[color=a79500]”You don’t know me.”[/color] He shrugged with one shoulder, eyes on the road. [color=a79500]”I mean, I don’t do softball or whatever else people do after school. Was I wrong?”[/color]

[color=32cd32]“[i]Do softball[/i], Jesus fucking Christ,”[/color] groaned Vicky, smacking her forehead.  She turned towards Tommy, her expression a mixture of disbelief and disgust, as she jabbed a finger at him. [color=32cd32]“Are you just fucking with me, or—”[/color]

She let out a loud [b]UGH![/b]

[color=32cd32]“I know who you are, dude. I just pretended to forget your name because—”[/color] She was a bitch. She thought it would be fun. Perhaps Vicky had wanted to create a power dynamic, clearly, that at some point Tommy had seemingly reversed. She kept ranting,[color=32cd32]“Everyone knows who you are. Do you think that just because you refuse to participate you aren’t noticed? It makes you stand out even more! You’re, like, the most talked about guy in our school.”[/color] 

Vicky shook her fists by the side of her face as if she was quaking in terror, pretending to be the other kids at school, as she shrieked like a banshee: 

[color=32cd32]“EWW! IT’S TOMMY BRACKEN. I HEARD HE’S PART OF THE TRENCHCOAT MAFIA!”[/color]

[color=32cd32]“EWW, TOMMY BRACKEN! I HEARD HE’S HAS A HITLIST IN HIS LOCKER!”[/color]

[color=32cd32]“EWWWWWWWW-UH, TOMMY BRACKEN! I HEARD HE STOLE HIS CAR AND KILLED ITS OWNER!”[/color]

Actually, now that she thought about it, she was pretty sure those were things she had actually said. Not that he could know that. Vicky slumped back in her seat, crossed her arms, and raised an eyebrow Tommy’s way as she sneered.

[Color=32cd32]“Everyone knows you, everyone hates you, everyone is afraid of you. We were all shocked when we found out that the kid who had planned that school shooting wasn’t you. You’re the school freak, but it’s great that you’re actually such a decent human being, like, oh my God, Tommy! Decent [i]people[/i] don’t call people [i]human beings[/i]. Whatever. It’s fine. You’re not a bad guy, you’re not, you’re just not,”[/color] said Vicky, flopping her hand out as if she was making a grand revelation. [color=32cd32]“But you are boring, and if not for getting magic, you would’ve just been a boring guy who never left his boring hometown and lived a boring life before dying a boring death caused by heart disease or some kind of cancer, the boring one, like, I don’t know, the prostate one.”[/color]

Mockingly, she added, [color=32cd32]“Was I wrong?”[/color]

No. She wasn’t, not really. Tommy was… Well, he was a lot of things. He liked to think he was kind, he [i]knew[/i] he was good at figuring stuff out, and he was magical. He did things he wasn’t especially proud of, and he had the self-awareness not to be bothered much by what others thought of him. But he wasn’t [i]out there.[/i] He wasn’t social, or rooted the way most people were.

It was a little ironic, considering the magic he got. Everybody thought the guy who could do card tricks but didn’t play a sport was out to kill them, and never tried to fix that myth.

Tommy sighed.

[color=a79500]”You and Tyler really are perfect for each other.”[/color] He propped an arm against his door and leaned his head on his hand. [color=a79500]”You know no one ever actually leaves Cornell behind, right? We all get these dreams in our heads that we’ll be the ones who make it out. We try our best, and everything goes right, but the thing about living here is you run out of more things than money. People are [i]shit[/i] to each other, and small towns like these usually just make that worse. It sticks with you, even if you move out. Now, I’ll be straight with you and just admit I’m not great at being social, but that wasn’t bad enough, now there’s monsters and demons from Hell and whatever the fuck that werewolf thing was.”[/color]

They finally turned into the Starbucks parking lot.

[color=a79500]”It’s going to get a lot worse when Cornell starts tearing itself apart, Vicky. Maybe I sound [i]lame,[/i] but it’s not right to leave people to fend for themselves right now. Everything’s fucked… Doesn’t have to be.”[/color] He pulled into a parking spot and pulled the brake. [color=a79500]”So, yeah, I guess you’re right. If people didn’t get killed, I’d be pretty boring right now. Sorry if you always thought I was out to get people, but I’m not. ”[/color]

The mean smirk had fallen from Vicky’s face as a heavy silence smothered the inside of the car. Normally this would be the moment where a person would realize they had gone too far and apologize: [i]oh, Tommy, no I never thought that, everyone else did, and I don’t actually think you’re boring, it was just a joke, you can take a joke right? See, I’m a decent human being too.[/i] 

Vicky, who could never quite sell the sincerity anytime she said sorry, felt like she hadn’t gone far enough. Not just with Tommy, whose lack of squirming under her assault had made her feel deeply unsatisfied, whose comparison of her to Tyler made her want to slam her head into the dashboard repeatedly, but with everything. She had been held back by Cornell and by her so-called friends and all her stupid obligations for long enough. It wasn’t fair.

[color=32cd32]“I’m getting out,”[/color] said Vicky through gritted teeth. 

She didn’t move to leave the car, her mind envisioning the bitches who hadn’t picked her up today, the whole reason why she was in the car with a guy who would-have-been-boring-if-not-for-whatever. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair. She took a deep breath, trying to calm down, and then realizing she didn’t care. Who would Tommy tell anyway? So instead she erupted, slamming her fist against the door three times, as she screamed:

[color=32cd32][b]”I’M! GETTING! OUT!”[/b][/color]

She started spewing out verbal magma.

[color=32cd32]“You’re right about one thing: this town is shit. Our school is shit. This Starbucks is shit. These people are shit. My family is shit. My friends are shit. TYLER is a FUCKING piece of SHIT!”[/color] She smacked the dash, imagining it was his face. [color=32cd32]“And I’m just covered, just absolutely soaked in their shit, fucking caked in it, that I’m going to get mistaken for shit and flushed down the toilet too and I’m not, I’m not shit, I am absolutely not shit.”[/color]

Although at that moment, she kind of felt like shit. She jabbed a finger at Tommy.

[color=32cd32]“And you’re an idiot! [i]It’s not right to leave people to fend for themselves?[/i] We—no—THESE people treated you horribly. THEY TREATED ME HORRIBLY! They treated me worse than you! They can all just get what they deserve…”[/color] muttered Vicky, deflating into the passenger seat before suddenly jolting back up like the killer who was supposed to be dead in an old, formulaic slasher movie as she snapped, [color=32cd32]“What the fuck are you doing? Go through the drive thru.”[/color]

Then, as she slumped back in her seat and sulked, she kicked her shoes up on the dash again. 

The look on Tommy’s face was blank as an empty canvas. Whatever was going on in his head, he wasn’t particularly eager to share it. Why did Vicky have to be like that?

Honestly, why did either of them have to be like that?


[color=a79500]”You just said you’re getting out. I was too.”[/color] He popped the door open and elected to let her explosive nonsense just [i]go.[/i] [color=a79500]”I stop here too, sometimes.”[/color]

[color=32cd32]“Go. Through. The. Drive. Thru.”[/color] 

He grumbled. [color=a79500]”Fine, damn.”[/color] The door snapped shut and they wheeled out and around the whole building. 

Vicky let a little smile slip through. For someone who thought that everyone and everything was shit, she still deeply cared about who she was seen with while out in public. And Tommy hadn’t snapped at her about her shoes being on the dash. It was weird how he seemed completely unphased by her crashout. Definitely weird, but honestly, kind of refreshing. There was a word for that. Unflappable? Dimwitted? One of those. Hopefully the former. She was tired of dimwitted. 

Going inside would’ve been way faster than waiting in the drive thru, the line creeping forward at a snail’s pace. Still, Vicky didn’t mind. She had wanted this, she had won this, and now the line wasn’t an inconvenience, not even when the fucking idiot in front of them got to the talkbox and had only then suddenly seemed to realize that they were at a coffee place and were asking all kinds of stupid questions like ‘what’s in an American?’ and she could practically hear the nineteen-year-old on the other side of the speaker die. No, it wasn’t an inconvenience at all. It was a small, personal victory parade.

When they finally (finally!) got their turn in line, Vicky turned to Tommy and said, [color=32cd32]“I want a trenta Iced Vanilla Protein Latte, with sugar free vanilla, three pumps of sugar free caramel syrup, extra cinnamon, nondairy lavender cream cold foam, two stevias, two splendas, with toasted coconut flakes, an extra shot of espresso, and no ice. Got that?”[/color]
There was a look of abject horror on Tommy’s face. [color=a79500]”You want some damn [i]coffee[/i] with all that? [sub]Holy shit…”[/sub][/color]

Somehow, he managed to repeat all of that into the talkbox, and in an almost ironic contradiction to Vicky’s insane order, Tommy got a large black coffee with a singular dash of ordinary milk. The warm kind, too, not the iced or cold ones that people sometimes got. They pulled forward, and Tommy could’ve sworn the haggard worker at the window was genuinely relieved that [i]someone[/i] in this damn town drank actual coffee as they handed the cups to them. Once they had their stuff, and a handful of brown napkins, they were back on the road.

A quiet fell between the two, less uncomfortable than before. The coffee seemed to calm Vicky, or maybe blowing up had just given her some kind of catharsis. She no longer felt like shit now that there was something in her stomach other than half a grapefruit and a banana, yet as the car turned down the road that was one off from their high school that feeling changed. In fact, it was worse than before, compounded by a growing bubble of anxiety and a creeping sensation of dread. Vicky wrapped a strand of hair around her finger, thinking, worrying.

[color=32cd32]“It’s fucked that we’re already going back to school,”[/color] she said, softly killing the silence. She released the coil of hair, letting it spring. [color=32cd32]“Y’know, it’s not too late. Wanna ditch?”[/color] Not just school. Cornell. She took her feet off the dash, a peace offering, a bribe, as she leaned towards Tommy, her voice falling low, her face getting dangerously close to his. [color=32cd32]“C’mon, I know you wanna.”[/color]

Tommy took a long, contemplative sip of his preposterously boring coffee. Should he tell her?

He probably should’ve.

[color=a79500]”Can’t. Not now, I don’t think anyone’s ditching anything right now. Even if I had enough cash and a place to go, it’s not possible right now.”[/color]

[color=32cd32]“Not possible? Or are you just a pussy?”[/color] hissed Vicky. [color=32cd32]“C’mon, prove me wrong. You’re not really boring, right?”[/color] 

[color=a79500]”After the magic stuff started happening…”[/color] Tommy stuck his coffee in the cupholder. [color=a79500]”Things are different. You ever notice that there are pieces of Cornell that aren’t the same? Like someone took a whole block, got rid of it, and stuck a fake one in place of it? We don’t really know much about magic, not yet, but I’ve been working things out with Kari. She got magic too and hers lets her learn things. She just [i]knows[/i] when something weird happens. Like seeing the future, maybe. Stop me if I sound like I’m insane, but there are other Cornells. Not ones you can just drive to, I guess you’d need the right magic to get to them.”[/color]

They stopped at the end of a street where two more cars were passing. [color=a79500]”But something went really fucking wrong, and now those Cornells are coming [i]here.”[/i][/color]

[color=32cd32]“All the more reason to leave.”[/color]

[color=a79500]”We [i]can’t.[/i] What’s happening is worse the further out you go. For now, at least. It might get worse, but I’ve checked and… It’s bad. If you kept going, you’d probably get trapped. I don’t even know how that works, but we’re stuck here. We need to figure out how it’s supposed to be fixed. [i]Then[/i] we can leave.”[/color]

Vicky pulled back. Trapped? She was trapped here? No. No fucking way. Tommy was wrong. Kari was wrong. That was it. That was that. She would get out of here one day, just not today. Today she would just have to keep pretending that everything was normal. Today she’d just have to go to school, and pretend that it was a normal day, and pretend that she hadn’t read those texts from her friends, and pretend that everything was fine and that she was fine and that she was going to someday get out of this town and it just wasn’t fair, seriously, it really wasn’t fair. 

The car turned onto the street. She could see the school down the long road. She reached for the door handle. Ka-chunk. Locked.

[color=32cd32]“Let me out.”[/color] Ka-chunk, ka-chunk. [color=32cd32]“Let me out!”[/color]

[color=a79500]”We’re on the road, let me pull over, the school’s right there.”[/color] He didn’t remember locking the door, that must’ve been her. [color=a79500]”It’s not like we’re late.”[/color]

[color=32cd32]“We’re close enough.”[/color] Vicky could not be seen pulling up to school in Tommy’s car. Ka-chunk. Stupid fucking door. [color=32cd32]“Just let me out here!”[/color] 

Tommy smacked the buttons on his side of the car, and the door locks popped. She was [i]really[/i] trying his patience right now. [color=a79500]”Go. And don’t get hit by another car or something.”[/color]

Crisis averted. Thank God! Vicky hopped out of the car, grabbing her backpack, and then grabbing at something that wasn’t there.  She slammed the door without a word and for a moment Tommy had peace. Then there was a tap, tap, tap on the passenger window. As it was lowered, Vicky passed Tommy a slip of scrap paper with her name and number written on it, a heart as the dot for the I. 

[color=32cd32]“Thanks for listening to me, weird kid. I’m glad you’re not actually a total psychopath. It's oddly easy talking to you,”[/color] said Vicky, giving him a big, manipulative smile. [color=32cd32]“Text me your number?”[/color]

She needed a ride after school.