Dark Chocolate Cherry

CONDEMNATION

Instead of waiting for them to attack first, I decide to approach the RADs at lunch-once I think of a plan of attack, of course. That way, they will be utterly humiliated in front of the entire twelfth grade by a girl who's only been at their school for a few days. How embarrassed can one get?

I'm thinking of things to say to them when Nolan slides into the seat in front of me. I put my fork down and fold my hands in front of me. "Good afternoon, Mr. Steinke, how may I help you?"

"I'm here to help you, actually," Nolan replies a little worriedly. Then he glances around the cafeteria and leans in toward me. "Clive is cheating on Lisa."

My blood runs cold. "What?"

"I found him and Rachel Walker making out in that empty room on third floor. You know, the one by the Calculus room? Anyway, I don't think they saw me, and I don't think they care if I do, anyway."

"Rachel Walker?"

Nolan gestures behind him with his head. "She sits over here every day. Hair as white as a ghost, hangs in front of her face like a curtain. And, let me guess-completely alone?"

I lean over so that I can see Rachel. She's eating some sort of weird goop with her pale hands, and her white hair does sort of hang in front of her face like a curtain, and the fact that she has no part seems to make her super-straight hair messier than it is. Her movements are slow and graceful, and I seem to be the only person who acknowledges that she exists at this very moment, but there's something about her, an aura of strength, like she doesn't care that she's sitting all alone in the back of a high school cafeteria somewhere in Maryland. Rachel is a puzzle that has every piece in its place, and she seems determined to keep it that way.

I lean back the other way so that I'm sitting straight up again. "Some affair."

"Yeah, you'd think that if Clive was going to cheat on Lisa, he'd do it with one of her friends," Nolan laughs. "But I guess he's had about enough of their antics."

I shake my head. "You're wrong. Amy kissed him a little while ago. What does this have to do with anything?"

"Wow. He really gets around." Nolan composes himself and answers my question. "It's to give Lisa a taste of her own medicine! If everyone in the whole school knows but her, she'll look like a complete idiot when she finally finds out!"

"You inconsiderate jerk." I hiss.

Nolan's eyes grow wide. "What?"

"I am not going to do that to her."

"But isn't this what you want? I thought you wanted dirt on people!"

I stand up, fiery rage coursing through my veins. "Did you fall down twelve steps in Malibu, Nolan? Because I think someone's had a bit of a head injury."

I stomp out of the lunch table bench and over to the back door of the cafeteria. Hidden beneath the rage of Nolan's godforsaken mistake, my lungs seem to be bursting out of themselves. It's Malibu all over again: Clive is Zack, Nolan is me, and Rachel Walker is Mom. It's all the same. I'm at school, I tell myself, I have to keep it together, but it's no use. I'm shaking and gasping like a godforsaken freak in a godforsaken outfit my godforsaken father picked out after a godforsaken car accident.

I hear a door swing open and closed behind me and spin around to see Nolan standing in front of me looking dilapidated. I didn't know a person could even look dilapidated, but somehow he does. Must be the eye.

"I'm sorry," he says quietly. "I just remembered and that was-God, that was so stupid. I should have known better."

"Indeed you should have." I rub one of my arms, since for some reason I've started to feel cold.