Deviating from the Norm (A "Freaks and Geeks" Fanfic)

Chapter 23 - Donovan the Giant Killer

In the two weeks since summer vacation had started I began to realize just how badly fractured my friendships might have become. Aside from Lindsay, no one else called me. Not Ken, not Nick, and certainly not Daniel or Kim. But then again, I didn't bother to reach out to any of them, either.

It wasn't long before I even had to say goodbye to the Brain for a few weeks, though. For a girl who was dreading going to the academic summit when she first found out about it, she was almost bursting with excitement the night before she left. Our phone conversation was short, but she kept going on and on about how much fun she was going to have and how this was something she was going to be talking about forever. I knew she liked math, but I had no idea she was so fanatical about education as a whole. The way she kept talking about it made me think she may have been up to something, but if anything was going on and she wanted me to know, she would have told me.

Four days after Linds left, Kim's mother called my house. Her timing couldn't have been worse, either, as the call came right in the middle of dinner. My dad answered the phone and when he came back into the kitchen to say it was for me and who was on the line I looked at him in wide-eyed disbelief. It wasn't bad, it wasn't scary, it was just... awkward. The mother of my best friend, a friend who I had slept with and quite possibly ruined my bond with as a result, was calling my house to talk with me.

"Hello?" I spoke into the phone apprehensively.

"This Donovan?" Her slight accent (New York, I'd always assumed) had somewhat distorted the pronunciation of my name.

"Yeah."

"Where's my daughta?!"

"What?" I blurted out, confused because her question came out more accusatory than anything. "How should I know?"

"Well your name and phone numba are here in this little diary along with all her otha loser friends."

Did she just call me a 'loser'?

"I don-"

"And-" she yelled in a shrill tone, causing me to pull the phone away from my ear for a moment.

"Along with that Daniel kid, yours is the only one with little hearts around it. So, she there? You sleepin' with my daughta? She's underage, ya know, you sicko!"

"Mrs. Kelly, she's not here, alright?!"

Kim's mother was obviously drunk. I had mistakenly blamed her accent for the slight slur when we first spoke, but as she continued on and it coated the rest of her speech, I knew she was tanked.

"Well she ain't here, neitha! Hasn't been for four days! Her favorite clothes are gone along with some of her other crap, so she's stayin' somewhere!"

"Four days? Why- where-" I began to sputter, not knowing what I wanted to say because I didn't know what to think.

By that point both my parents had come into the living room and were giving me odd looks. I had obviously (and obliviously) heightened my tone as the talk continued and alarmed them.

"Look, you really don't know where she is?"

"No, Mrs. Kelly, I really don't, but I'm worr- I mean, can you please let me know if you find anything out?"

All I heard in response was her waning voice proclaim how the whole call was a 'waste of time' before the dull click signaled the end of the conversation.

'Honey, what's wrong?' I heard my mother ask, and her voice seemed just as distant as Cookie's was before she hung up on me, regardless of the fact that my mother was practically right next to me.