January

[Thank you, Lucy. Here's another one for you to edit, if you're up to it. This's one's definitely going to be longer, for obvious reasons.

Oh and if you can make it obvious where you changed it (different color or something?) that'd be good because it'll make my life a lot easier when I go back to change the copy on my computer. =p]]

Gary Francis Smith turned left to enter the dorm and skidded to a dead halt. Someone walked into him. He thought it was Zach.

“…Gary?” asked Mike.

“Gary!” cried the woman who was waiting in front of the building, dark against the cream-coloured paint, and walked toward him with open arms. Gary experienced the sudden need to get away, took a step backward, and treaded on someone’s foot.

“Nrk,” said someone.

“Um,” said someone else.

“Gary,” repeated the woman, her eyes welling with tears. She took a deep breath and tried to smile, but she was bad at it and a corner of her mouth refused to turn up. Nevertheless she continued to try gamely and said, with horrible, brittle cheerfulness, “And are these your friends?”

Gary thought that he had never hated his mother quite so much after the accident, until that point. There were several things he would have liked to say, none of them appropriate in company, so he settled for saying, curtly, “Yes,” his voice strange and stiff to his own ears.

Her eyes found his and they looked at each other, only for a moment, before Gary deliberately looked away. He stared at the new patches of grass growing in front of the building, blissfully ignorant of everything save the spring sun, and observed that horrible events often happened on beautiful days.

“Hi!” said Nick into the awkwardness, far too enthusiastically. Gary imagined he could feel Mike’s glare and silently admired Nick’s courage.

“I’m Nick,” continued Nick fearlessly. Gary’s mother looked as if she could hug him. “Nicolas Lucille. Nice to meet you.”

“Zachary Dawson,” Zach, standing just to the right of him, offered his hand. “And this’s Mike.”

“Hi,” said Mike, thereby introducing another minute of awkward silence during which everyone became uncomfortably aware of the tense atmosphere. Self-activated explosives could be made from it. It had the particular kind of silence that was associated with things capable of self-combustion.

“I know,” said Gary’s mother brightly, as her smile continued to cling to her face for dear life. “Why don’t we all go out to dinner together? My treat.”

Everyone, subtly or not so subtly, turned to look at Gary. There were many facial expressions that could convey varying degrees of pleasure, but ‘bitter lemon’ was definitely not one of them.

“Er,” Nick started, then hesitated, possibly because Mike had just elbowed him in the kidneys.

“I know the dinner’s nothing compared to what my ex-husband can fork over,” she said almost pleadingly, her eyes remaining on her son. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t go somewhere nice—if that’s what you boys want.” She added quickly.

“Um,” said Mike, as Gary stared off determinedly at a point just above his mother’s right shoulder and looked like the world would crumple to dust before he spoke again.

“Nick and I can’t go,” Zach said suddenly. He cleared his throat and looked slightly embarrassed. “We both have tests coming up that we really should study for.” He glanced at Nick expectantly.

Nick nodded vigorously, trying to appear as if he had long known this and had not, in fact, just heard it.

“Um, right, we should probably go then,” Zach looked down at his watch in a professional, my-God-I’m-having-such-a-busy-day fashion, and gave the woman a harried smile. “Nice to meet you, Mrs…” he paused.

“Smith,” she said.

“Foucault,” said Gary, at the same time.

“Nice meeting you,” repeated Zach, as Nick mumbled something similar, and fled. Behind them, Mike had picked up the cue and was excusing himself for some sort of project from a class.

“Zach, did you just lie?” Nick asked, disturbed, as soon as they were safely out of earshot.

“I do have a test next Monday,” corrected Zach, as Mike joined them. “And I do think I should study for it.”

“Oh.” Nick blinked. “Do I really have a test too, then?”

“Your midterm’s coming up,” Zach reminded him. “You should study for that too.”

“Sneaky,” complained Mike. “That was very sneaky. Why didn’t you say I have a test too? Midterm’s here for everyone, you know.”

“You can cover your own bases,” Zach studied his fingers.

“Hey!” Nick protested. “I can cover my own bases too!” Something nagged at him. “Wait. Wait, what do you mean when you say ‘cover your bases’? I mean I think I know what that means, but I want to make sure…”

“Right,” said Mike, sounding entirely unconvinced.

“Hm,” agreed Zach, dubiously.

“There you guys are!” exclaimed Gary, catching up with them. Zach stopped, hurriedly retraced his steps, and peered around the corner of the building. Gary’s mother was just leaving. She also appeared to be crying.

“Erm,” said Nick, helplessly, and looked uncomfortable.

“Yeah thanks, you guys, for ditching me.” Gary spoke playfully, but anger lingered just beneath the surface. He looked at Zach, who met his accusing gaze calmly.

“But you’re with us now?” Nick looked at Gary hopefully, then wavered at the glowering expression on his face.

Mike did not say anything, but his expression indicated that the not-quite-gone old dislike for Gary was making a fast re-entrance.

“I should go study,” mumbled Nick, fidgeting.

“Good idea,” said Zach, who was still gazing at Gary with an air of maddening patience, as if he was waiting for something. Mike had a you-are-an-unreasonable-brat expression on his face that made Gary ground his teeth.

It was, he thought in a rare moment of insight, not that he was trying to be unreasonable. It was the simple fact that the mere sight of his mother induced such a wave of negative feelings that he by instinct would want to be away at somewhere else. And how could he control such a basic impulse as wanting to leave something unpleasant? Moreover, continued the justified little voice in his head, why would he want to?

“I can’t help it,” he found himself muttering, feeling Mike’s glare burning a hole on his forehead. A whining note crept into his voice. “So stop that!”

“Can’t or won’t?” murmured Zach, giving him an unreadable look that somehow made him think of the psychology class they’d taken together, and the lesson on operant conditioning and phobias.

I hate psych majors, thought Gary with great vehemence.

“What did she ever do to you?” demanded Mike insolently, voice carefully controlled save for the barbed sarcasm which would always run wild. “Aside from, you know, giving birth to you?”

Gary felt himself go very red, then very pale, then red again. There was an odd ringing noise in his ears which told him exactly how furious he was which was, though Gary, even more infuriating because he was made this mad by someone who didn’t understand anything at all.

“Away,” said Zach, and steered them into a deserted lounge. Gary let himself be steered, too angry to notice or care.

“What did she do to me?” He exploded. “What would you know anything about it? I just have something against my mum, alright?” Mike narrowed his eyes. “And don’t look at me like that because I know you don’t always get along with your parents either—and don’t tell me you’ve never had moment where you hated your dad before!”

Mike, who had been turning increasingly brighter shades of pink over the past few moments, went still. Gary, watching the lines of his fists harden, wondered if this was it—that he was going to get popped one and end up in a hospital with a broken nose. A part of him was grimly satisfied at the prospect of the hospital trip.

“Okay. Fine.” Mike gritted out instead. He took a deep breath and asked, with remarkable calm, “What did she do?”

“None. Of. Your. Damned. Business.” Gary bit out.

“There’s more than one,” Zach said, almost to himself. Gary turned on him, oddly angry and oddly appalled. Zach lifted his chin. “But there’s one catalyst, so to speak, of the events, isn’t there?”

“What did she do?” Mike repeated.

Gary swore at him and would’ve turned and left the place except he knew that there was no way he could avoid this now, unless he broke the newly formed friendship completely.

Why thank you mother, he thought bitterly, thank you ever so much for coming the few moments where my life just started to feel right again.

“Gary…” said Zach, carefully.

“Alright,” said Gary, his voice shaking slightly. “Alright.” He pushed his sleeve up to reveal his right arm. “The catalyst? That she cared so damned much about the other people that she let this happen to her own kid!” He dropped his sleeve, his arm, and looked at the others, challenging, daring them to dismiss the four-inch long scar. “Happy now?