Chapter 5: "New" School - Day 2

"They're here," said Brett Nilsen to his brother.

"Yesterday was so surreal. Ready for more of the same?" asked Tom.

"I'm still trying to wrap my head around all of this."

"Me too."

"Hey guys!" greeted Sandy happily, as the twins got in the car.

"Hi Sandy," they said in unintentional unison.

Sandy laughed. "I'm sorry guys. I'm not making fun of you, but it's so cute how you do that."

The twins blushed and were silent.

"What's the matter fellas? 'The cat got your tongues?" asked Derek.

"Meow!" husked Sandy and everybody laughed, though the twins laughter was out of uneasiness. Sandy sensed this and her tone softened after she stopped laughing. "Brett and Tom, I want to be your friend."

"Why?" asked Brett, as he was the less frightened brother.

"C'mon ... Brett?"

"Hey, you guessed right," laughed Derek.

"I had a fifty-fifty shot," she smiled at her boyfriend before turning her head back towards her fellow passengers. "Anyway, I told you guys yesterday. Derek is my boyfriend and you two and Kyle, Rogesh and Devin are his best friends. I'm going to get to know all of you," she smiled.

"But you're so..." started Tom.

"Say it Tom," she said.

"Mean..."

"Do I seem mean right now?"

"No. You seem quite nice," admitted Brett.

"Because she IS nice!" complained Derek. "Do you think I would be with her otherwise?"

"Yeah, she's hot bro!" laughed Brett and Sandy laughed really hard. Derek and Tom did not for different reasons.

"There's a lot more to her than her beauty," defended Derek.

"Easy, honey. He doesn't know me like you do," she smiled.

"Are you really serious about being our friend?" asked Tom, who was more relaxed as he perceived Sandra was being sincere.

"Very," she replied earnestly. "Meet us for lunch today. I have some people I want to introduce to both of you."

"OK," they said in twin speak, Sandy beamed. "God, their so cute," she thought to herself.

Derek was having another banner day. His confidence was through the roof. He talked to classmates, participated in class. He even caught several girls' eyes looking at him; including Connie Martin. After their Biology class, he spoke to her. "Well Connie. I decided to take you up on your kind offer."

"That's great!" she said enthusiastically. "You're such a smart guy. I'm sure that you'll come up with some solutions to some of the problems we're projecting with the Prom."

"Like what?" he asked.

"Well, to be honest, the biggest one I'm worried about is attendance. My friend, Julie Serta, is president of the senior class. She told me last year they only had about fifty people at their Junior Prom and their class is bigger than ours."

"There's an easy solution," stated Derek.

"What?"

"Be more inclusive," he paused before continuing. "Be honest with me, Connie. The only reason that you invited me to be on the committee was because I'm dating Sandra Turner."

"I've always thought that you were smart, nice ... handsome..." she said as her voice died away.

"You're lovely, smart and seem quite nice, but to be honest, you've never given me the time of day. You've been unapproachable, because I was perceived as not good enough to belong to your clique. Now I am because of Sandy, so you and your friends want to include me. As I said, I'm happy to help, but you might not like what I have to say.

Connie had a crush on Derek and in the last few moments, despite her embarrassment, it grew. He was right, of course, but she still could not believe that he and Sandra were together. "Derek, I take everybody's opinion seriously. In fact, I'm liable to take yours more seriously than the others," she smiled.

Derek was not expecting this. Was this a power play to make a move on him, as Sandy perceived? He did not care. Derek had an epiphany. He was going to use his newfound popularity to bridge the non-popular crowd to the popular crowd. He also had an amazing blunt instrument in Sandy's "Sandra" personae and a mandate from the popular crowd to make sure the Prom was a success. He had an idea and he called Sandy.

"Hey, Baby," came his lover's voice.

"You have third period free, right?"

"Yeah. Do you?"

"Yup," he answered happily.

"So we should be hanging out together everyday then," she laughed.

"Yeah, but today, I have an idea and will need your help implementing it."

"Well, I'm your girl."

"Truer words have never been spoken," he laughed, as she joined in with one of her own.

"Want to meet in the Library?"

"Yeah. Thanks Sandy."

"Anytime, Babe," she said as they disconnected.

Derek felt great, as he arrived at his next class.

At lunch, Derek saw an interesting collection of people at a large corner table. He realized that "Sandra" had commandeered it from the cheerleaders and jocks who normally sat there. The table's location was a good one because it was situated far away from most of the others. This meant that it would be likely they would not be overheard.

When Derek looked at the table's current occupants, he saw the Nilsen twins and his friends Kyle, Devin and Rogesh. He also saw all four of his girls. Kyle looked the least comfortable. He was heavy set, with thick glasses, but he always seemed to find a way to blend into the woodwork in social settings. Devin grinned, as he shifted his thin frame in his seat. Rogesh looked like he wanted to be anywhere else but where he was at the moment. The Nilsen twins were somewhat used to the attention that they were getting from Sandy, so they were a bit calmer. The girls were all smiling, except for Chantelle, who wore a mask of indifference that was covering up a lot of pain. Derek noticed this and sat down next to her. As she only managed a thin smile, Derek suspected that something bad was going on with her.

When she saw Derek sit down, Sandra started. "Guys, the reason you are all here is because you're Derek's best friends. As you know or probably have heard, I'm Derek's girlfriend."

"We heard, but I'm not sure I believe," said Devin, in his wiseass manner.

"Well, Devin, that's up to you. The only person that I care believes it is Derek," she said, smiling at her boyfriend.

"Yeah, Dev. You can believe what you want. She's all mine," grinned Derek.

"Anyway, I want to get to know all of you. I also want you to get to know some of my best friends."

"You have friends?" smirked Devin.

"Leave her alone, Devin!" snapped of all people Tom Nilsen, as both Derek and Brett glared at Devin.

Sandy felt touched at Tom's support. "Thanks ... Tom?"

"You guessed right," grinned Tom at his new friend.

"Damn I'm getting good at this," she laughed. Then she turned her attention to her heckler. "Devin, you can sit there and give me a hard time or you can give me a chance."

Devin realized that his friends were against him, so he backed off and simply nodded his reply.

"This is Mindy Harrellson, Maya Ramirez and Chantelle Morris."

"Hey guys," smiled Maya. "We're here because we care about Derek and Sandy. I think it's safe to say that when we got to know Derek, we saw why Sandy fell for him. If you guys are friends of Derek's, there has to be something special about each of you.

"Look guys, we all know you guys would like girlfriends or at least a Prom date," said Derek.

"I'm not going to the Prom," stated Kyle bluntly.

Derek smiled sadly. His friend was one of the nicest guys he knew, yet because of his size and shyness, getting him to go to the Prom was going to be a tough task. Still, Derek underestimated what his girlfriend had on her mind.

"Kyle, you're such a cutie, but when the good Lord was handing out metabolisms, he didn't do you any favors," she paused before smiling sadly. "I know this may sound funny coming from me, but appearances are not everything and can be deceiving," she added as she mashed two adages together. "Derek has assured me that you're a patient and sweet guy. I'd like it if you could do me a favor. Do you know Tara Broome?"

"She's a sophomore, right?" he said, still blushing.

"Yes. She's on the JV squad. She really wants to be a varsity cheerleader, but her weight is a handicap to competitive cheerleading. In reality, this is her last chance to be a cheerleader, as you can't be an upperclassman and be on JV."

"What do you want me to do?" asked Kyle.

"I want you to be her workout buddy and friend. In a lot of ways, she's like you. She's really smart and a nice person, but she's also part of a clique that keeps her around just to make fun of her. I think she needs encouragement and real friends who like her for who she is."

"I think she's pretty," said Kyle, blush still intact.

"I agree. Still, I think she has a chance to be even more beautiful," said Sandy "What I'm getting at is I think you can help each other."

"What about us?" piped Rogesh, for the first time.

"I'd like to assign each of you a JV cheerleader. They'll work with you to change your wardrobe and be your style gurus."

"What are we doing for them?" asked Devin.

"They don't know it yet, but you guys are going to help them with their respective problems, take away their shallowness and help them grow up. If you guys do a good job, you might wind up with a Prom date or possibly even a girlfriend," said Sandy, before continuing. "If you hear something about you being part of a 'social experiment', ignore it. To be honest, you guys need less changing than they do. They'll just think they are being hazed at my whim. In reality, I'm doing them a favor. They need to grow up and I think you guys are the men who can do it."

Derek smiled at Sandy. He could see why Sandra Turner had ruled the school. She had an iron will mixed with one bit charisma and another bit, meanness. It turned out that Sandy didn't need the meanness with the guys though. By the end of lunch, she had them all eating out of her hand. After giving his girlfriend a quick kiss, he caught up with Chantelle. "Honey, can you please wait for a minute."

"OK," she said seeming strangely calm, as she lowered her head

"Since Sandy got you excused from cheerleading, I'd like you to come back to my place after school."

"OK."

"Chantelle, look at me."

She lifted her head.

"Do you know why I want you to come back to my place?"

"To turn me into a sex slave and fuck me."

"Of course not!" he complained. "I made you a promise, remember? We need to talk. We still have three days to engage in the last sexual act of the week."

"What do we need to talk about?' she asked numbly.

"How we're going to get through the next six months."

"Is that all?"

"That's my only agenda item. The rest is up to you. The one thing you need to do, even if it just means twiddling our thumbs, is you have to stay with me until dinner time."

"Why?"

"Because I love you and I'm worried about you."

Chantelle started to cry. "Cassius broke up with me this morning!!"

"Shit!" thought Derek. He realized that this was his fault. "I'm so sorry, Chantelle!"

"I was so distant from him. I've become so numb since the other day."

"We'll fix that and then we'll fix you and Cassius."

"I'm not sure I want it to be fixed. I'm mad at him. I told him I was going through something and asked him to be patient. If he loved me, he would have waited until I figured this all out ... that was yesterday. He couldn't even wait one fucking day!"

Derek was shocked at Chantelle's use of profanity, in fact; he doubted that she had ever sworn until this moment. "Honey, we'll figure this out. I've been a bad friend to you and I'm so sorry!"

"No. I think I know what you were doing. I know you care about me ... it's just that I needed someone to talk to about all of this. You're the only person I feel comfortable talking about this with," she cried.

Derek stroked her shoulder. "What about the other girls?"

"I'm not really that close to them. I don't think I even really like them."

"You should. I know that they want to help you too."

"I wish I could. I know they've changed. I guess I can't help seeing then the way they used to be. Can you help me with that?"

"You know I can," he smiled.

When Derek and Chantelle got back to his house, they went up to his bedroom and lay on his bed. Derek directed her head to his chest and they both lay there, as Chantelle confessed to having suicidal thoughts. She told him what she was thinking in the cafeteria, yesterday when he caught her eyes. She was with Cass, but she yearned to be with Derek. She now believed that she was in love with two men and it was tearing her heart apart.

"Chantelle, I'm so sorry. If I never agreed to Sandra's deal, we wouldn't be in this position."

"I'm not so sure about that. You know I really liked you, right?"

"I suspected that you might after the kiss."

"Well, as much as I wanted to be Head Cheerleader, part of me was really looking forward to going to the Prom with you. You're such a sweet guy. I always thought you were really cute too."

"I had a huge crush on you."

"Had?" she asked, as she turned her head so they could see each other.

"I don't have a crush on you now because I love you."

"But you love Sandy."

"And Maya and Mindy too. You still love Cass. Who says love has to make sense," he thought, as he realized that he was paraphrasing the stranger from their second meeting.

"True. But what are we going to do?"

"Love each other," he smiled, as he kissed her sweetly on the lips.

When she broke the kiss, she looked sadly at him. "I don't know if I can do that."

Derek has changed the others, but for the first time he was going to change someone consciously against their will. "Chantelle, listen to me. I'm going to change you."

"No," she said meekly, as she already began to show rapt attention to him.

"You'll be OK about the fact that I love Maya, Mindy and Sandy, as I love you. In fact, you're happy I feel that way about all of you. You feel like we're all a family. You're also OK with your feelings about Cass. You still love him, but understand that you need some time to work through your feelings. Most importantly, you know that the feelings we have for each other are real and you will never question them."

Chantelle, felt a few tears flow from her eyes, but her mouth was turned up in a big smile. "Oh Derek! Thank you! I feel so wonderfully happy!"

Derek sighed. He had not wanted to do it, but he was worried about Chantelle getting to the point where she might have acted on her suicidal thoughts. He knew that despite the feelings being artificially induced, they were quite real. He knew this because when he changed someone, his feelings about them changed. "It must be that extreme 'empathy', the stranger had mentioned," he thought.