Chapter 2

Tragedy can bring a group together. It can also drive individuals away. It depends on the group, the individuals, and the tragedy. The kids in school wanted to join hands and sing sad songs. The parents and teachers wanted every kid where they could be watched. The school administrators mandated grief counseling for every one of their 'charges' who attended the game.

I understood and still wished everyone had taken the past into context. I'd only recently made it to the stage of considering Janet a real friend. Why would I want to torture her with my singing? Since I was never a part of the group, why should I be a part of it now? Where were the grief counselors when my mother died? I recognized saying any of it out loud would make me out to be used douche sewage, which is still a higher life form than the idiots making jokes. Even I wanted to beat them!

My desire to remain an individual was not without consequence--Bailey broke up with me. She didn't say anything; I got the message since you can't be fuck-buddies if you're not fucking. Janet's increased joy also clued me into the death of my sex life. (Clearly, Bailey was getting her freak on with a more comforting body type.) After some rather inappropriate, considering the circumstances, mourning over the dryness of my penis, I smacked myself. They needed it: Janet and Bailey, the kids, the adults, and the assholes who cracked jokes to convince themselves they were still immortal.

By the time the grief counselor decided I needed extra sessions to break through the emotional wall I built after the shooting (You can tell a psychiatrist you're not thirsty, and they still won't understand why you're not drinking the water they led you to!), the unity was breaking down to an increasing insulation among the old groups. The cheerleaders got REALLY tight; I rarely saw them in groups of less than four. To my surprise, Brianna was still a part of the team. I pegged the cheerleaders to ostracize the daughter of a man who killed three of their own and put two others in a hospital.

I guess high school kids can surprise.

"Let's talk about Bailey Rose," the counselor said.

"Huh?" That was out of left field. I looked around to make sure no one else had walked in and not told me the session was over.

"You're her boyfriend."

"Lady, no offense, are you crazy?" I said. "She's the captain of the cheerleading team. The hottest girl in school! I'm nobody, always have been, and some day I hope to be a psychologist."

"She told me during her sessions."

"Isn't there doctor-patient privilege?" I said, looking around again. She had to be recording the session, so I wouldn't cop to shit.

"I asked if I could talk to you about it because you're having such a problem opening up about what happened," she replied.

"Bailey Rose talked to you ... about me?" Doubt crept into my voice. "And she called me her boyfriend?"

"She didn't use those exact words," the doctor admitted. "But you are in an intimate relationship."

"Were," I said. "She's with someone else now."

"Yes, Janet is the one who told me you were on the field that day," the doctor said.

Oh yeah, don't tell those girls any secrets EVER! "What else did they say?"

"It's not important," she replied. "You lived through a tragedy, getting close enough to touch the dying. You need to talk about it, Mateo. Your friends are deeply concerned."

I stared at her.

Smiling, I nodded. "So you want me to talk about how watching those people die affected me."

"Yes," she said, sitting deeper in her chair. "It's necessary for you to move past it."

I laughed under my breath, surprising her. "It didn't affect me. It couldn't affect me. Not because I didn't know the victims, or the shooter, or his daughter who has to pretend everything is fine and finish school. It doesn't have anything to do with hating the entire high school sports bullshit; I mean seriously, getting to fuck Bailey Rose grants pardons for every misdemeanor that isn't going to mean crap the second I walk off the graduation stage. And to be perfectly honest, the big crimes against me like students, teachers, and administrators being complicit in Reggie's bullying ... fuck it, them, and him. I'm not going to remember his name in twenty years, but on my death bed, I'm going remember what it was like to fuck into Bailey the first time. My first time!"

Staring out the window, I continued, "I don't need to be here, Doctor, because I'm intimately aware life is fragile, but it fights, although the only victory is delay."

I stood up and grabbed my bookbag before looking at her. "I won't be back. You're trying to help when I understand far better than you could what happened. If you ever approach accepting that being alive means to be dying, find me. I'll talk you off the ledge."

The Double-Step had been driving me up every wall at the house. The shooting brought up more maternal instincts than my younger siblings could safely absorb. For the first time in years, there was some left over for me. Having recently gotten over my snit about Bailey, I begged Janet to let me hide in her house that afternoon. Considering the conversation with the grief counselor, I was happy not to go home for a few hours.

"Hey, what's up?" Janet said when she opened her door. She leaned in and gave me a kiss on the cheek. The kiss thing was some sort of territory staking after Bailey and I became fuck-buddies. Having two females in my life made me classify them more accurately. I thought of Janet as friend, but being public friends with Bailey spotlighted that the girls weren't on equal levels. Bailey and Janet also wanted to draw distinctions about each other's role, so Bailey got my lips in private and Janet got my cheek everywhere. The breakup with Bailey hadn't changed Janet's habits, teaching me a valuable life lesson--of her volition, a woman never gives back anything surrendered to her.

"Come on!" Janet grabbed my hand, leading me to her bedroom.

"What are we doing?" I asked. "I thought we were going to hang out and watch a kung fu movie."

"This is much better," Janet said, opening the bedroom door and shoving me inside.

Bailey and Brianna were sitting on the bed. Brianna always seemed to be on the edge or recovering from a crying fit since her father's truck and shooting rampage. There was something different about her this time--she appeared at peace.

"Hey! You're here!" Bailey ran up and gave me a hard hug. "What's wrong?"

I did not return the hug.

"Nothing," I said quickly. "I didn't know..."

I turned to give Janet an annoyed look. "If something came up, you should have told me."

Janet waved the comment away, closed the door, and sat down in the love chair.

"So your answer is yes?" Bailey asked Brianna. "You need to be sure."

"I said yes already!" Brianna's voice quavered. Bailey nodded before sitting next to Janet.

"Oh!" I added Bailey and Janet and Brianna to arrive at Bailey being Bailey. "You three are busy, so as much as I don't want to, I'm going home."

"Mateo, you're the most important part," Janet said when I backed towards the door. Her tone of voice said she loved whatever Bailey had planned.

"I'm just trying to be a good secret girlfriend," Bailey said innocently.

"You're not my girlfriend. Even when we were..." I glanced at Brianna. The curiosity on her face didn't give me the warm fuzzies. " ... doing stuff, we weren't. We didn't!"

Bailey and Janet waited patiently for me to find coherent sentences.

"We were fuck-buddies," I said finally. "That's it! You were not my girlfriend."

"You had sex with him?" Brianna asked Bailey while pointing at me. "I thought you were making me fuck him because he's him."

"Fuck who?" I looked from girl to girl. Each gave me the female-patented 'Are you stupid?' look. Janet jumped up to push a chair under my ass. After collapsing onto it, I stared at Bailey, incredulous at her insanity.

"Am I not the best high school girlfriend you could imagine?" Bailey asked, nodding as if it would convince me to agree. "You think I'm the hottest girl in school. I'm the captain of the cheerleading team. I'm your nemesis' ex-girlfriend. I'm sleeping with your best friend who happens to be a girl. Boys like that! And now, I've delivered Brianna for you to fuck."

"You're crazy!" I told Bailey.

Janet grabbed my face and made me look into her eyes. "She is absolutely bonkers! Isn't it fantastic?"

Janet ran to the love seat, jumped on, and gave Bailey a lover's kiss. It stopped my train of thought; I'd never seen them together. Brianna's eyes couldn't get wider without popping out of her skull. Eventually (Too soon!), they stopped kissing and turned back to me.

"Let me repeat--you're NOT my girlfriend," I said to Bailey. "And..."

"Why do you keep saying that?" Bailey asked, sounding hurt. "I think we've done more than can be called fuck-buddies. We're friends too!"

I took a deep breath, "We haven't done anything in weeks, so whatever we were, we are not anymore."

"I'm sorry," I said before she could speak. "That came out angry. I guess, to me, we were more than fuck-buddies and it would have been nice if you said we were done. That shit is on me! I shouldn't have felt it since I always understood it was about gratitude for what I did."

"What did you do?" Brianna asked.

"None of your fucking business!" Janet and Bailey said simultaneously and in the same dangerous voice.

Bailey turned to Janet, "Was I really ignoring him?"

"I ... I..." Janet turned to me. "I wasn't trying to steal Bailey. I wanted it to be the way things were between us before you."

"Look, it's okay" I said. "I told you I got it in the car, Janet. Remember? It's better if I go, and we forget I was here. Bailey, thank you for ... fuck it, just thank you! You girls keep doing whatever this is."

"Wait!" Bailey raised her hand to me. "What did he tell you in the car, Janet?"

"I'm his friend too, Bailey," she replied.

Bailey didn't look happy at the response. She tapped a fingernail on her jean button as she stared at Janet, then at me, and finally at Brianna.

Flexibility increases a human being's competence and makes them a more dangerous member of our species. Another valuable life lesson, this time courtesy of Bailey who could spin like a top.

"Change of plans," Bailey said. "Brianna, you won't be mine; you belong to Mateo until we graduate."

"That's not..." Brianna started only to be drowned out by Janet.

"But you said, I could play with her whenever I wanted!" Janet said to Bailey.

"I guess you have to ask Mateo for playtime." Bailey stared at me, waiting. In that moment, I understood one thing--relative to what there is to know about them, I would never know shit about women. The few things I did know I should cling to though, like few teenage girls can wait through silence longer than I could.

"The team wants to kick Brianna off," Bailey told me. "I'm the captain and it's not a democracy, so if want to keep her, she stays."

"Janet 2.0," I said.

"Not even close," Bailey said. "Janet's dad didn't kill our friends or put them in the hospital."

"Marie and Stephanie will be visiting school next week," Janet said.

Brianna's face looked pained.

"Why are you still going to school here?" I asked her. "It's miracle your life isn't a shit hole yet, but when they come back for real, you're going to know hell."

"You don't have to talk to me to get off!" Brianna spat.

Bailey was off the seat and across the room in a second. She slapped Brianna so hard I saw stars. "Don't ever speak to him like that again! You don't want to be his bitch, say the word! You know what's going to happen."

Brianna rubbed her cheek as her eyes filled with tears. I gave her credit--she didn't let them fall.

"Apologize and answer his question." Bailey sat back down. Janet put a hand on Bailey's forearm.

"The only other high school in town is private," Brianna said without looking at me. "The insurance company won't pay out for the policy because of what my dad did. My mom can't afford private school or transportation back and forth for me to go to another town. I don't know whether she has even thought about me; she's fucking falling apart."

"You've been keeping the wolves at bay," I said to Bailey.

"For now! The pop-kids won't fuck with Bailey," Janet said. "Nobody else will do anything as long Brianna is still part of the team."

"You could be her friend, Bailey," I said. "She had nothing to do with it. You're victimizing her as much as her dad did."

Bailey met my eyes, "You can tell me not do anything to her and I won't. It wouldn't be because you saved my life either. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you; I promised whenever you wanted me and I didn't live up to it."

Bailey grabbed Janet's hand tightly. "You're right, Mateo. You're not my boyfriend. I wouldn't have spread that bitch's legs for Reggie!"

"If you tell her Brianna is off-limits, Bailey will leave her alone," Janet said. "But you can't ask her to get in front of the train that is going to run Brianna down."

"You'll do it if she agrees to what you want?" I asked Bailey.

"You know the game," Janet said before Bailey could respond. "You've been playing it with Reggie, Mateo. The reward has to be worth the fallout."

"You could still be painted with the same brush as Brianna," I told Bailey.

She raised an eyebrow, "It's not going to happen!"

"It could," I insisted.

"I'll need to borrow your toy," Bailey said, directing her eyes from me to Brianna. "Especially to get Marie and Stephanie on board. We can agree on a rental price, can't we?"

I didn't answer.

"Mateo, even if things go badly, I still get something I want," Bailey said. I did not want to pursue the thought of what Bailey wanted. Studying the girls, I accepted that Bailey and Janet's minds were made up. Part of it was about punishing Brianna for what happened, and I didn't believe I could turn them from it either.

"You don't have to do it," I told Brianna. "It's not bad being nobody at school."

"She was your friend," Brianna said, nodding at Janet. "I won't have anyone! The kids like you will take advantage if they have someone like me they can bully. My friends will be worse."

"Reggie and his little buddies will be nasty," Janet said with relish. "I would make sure you don't get caught in a room alone with them."