I heard two loud mechanical ‘thuds’ as Aleah threw the van into gear and rumbled down the GAT driveway. As we emerged onto the street I cast a wayward glance at Leina who was busying herself with her phone. I glanced at the screen silently but couldn’t make out what she was doing. I shrugged and looked toward the window, observing the world as it blew by.
“Do you want to ask me something?” Leina asked. I looked back, she’d set her phone on her lap, hands crossed over it, her gaze fixed directly on me.
“I just…” My eyes darted around the van. It was myself, Courtney behind, Leina beside, and Kari in the front, in the passenger side adjacent to Aleah. “I don’t know…much about her, I mean…we haven’t really sat down and…”
“And actually talked?” She finished my thought for me. “You should do that, with people you care about you know. You should get to know them, it helps.”
I sighed.
“Yeah you’re right but…I mean…I guess I want to know, was she like this growing up? Did you know? You just…accepted it so easily when Chastity-“
“Let me stop you right there,” She said abruptly. “I’m not Chastity. Don’t compare me to her.”
“No, no I wasn’t,” Shook my head. “I guess I just want to know, why are some people so accepting and others aren’t? What makes—”
“A lot of things,” Leina told me. I could tell the others were listening now, the silence in the air was too telling. “It has to do with how you’re raised, what you were taught. Let’s say you have a kid born to super religious parents, they got that from their parents, and their parents, and their parents. Bigotry is passed down most of the time. What about you? Why are you so readily accepting of Audrey?”
“Well I mean…she hasn’t done anything to me, and…”
“She hasn’t done anything to a lot of people,” Leina cut me off again. “But a lot of people are going to hate her. I was suspicious of you at first, and honestly I still am, but compared to the rest of the world, GAT is a god damn dream. You’re not taking advantage of her, at least I don’t think, and you accept her for who she is. That puts you light years ahead of everyone else but let’s be fucking honest here, the bar isn’t raised very high. The bar is basically rolling around on the ground.”
“Oh wow…” I heard Aleah mutter from the front seat.
“I meant what I said,” I nodded. “I want Aleah in GAT-“
“And yet, you aren’t the president,” Leina smiled. “You’re not an officer, you’re not anyone, what does the president say?”
“I say just listen to the blonde bitch,” Aleah took a left turn, careening us into the Gamestop parking lot and lodging us into a space.
“You know, you ask a LOT of questions for someone whose just a friend,” Leina pointed out, suddenly batting her eyelashes at me. “How are things going with that frat boy you’re dating?”
“Um, things are going fine I—”
“Are you sure?” Leina asked, her face contorted into an even more twisted grin.
“We’re here,” Aleah threw her door open and stepped out. I quickly followed suit, barreling over Leina as she chuckled, and cast myself out onto the blacktop.
“Okay, what are we doing again?” Courtney asked. Kari skipped happily ahead of us.
“We’re going ask the clerk if he remembers Audrey and if he remembers where she was going, remember, it’s Todd, male pronouns.”
“Right,” I said, walking intentionally ahead of Leina. I practically caught up to Kari who already had a good lead on us and slammed into the steel and glass door of the Gamestop. Yanking it open, I careened into the air conditioned space and bumped into a ‘Dark Pantheon’ display case, I guess there was a new expansion or something. I shook my head. The guy behind the counter was your typical geek, slightly overweight guy in his thirties, a Gamestop lanyard around his neck. He looked slightly intimidated as we approached.
“Hey there!” Aleah said, flashing her sorority girl smile and cocking her head as she allowed her eyes to tear into his. “I was wondering if you could help us!”
“I um…I can certainly try,” The man smiled. “What are you looking for, exactly?”
“A guy, maybe about 5’9, kind of geeky, came in here with that girl over there last night?” Aleah pointed to Kari who was now wandering into the nether regions of the store, out of our sight.
“Well, no,” The man shook his head. “Well I remember her, but she wasn’t with a guy.”
“Figures,” Aleah looked to us. “Kari’s imagining things again, she came here alone, for whatever reason.”
“What? No she wasn’t alone,” The clerk shook his head. “She was with another girl.”
“Another girl?” I asked. “What did she look like?”
“Um, about 5’9, like the guy you described, shoulder length brown hair-“
“Oh my god,” Aleah blinked.
“Wow,” I blinked. “Did that all on her own, huh?”
“I don’t understand,” The clerk shook his head. “What’s going on?”
“Where did they say they were going?” Leina broke through the banter and stepped closer to the counter. “Did they say?”
“I think they said they were heading to the quad, over at Woodcrest,” The guy shrugged.
“Okay so last night at the Quad there would have been that drum thing,” Aleah mused. “Like, there are these students that play street music on the quad with buckets and stuff. Maybe they went to see that.”
“Except…yes,” Courtney said, staring at her phone. “Last night there was a…disturbance in the Quad, it’s all over the news. Apparently some unknown girl blasted the school mascot with a firehose, then she ran from the police. Guess who the girl was?”
“Oh dear god,” I shook my head. “Well at least it can’t get any worse.”
“Well it can,” Courtney nodded. “The kid in the costume was Shawn Derringer’s nephew, so Audrey just blasted his affluent ass to hell with a fire hose. Good on him, down with the bourgeoise, or whatever.”
“Okay…then we need to go talk to Shawn,” I nodded. “If Audrey’s in trouble, maybe he can get the charges dropped.”
“You are being way, WAY optimistic about this,” Aleah stared at me. “This looks like actual assault.”
“That beaver deserved it,” I said, referring to the mascot. “He groped me at the last football game.”
“You DO know it’s not an actual beaver, it’s a guy in a suit, and the guy changes every few weeks.”
“I hear you talking, and I see your mouth moving, but I can’t really understand what you’re saying.”
“God dammit, Tiffany,” Aleah sighed. “Let’s go talk to Shawn, or is dad, or whoever you have to blow to fix this.”
