No Life Kid 8

“…so I told her, I said, like, no, Mellisa, it’s so much deeper than that. I see him for who he is, y’know?” A scoff left her lips. “So, no, he’s not gonna look your way just cause your stomach’s out.”

The Court of Forks High was being held in the hallway, lunch still a few hours away but Jessica Stanley was not one to be held back by simple things like lack of seating as she stood at her locker, a gaggle of girls giggling at her every word as she talked up a storm. “Like, I mean, c’mon, be decent here. You were raised better tha that, right?” 

Mostly about one person, in particular. “Besides, Zander’s a private guy. He knows what he wants. I’m just his type, you know, ‘cause I vibe with him.”

Vibe. Zander bit his lip, the sound of his kinda-sorta-girlfriend using his lingo enough to almost make him laugh out loud. She’s quick with it.

Honestly, she was.

It was almost impressive, really. 

In just a few days, Jessica Stanley had managed to leverage their “thing” — whatever the hell it was — into a full-blown coup d’état of the Forks High social hierarchy, pushing right past Lauren Mallory as she told stories of riding around in a BMW and her date in Port Angeles.

Even with Bella Swan rumored as getting with Edward Cullen, that had only done so much to upset the school’s buzz in general as there was no way to get any more juice out of that story with both of them so quiet.

Jessica on the other hand… “Walter calls me Miss Stanley, by the way. He’s soooo nice.”

Well, she walked differently now, a bit less frantic; almost a Queen Bee cadence.

Zander Cray just leaned back against his locker with nothing to say or do except return a wave from Jessica as she saw him look her way.

The sound of someone sucking their teeth had Zander’s eyes slide over to the other end of the hall, blonde and green-eyed Lauren Mallory standing there looking like she’d just swallowed a bag of Sour Patch Kids minus the sweet part. Glaring at Jessica’s back, her gaze flicked over to Zander for a second, only to turn back to Jessica as she realized she’d been caught.

…Man, I don’t think the girls in Miami were like this. All he remembered was them beating each other up over a guy. This seemed like something closer to emotional warfare. Zander adjusted his glasses with a shake of his head, nothing to really say about it all. Ah, girls are funny.

But then if girls were funny, guys could be kinda weird, like…

“Hey, Zan-Man!” 

Like Mike Newton.

Fork’s High own Golden Retriever bounced up to Zander’s side, but he couldn’t help but notice that the bounce was kinda off. Maybe it was the look on his face or what, but the tail didn’t look like it was wagging today. 

“Hey, Zander,” Mike echoed again, nodding his head to invisible music as Jessica looked over their way at the sight of Mike. “Heard you and Jessica went over to Port Angeles, huh? Big night?”

Yeah… He was sure that sentence was supposed to sound casual but it felt like Mike was talking through some constipation more than anything. “Huge.” Zander stretched the vowel out like taffy, nodding his head back in time with Mike as the silence surrounded them for a second or two. “Food was decent. Company was better.”

He winked at Jessica as she walked over, breaking from her crew. “It was amazing, Mike. You should’ve seen the restaurant. Totally empty. Private.”

Mike’s smile twitched at the corners, nothing about it reaching his normally bright eyes as Zander looked his way. Does he like her? Once again, Zander found himself mentally sighing as he wished he paid more attention to this story. If I stole your girl, I’m sorry man. It’s high school.

“We should get to English.” Zander peeled off the metal locker, Mike almost flinching back a half-step. “Don’t wanna keep Banner waiting. Hear we’re doing the classics today.”

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

“Heathcliff…” The chalk squeaked, half the class wincing at the sound as Mr. Banner wrote on the board with his back to them all. “Romantic hero? Or monster? Now, the text does give us evidence for both, but seeing as all of you have done the reading…”

The class was filled with the noise of almost two dozen groans as the balding English teacher finally turned around, the man wearing the look of someone who had long ago accepted that his life was a series of bells ringing in forty-five-minute intervals.

He held up a copy of Wuthering Heights, waving it like a weapon. “I expect answers.”

All the groans died to nothing as all twenty kids suddenly decided to pretend like they were invisible. “Mr. Cullen, you’re always a better bet than most. Surprise me.”

Edward Cullen sat two rows ahead of Zander, posture rigid and straight as a rod. He didn’t look at his book, no need considering he was old enough to have read the first edition. “He’s a tragic figure, Heathcliff is.”

The whole class was silent again, Edward’s velvet smooth voice ringing out with a cadence that was trying and failing to sound modern. Grandpa Eddy. 

“Heathcliff’s cruelty is a reaction, nothing innate. Just reading is enough to tell you that it’s just a product of the prejudice he faced and the loss of all tying him to humanity. His love for Catherine is survival. Without her, what reason does he have to claim or value morality?” Edward shook his head with a sigh. “No, he became a monster because the world refused to allow him the standard of a man.”

Bella Swan, sitting next to him, looked like she was witnessing a religious event; eyes wide and mouth slightly open. Oh, look. The moth found the bug zapper.

Banner nodded, the man pleased as pleased could be that someone didn’t make his lesson plan a joke. “Excellent analysis, as always, Mr. Cullen. The Byronic hero indeed. What else but a man undone by the passions inherent to us all?”

He turned, eyes scanning the room and looking for a victim until they landed on the guy in the sunglasses indoors. “Mr. Cray? If you’re with us, a counter-argument?”

One arm draped over the back of his chair, and legs stretched out into the aisle, Zander tapped a finger against his temple. “I think that the traditional view, nice as it is, is romantically stupid for a reason. Only so much romance can cover up what is literally classified as a dangerous personality disorder. And a felony.”

Banner blinked, the professor nodding his head slowly. “Go on.”

“Tragic hero, sure? But so was Hercules and he murdered his whole family. So was Samson and he mass-murder-suicided because of a pretty girl.” Zander clicked his tongue. “Tragedy and romance doesn’t excuse everything. Heathcliff’s a predator who confused obsession with love the way only an insane idiot could. We give him a pass because he’s sad, right? Because he broods. But why are we excusing entitlement with a bodycount?”

Zander paused, able to see Edward listening from where he sat; really listening. The vampire’s stillness had gone absolute, no pretense of humanity anymore but all the eyes off him. Too much, Eddy?

“Think about it, when does he see Catherine as a person?,” Zander decided to twist the knife deeper. “No, she’s just a possesion and, at best, an extension of himself. He needs her to function, sure, but not like a partner. More like a fix, you know?”

His sunglasses inched down his nose as he stared at the back of Edward’s head. “Something like his own tailor-made brand of heroin.”

Edward’s hands, resting on the desk, clenched into tight fists as the desk groaned a high-pitched protest under the stress. Bella looked over at Edward, brow furrowed tight as she could clearly tell something had happened. 

It was just the what that was escaping her.

“But hey…” Zander leaned back, pushing his glasses back up his nose with a grin. “That’s just my take, y’know. I’m a regular guy, what do I know?”

Mr. Banner cleared his throat, the sound almost a gunshot in the quiet of the class. “Right. I appreciate the… uncompromising nature of that interpretation. A modern one, very interesting, Mr. Cray. Now, let’s, uh, turn to page forty-two.”

Edward didn’t turn the page. He didn’t move for the rest of the class.

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

“…so then I told her, you can’t be late and not text, y’know? Let’s be real here.” Jessica was halfway through gutting a salad with her fork, another full speech at the ready as the girls at her table hung on every word. “I mean, it’s 2005. It’s the future. Everyone has a phone.”

The smell of tater tots, industrial disinfectant, and hundreds of unwashed bodies mixing into a cocktail of pure misery made the cafeteria’s loud roar of three hundred bodies almost bearable in comparison.

Almost.

Zander sat at the ‘cool table’ — the newly crowned kingdom of Jessica Stanley as he took her side as consort. He polished off the last bit of his food — an unfulfilling burrito with plasma infused carne asada, rice cooked in blood broth, with charred peppers and onions to spice it up for him — and nodded slowly as Queen Jess turned to him for confirmation on something he hadn’t even been paying attention to.

“Totally, totally.”

Jessica giggled. “Seee? He listens!”

His eyes weren’t on her, though, Zander too busy locked in on the table across the cafeteria entirely. Alice Cullen.

The local vampiric oracle was sitting with the rest of her family, perched on the edge of her seat as if a bird about to take flight. The tater tots in front of her went ignored, of course. The idea that she would ever eat them was ridiculous. 

But no, they were more ignored than usual as she stared right at him, thin brows warring with each other as she focused his way with a laser intensity that made it seem like she was trying to drill a hole through his forehead.

Oh, you wanna play, Pixie? Granted, he was gonna test this anyway, but this was the perfect chance to try. Let’s play.

Zander took his last bite of the barely-filling blood burrito and chewed slowly as he cleared his mind and visualized a plan. Tonight. 8:15 PM.

The theater might as well have been right in front of him the way it stood out. Deer Park. We’re going to Deer Park.

The image was perfect and clear in his mind’s eye, as distinct and undeniable as anything could be. Marquee lights buzzed and shone bright as day, the smell of overbuttered popcorn thick in the air. He and Jessica sat in the back row with the gore of the horror movie on the screen making her cling tighter to him.

With as much mental force as he could, he pushed the image forward and past the forefront of his thoughts, broadcasting it like a radio signal. Buying the tickets. Buying the popcorn. We are sitting in seat F4.

Across the cafeteria, Alice Cullen gasped loud enough the table next to her turned to look. The vampire’s head snapped back like she’d been slapped, eyes wide as she saw the future crystallize in her mind’s eye.

Jasper grabbed her arm and her head snapped his way, lips moving fast. ‘He’s going to Port Angeles tonight. I see it.’

Zander smirked and immediately scrubbed the plan in favor of something else. Nah, dumb idea, movies arent romantic enough. Let’s do that little Italian place in Forks instead. The one with the checkered tablecloths. 

Alice flinched as the timeline incinerated to nothing, a small frustrated hiss of air leaving her as she jerked in her seat. One hand flew to her temple, the psychic rubbing at her head as she blinked rapidly.

Or… what about movie night at my place?

Golden eyes glared across the room, the girl wearing a sharp annoyed pout that screamed ‘stop that’ in more languages than could be spoken. 

Zander met her stare with a smile. Actually, maybe we just drive off a cliff.

Alice’s eyes went wide.

Just kidding. Bowling.

The girl slumped into her seat, Jasper asking her questions that went unanswered.

“What’s with you and the Cullens?” Jessica’s voice cut through the psychic warfare as Zander turned to smile at her. She shot him a look, then one over at the Cullens and their table, before inching back to him. 

“Whaddya mean, babe?”

She raised an eyebrow his way. “You guys have this weird… staring thing half the time.”

“Nah,” he unscrewed his thermos of blood and tomato juice and brought it to his lips. “Just a little inside joke. I’ll tell you later.”

He took a sip of the stale blood, smacking his lips. “So, you, me, Friday night… I’m thinking… not a movie. Maybe we just see where the road takes us. Keep ‘em guessing.”

Across the room, Alice put her head in her hands and groaned.