Hey again. Feels like it’s been a little while.

Since last time, the drama has thickened. Zoe’s ex-friends have doubled down on their attempts to harass her, now making up lies and Ashley and Zoe’s relationship. Zoe’s parents are considering Operation Unthinkable. Moloch and his mysterious crony may be planning a direct attack on us. And yet, amidst the chaos, life continues on, including the Homecoming Dance!

I picked out a simple, sleeveless purple dress for the occasion. Nova doesn’t look half bad, all things considered. He’s wearing a white button-up with tan slacks. The clothes are in good condition, but they seem a little big on him. The sleeves of the shirt go a little past his wrist, and his pants are a little on the baggy side. Maybe he’s borrowing an outfit from his dad?

“Hey, looking good,” I tell him.

“Thanks. You too,” he replies flatly. He looks bored already.

“We don’t have to be here for long,” I tell him, already feeling a little bad for dragging him out here. “I know you’re not much of a party animal.”

“Where are those other two?” he asks, looking around. “Oh, here they come.”

I look in the direction of his gaze, towards the front entrance. Zoe is dressed in a modest, periwinkle lace dress that exhibits a slightly regal quality. She looks super adorable in it. The shade contrasts perfectly with her blonde hair and rosy cheeks. Ashley, since she’s going to detention, is just wearing her usual getup, her school backpack over her shoulder.

Before coming to where Nova and I are, Ashley squeezes her hand, and then breaks off to walk down the hall leading away from the cafeteria.

“Nice dress,” a random girl says to Ashley in a mocking voice.

With frightening speed, Ashley halfway lunges towards her, only to pull away and regain her composure in the blink of an eye. The girl flinches and cowers behind her arms, looking rather foolish. Ashley strides away, the ghost of a smile on her face. I giggle at this, which makes the other girl look up from her arms and glare at me.

I turn back towards the others. Nova is also chuckling at it. “I gotta admit, that was pretty funny,” he comments.

Zoe looks confused. “Wait, what’s funny?” she asks, looking around vaguely in the same direction.

“Eh, don’t worry about it,” I say. “It’s time to dance, boys and girls.”

“Uh… do either of you actually know how to dance?” Nova asks me skeptically.

“Nope. Let’s go,” I say, grabbing his arm and pulling him unwillingly into the abyss.

The detention is taking place in a random math classroom. It’s being monitored by some middle-aged Hispanic guy I don’t recognize. There’s only one other student, a black guy with a fairly eccentric outfit. He’s got long, curly hair that is currently tied behind him in a ponytail and is wearing a rather effeminate-looking loose-fitting V-neck.

Since I have nothing better to do, I decide to use this opportunity to finish up some work, starting with a geometry assignment. What a fucking waste of time this is. I could be practicing at home right now. Or, you know, actually doing something fun. Or training, except I guess the others would be here anyway. Grrr.

I look up from my paper and sigh, feeling a little restless. Something on the other student’s desk catches my eye, though. He’s slowly and carefully coloring in a sketch with a huge package of colored pencils in every color you can imagine.

I watch him for a while, intrigued. The drawing is actually really good. It’s a picture of a young black girl, flying through the sky with her arms out like an airplane. The sky behind her looks cloudy and stormy, but towards the other side of the page it starts to clear out, showing more and more of the serene, blue sky behind it. It gives off an aura of optimism.

I look up at our monitor. He’s on his computer, looking very unlikely to give a rat’s ass about what we’re doing.

“Hey. Nice drawing,” I say to the other student in a low voice.

He looks startled at being addressed, suddenly dropping his pencil. Since I’m trying to be genuine here, I relax my stance to try and put him more at ease.

“Oh, uh… thanks,” he says meekly.

“I’m a musician myself, so I know how to appreciate someone who’s performing highly in their artistic endeavors.”

He just smiles at me nervously, not saying anything to that.

“What’s your name?” I ask.

He looks very closely into my eyes for a few moments, as if trying to judge if he could trust me. Finally, he says, “Charlotte.”

Charlotte.

I’m starting to put two and two together here.

“My name’s Ashley,” I say. “Charlotte, by any chance… do you identify yourself as a girl?”

“Um… yes,” she says, cowering slightly as if fearing my reaction.

“Don’t worry,” I assure her. “I’ve heard about people like you. I’ll be respectful.”

Her composition becomes a little more relaxed. “So Ashley. What kind of music do you like?”

I sigh and lean back in my chair. “I’m drawn to music of a more… artistic nature, so most of the stuff I like is pretty weird.”

“You mean like Nirvana?”

“Uh… weirder than that.”

She thinks hard about that for a moment, putting her hand to her chin. “Pink Floyd?”

“You’re getting warmer. Anyways, what about you?”

“Oh, I like pretty much everything under the sun. Here, you should tell me some of your favorite albums, and I’ll look them up.”

“Oh, uh… Charlotte, I’m talking about things which are too weird for most people.”

She smiles at me, holding a pencil and sheet of notebook paper at the ready. “Don’t worry. I’ve got an open mind!”

“Well, if you’re sure…” I preface. “Here are a few of my favorites…”

She writes down all my suggestions. I hope she knows what she’s getting into. Even her handwriting looks like a work of art; she writes flawlessly in cursive.

“So Charlotte, what are you in for?” I ask, trying to keep the conversation going. She seems interesting enough to talk to.

“Missing too much school,” she replies, turning back towards her drawing and coloring while she talks. “I have to be here to make up school hours. You?”

“I got into a fight in the hallway.”

“Ohh. Did you win?”

“I guess so. I broke the bitch’s nose.”

“Wow… that’s pretty intense.”

“Yeah, well… she was bullying someone I love, so serves her right. Mom wasn’t happy with me, though.”

She nods solemnly. Though her eyes are glued to the page, the glassy look in them makes me think that her mind is God-knows-where.

After a while of… whatever that was, Zoe leaves to go get something to drink, leaving Anja and I in a dark, mostly secluded corner. The only person nearby is this cute guy with short brown hair and glasses who’s on his phone.

Anja watches Zoe walk away with a grin on her face. “Man. She’s mega cute. It’s too bad she’s taken already.”

“Yep,” I say, not sure how else to respond.

“I kind of wonder where she got that dress, though. Isn’t all of her stuff still at her parents’ house? With tensions recently growing, I have a hard time imagining it was easy to get into her stuff.”

“Maybe they just got her a dress at Goodwill,” I suggest. “She’s probably just too embarrassed to admit it.”

“That’s nothing to be embarrassed about! In my opinion, resourcefulness in a virtue,” she says. “Anyways… Ashley’s got a good taste in romantic partners, that’s all I know.”

At these words, that one dude nearby suddenly looks up from his phone and to us.

“Hey, what are you looking at us for?” I ask him.

He looks side to side, and then meanders up to us. “Hey. You said something about an ‘Ashley.’ Are you talking about Ashley Davis?”

“The one and only,” Anja replies. “Actually, that’s not true. According to howmanyofme.com, there are over a thousand Ashley Davises in the US.” She smiles widely. “But there’s only one Anja Buelen!”

The guy laughs nervously. “Funny story… she’s actually one of the people I tried asking out to this dance. She got really mad at me…

“Oh really, she did?”

“Yeah… she said like, ‘Do you think this is some sort of joke?’ Or something like that.”

Anja rolls her eyes. “She probably thought you were pranking her. You see… she’s not into guys. She’s gay.”

“Oh, really. I didn’t know that. Now I feel like an asshole…”

“No, don’t. It’s not your fault. Ashley’s just… a really prickly person.”

“Why would you ask her out, anyway?” I ask him.

“Well, you know. She’s in my English class, and I’ve wanted to get to know her for a while. Yeah, it’s partially because she’s pretty, but it’s also more than that.”

“I don’t think she’s that pretty,” I interject.

Anja gives me some sort of look, and then motions at him to continue.

“I mean… I really like girls that are, like… free spirited. She always has this confident demeanor like, ‘I’m going to do my thing, I don’t care what anyone else thinks.’ You just don’t see many girls like that around here.”

“Yeah… there’s a reason for that,” Anja adds grimly. “Still, I get it. She’s not the type of person I would personally want to date, but she’s definitely… a type I could see some people being interested in.”

The guy gives Anja a quizzical look. “So, uh… are you gay too, then?”

“I’m bi.”

“Oh. So… you’re attracted to both guys, and girls.”

“Yes.”

“Can I ask you something? If it’s not too personal of a question.”

“Sure.”

“Are your tastes for what you like the same across gender, or do you have specific things that you like in each?”

“Hmm… it varies wildly depending on the person. For me personally, I like the same things mostly across gender lines.” She grins again. “I’m really into nerds.”

“Well, I guess it would be nice to have someone who could do your homework for you.”

“Well… I don’t even mean that type of nerd, necessarily. It’s more of a demeanor thing.”

She turns towards me. “What about you, Nova?”

“I don’t know… I guess I’d want to be with someone who’s pretty chill? I wouldn’t want to be nagged all the time…”

Anja gives me this weird look. Like she knows something I don’t.

“What? What’s that look for?”

She looks away. “Oh, nothing…”

Kevin chuckles nervously again. “Anyways… It’s kind of funny that we got into this. I usually don’t get to talk about this stuff with people. “

A scowl crosses his face. “You know, other guys are always like, ‘Oh, I like girl with big tiddies.’ And I mean… I’m not disagreeing with that… but also, there’s more to it? You know?

“Yeah, trust me, I totally agree with you,” Anja assures him.

The boy smiles. “Well, good talk. It was nice meeting y’all. My name’s Kevin, by the way. And… next time you see Ashley, let her know that… you know, I didn’t know. So hopefully there’s no hard feelings or anything.”

“We’ll relay the message. See you around,” Anja closes out.

Shortly after Kevin walks away, Anja breathes out dramatically. “Well, that happened.”

“Yep.”

For a few moments, we just kinda stand there awkwardly. Then…

“I have to use the bathroom,” she says. She shuffles off to do that, leaving me by myself.

Ugh… it takes so long to get through crowds. I try to be careful and not to bump into anyone or draw attention to myself, but it’s so hard not to when everyone’s packed together like this.

Eventually, I return to where we were, punch now in hand, to find Anja gone, and Nova standing there by himself. He looks kind of twitchy, and definitely irritated about something.

“Are you doing okay?” I ask him.

“Yeah. It’s just so damn loud in here,” he says. “I hope we get to leave soon. Anja’s taking so long in the bathroom. Girl problems, I bet.”

“If you have a problem with the noise, maybe we can step outside for a bit?” I suggest.

“Maybe,” he says. “But we might get locked out. I think the doors are supposed to be locked except in the front.”

So we simply stand somewhat awkwardly for a while. Nova and I haven’t had much one-to-one bonding time yet, so I have a bit of trouble thinking of a conversation topic.

“This sucks,” he says after a while. “This reminds me of when my mom took me to that work party as a kid. Everyone talks so loud and you just want them all to shut up…”

“Is it hard?” I ask. “Thinking back to when you were still with your mom? Now that… you know.”

“Uh, yeah, it is. Well, I guess it’s also hard not to think about it, too.”

This conversation topic is a bit on the sad side. I’m trying to think of something a little more cheerful, when Nova unexpectedly starts talking again, faster than usual.

“You know… like… there’s always going to be people in your life who don’t care what you want. They only want what they want. And that means you gotta be what they want you to be. And you always hope that someday, they’ll be out of your life, and you’ll be free. But then, when you are free, you’re just like, ‘Now what?’ ‘Cause they actually made you believe it, that your whole life revolves around them. You know?”

“Um… that sounds like a rough situation,” I say, taken aback by the sudden rant.

He looks disappointed in me. “Man, I thought that out of everyone I know, you’d understand.”

“No… I do understand. I’m sorry,” I say, realizing how inadequate my initial reply was.

This seems to satisfy him. “I used to dream about never having to worry about my mom… and now that dream’s pretty much come true. Except the problem is… I don’t have any dreams left.”

This statement… makes me feel an unexpected wave of sorrow and compassion for him.

I don’t know how to put it into words, so I walk over and give him a hug. He’s awkward about it at first, but after a while he accepts and returns it.