Kirk wasn’t a big fan of typically romantic parties, for obvious reasons, so upon the mention of the word ‘Homecoming’ he was already half-zoning out, tempted to slip his earbuds in and let someone snap him out of it later. Normally Kirk wasn't the arrogant, attentionless type, anyone could tell you he kissed ass more than anyone in the school, but a dumb gathering by dumb old cronies who think it’s fun for horny teenagers to grind against each other to Despacito was just that — dumb. Of course, the hopeless theater teacher on stage instantaneously put a stop to any lack of concentration on the boy’s part, in a dramatised and uninspired act of “pairing up” said horny teenagers. One after the other, pairs of names were called out, drawn from two bowls that seemed to be separated between boys and girls. It was surprising, to say the least, from a school that treated theater like a serious subject.
The alphabetical curse of the Weber name being ever-present, Kirk was seated and attentive for a very passionate explosion of his thoughts, to the selfsame tune and words — Archer. The aromantic boy felt choked by romance, but the fiery smoker boy could experience it, yet was denied the pleasure regardless. It was a thought he would linger on as Mari sat Archer back down, his attention being concentrated on Mrs Sanders once again. Names drifted by like the waves of the ocean, Kirk shifting back and forth as they did, swimming in mystery and anticipation. He wasn’t particularly excited about the whole ordeal, but at least he could make some fun out of overthinking how to say “I don’t feel romantically attracted to anyone, so your Homecoming is gonna suck even more than it would’ve with a regular stranger”.
“...Mr. Weber and Ms. Regan shall be in each other’s company for the night!” Kirk instantly deflated in his seat, the force of tension leaving his body, its rigid form collapsing. He knew Trip well enough for Homecoming to be at least tolerable, though the two had a lot of ground to cover in terms of actual friendship, or knowing her as a person instead of a name and a face. With a groan, he got out of his seat, eyes scanning the horizon. Most of his friends, or people he valued, seemed to have already gotten lost in the crowds of other 12th Graders, so he slumped his shoulders and made his way to the outside world. He needed some air and a lot of time to think.
While Kirk was busy with his philosophical analysis of the situation he was in, Marisol and Salem were making the way down the hallway, their arms still absentmindedly linked together. Salem hung back slightly and let Marisol slightly lead the way to the cafeteria, since he was still a bit unsure of where he was going in the school.
“Soooo…,” Salem started, staring at the walls and the posters displayed, “What’s your favorite food?”
“Fucking enchiladas, man,” Mari’s response was instant, eyes glowing at the thought of her grandmother’s delicacy, and it was said with such passion that it was obvious that the answer came straight from the heart. “My abuela makes them when we go visit twice a month, and I fucking swear to God that shit is like an orgasm in my mouth. Every. Freaking. Time.”
He laughed in response, his nose scrunching and his curls bouncing with the movement. Ruffling his hair with his free hand, Salem gestured vaguely in the air in front of them while shrugging his shoulder, “Well, you are definitely going to have to bring me some of your abuela’s enchiladas sometime. And I’ll bring you some of my nonna’s amazing cannoli. It has the taste of heaven, I fucking swear it.”
Marisol grinned. She'd tried the Italian delicacy on a family trip not that long ago, and it had definitely been an experience. She could only imagine how they would taste when being homemade.
“Deal,” she responded, offering up her pinkie for the two to make their first unbreakable promise.
Chuckling in amusement, Salem clutched Marisol’s pinkie with his own, giving a slight squeeze playfully. “Yeah, deal.”
As they entered the school building Archer and Marlene were met by a strange scene. Not only was Jun holding hands with Victoire, but not far away Marisol was arm in arm with a mystery man. Archer shot Marisol a confused look as the pair arrived at the scene. “Oh hello! Uhmmmm, who are you? And also… Why are you touching my friend?” Archer grinned at them.
The sheepish look in the girl’s face was instant. Marisol wasn’t exactly known for being physical with anybody that wasn’t close to her, so it made sense that Archer would give her that look when seeing her so comfortable with a complete stranger. But even then, she made no motions to unlink her arm from his… Because she really didn’t mind it. “Archer, this is Salem,” she explained, waving a hand in the newcomer’s direction. “Salem, this is Archer, one of my best friends,” she told him, repeating the motion but in Archer’s direction.
Salem waved his hand currently not linked with Marisol’s awkwardly, feeling oddly guilty for being friendly. He hoped Marisol didn’t feel pressured to continue linking arms with him, or that he had accidentally invaded her boundaries. Salem relaxed the arm Marisol was holding, giving her a chance to pull away if she wanted to.
“Hey, it’s nice to meet you.” he said courteously, putting his previously waving hand into his jean pocket. Nodding towards the general direction of the cafeteria, Salem added, “We were just heading to get lunch.”
Still smiling, Archer gave the newcomer a friendly wave. “Yeah, nice to meet you too, dude!” his eyes lingered on their linked arms. “I can see that… I might just join you. I mean, if I'm not interrupting something?” the curly haired boy raised a quizzical eyebrow towards Marisol.
“What the fuck could you possibly be interrupting?” she scoffed, shaking her head with a smirk.
“I don't know. You tell me, Slim.” He shrugged as he turned around to ask Marlene if she wanted to join them for lunch, but she had already gone off to aid Victoire. He turned back to face them. ““Well? Shall we?”
“Yeah, sure, let’s go!” Salem said amicably, tousling his hair once more. The Italian-American began walking towards the direction in which he was seventy percent sure the cafeteria is located, Marisol following right beside him. “Hope the cafeteria food is good here.”
“Our tuition is the third highest in the country. You bet your ass our food is good,” Sol started as they walked down the hallway.
As the newly united Homecoming date (with bonus third wheel) set off, the realisation came to Kirk that today wasn’t going to be a quiet one. Even the path to fresh air and contemplation was wrought with drama and sexual tension, worst of all between people he knew and valued. The scene was like something out of a bad young adult novel, except the reader was being held at gunpoint to read it. The Weber boy felt he was in the same situation, probably because of some rare undiagnosed and unknown anxiety — if he couldn’t go around, under or over it, he’d have to go through it, so go through it he shall. He seemed to have a good enough understanding of the situation to hop in.
“So, guessing this handsome loverboy right here is your school board-sanctioned Homecoming date,” Kirk teased, in his typical cliché bored voice, sidling up next to Mari. To say ‘next to’ would be a bad term for it, really, since the boy never walked ‘next to’ anybody. He had a tendency to linger to the bottom-right corner of a group of people, with quick diagonal access to any sort of escape route he might need. Not that he felt uncomfortable or unsafe (to an extent) around Mari, Archer, or even the ‘random-guy-I’d-fuck’; it was more of a force of habit. If anything, it was an act of being uncomfortable with himself more than anyone else.
“Fuck yeah he is,” Marisol declared with a sly smile, gently squeezing Salem's arm, and a hint of pride in her voice she didn't even realize she had in the first place. She looked around Kirk's direction and frowned. “The fuck is yours at?”
“Oh, uh, I kinda abandoned mine. I say abandoned, but I don’t think she was looking for me. Didn’t see her, so,” he responded, snapping himself out of idle thought.
Salem preened at the unsaid compliment Marisol’s voice implied, his smile turning crooked with gratification. “Hey, I’m Salem Rivera.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard that kinda name. ‘Salem’,” he rolled the name around his tongue, like he was savouring the flavour, “Huh. Nice to meet you. Now, I’m hoping Mari is leading us to the cafeteria and not towards some romantic bench where we can all sit and watch the world pass us by, because my stomach is rumbling with furious fire a’plenty.” He stopped himself from rambling again. The typical quiet type would be speaking as little words as they could in this situation, murmuring responses when needed, but Kirk often found himself overtalking when faced with a stranger. Not that Salem was a stranger, of course — Kirk knew his name now! Instant friendship.
Archer couldn’t help but scoff, he hadn’t heard Kirk talk this much in… well never. What was going on today? Did he miss something in the auditorium in his fit of rage? “Well you know, what’s in a name and all that!” He shrugged and shoved his hands in his pocket as he trudged behind the gang.
“‘That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.’” Salem quoted, earning himself a bewildered look from his homecoming date. Romeo and Juliet being one of his favorite Shakespeare plays, he could almost recite the entire play verbatim. “On an unromantic note, my name is my ma’s middle finger to Nature Conservancy after they called her a ‘witch’. If you ask her, she’ll lie though and say its to honor her Jewish father.”
“So Salem would, were he not Salem called, retain that dear perfection which he owes without that title,” Kirk grinned faintly, “I love an interesting backstory, even if it makes my name ever more boring. I don’t really get the trend of naming your kids after yourself.”
“You guys are fucking dweebs, I swear to God almighty.”
“Aw, c’mon, you don’t like a little bit of Romeo & Juliet? Not even the Leonardo DiCaprio movie? I thought you were a real romantic, Mari.”
The girl scoffed. “Romance can suck my big fat dick. I don't believe in that shit.”
“Preaching to the choir, don’t you think?”
“You’ll have to excuse Marisol, she’s not used to guys reading… let alone them being able to.” Archer quipped dryly in Salem's direction. Not sure if Sonny or Jun had even ever picked up a book without boobs on the cover.
“Fuck you,” came Mari's quick reply, using her unlinked arm to playfully shove her friend. Salem laughed in response.
They entered the cafeteria together and Salem grabbed the first free table for them all to sit at. It was near a large window with the light filtering in and Salem swung his bag down from
his back to claim his spot. With his bag saving his seat within the group, Salem turned to Marisol, “I’m going to get my lunch, I’m absolutely famished.
Salem pursed his lips and added, as an afterthought, “Since I’m going up there anyways, let me get your lunch for you, Marisol. Anything in particular you want me to get?”
To say that the green-eyed girl was completely taken aback by this was an understatement. In fact, she had been rendered speechless: an event that happened once in a blue moon for someone as mouthy as she was. Never in her eighteen years in this Earth had anybody outside her family and close friends offered to get anything for her. This was a whole new experience for her, and her wide-eyed self had no idea how to react to such niceness coming from someone who was pretty much a stranger.
After a few seconds of stunned silence, she cleared her throat awkwardly. “A mushroom Swiss burger with fries and a Coke sounds fucking amazing right now,” Mari admitted, already savoring the delicious combination in her mind.
Giving a thumbs up, Salem wandered away from the table. In all honesty, he would have offered to get the others their food too, but he only had two hands. Since Marisol was his mandatory homecoming date, it was only natural that he get hers and treat her nicely. Besides, she seemed like a sweet girl and he wouldn’t mind using this homecoming opportunity to make some friends in Palm Beach. The past few days he had been miserable in his solitude, with only one ray of sunshine lighting up his world the few times she could. As if summoned by his thoughts, his phone buzzed in his pocket and Salem smiled. He’ll respond in a second, after getting some grub.
As Salem walked walked away, Archer stared at his small friend until she gave him her signature annoyed face. It didn’t stop him from continuing to stare, still confused.
“So, are you going to tell me what’s going on? Who is this kid?” he finally said.
“I already told you. The dude is my homecoming date, he's new to the school, so he asked me to show him around. That's all that's going on,” Mari explained to Archer through gritted teeth in an exasperated tone of voice. “What's so weird about trying to do something nice for a change?”
Rolling his eyes he decided to drop it. A little change in company couldn’t really hurt right now. He started to pack up his lunch made up of leftovers from last nights shift. “I think you know why it’s weird, but I’ll leave it at that.” he said as he poured way too much ranch dressing on his Caesar salad, not noticing Marisol rolling her eyes at him. “Anyway, back to me! What the fuck am I going to do about this whole Judas situation?!”
“Ignoring the backstabber is always an option,” she told him with a shrug, placing her belongings on the table and taking the seat facing Archer that was next to Salem, arms crossed in front of her. “That or you can follow my example and just let it go. Because if I was able to let go of most of the crap that happened last month, you can let go of what Judas did. Now, before you chew my head off: letting go does not mean forgiving and forgetting. To me, it just means that you stop giving a fuck and are too busy living your best life to let shit people like that take up any of your headspace. You get what I'm sayin’?”
He sighed “I guess…” he said once again stabbing at his salad. “I don’t have much of a choice do I?” deciding to himself that he would look Ariel up later.
“Not if you want to graduate,” she said simply, shrugging her shoulders again.
“Getting nailed to a cross and becoming eternally recognised sounds like a fun time. Least you’d get a kiss out of it,” Kirk piped up from the edge of the table, chewing on whatever snack he found in his pocket while waiting for the lunch queue to thin out. He wasn’t particularly good with these types of situations, so a more facetious approach came naturally to him.
It was around that time that Salem ambled back over to them, precariously balancing food and drinks in both his hands and in the crook of his elbows. With the careful way he placed the food in front of Marisol and rearranged items so he wouldn’t drop everything, he could have been a juggler in a circus. The curly-haired Italian-American let out a loud, relieved sigh as he finally sat down.
“I love you so fucking much right now,” Mari declared, her eyes glued to her food. Without wasting any time, she quickly wolfed down a few fries and took a big bite out of her burger. “Thanks, dude!” she told Salem through a mouthful of food, giving him a thumbs up.
“It’s really no problem. Least I could do since you’ll be stuck with me at homecoming. Anyways, what did I miss?” he said before taking a bite of his burger, fully expecting a ‘nothing’ response. A recounting of a ten-minute conversation seemed a bit unnecessary, especially since Salem might not understand the conversation fully.
“Oh you know, just wallowing in endless despair.” Archer smiled pleasantly up from his lunch at their new found friend.
“Nice, wallowing in endless despair is one of my hobbies!” Salem said while covering his mouth, to avoid giving them a front row show to the mushy-moshpit in his mouth.
“He gets me… I like this dude,” Archer said, pointing towards Salem with his fork giving the new guy a quick wink.
“Let’s be fair, he gets all of us.” Kirk smirked, standing up and preparing himself to face the queue. “I’ll return with whatever crap was left over, I guess,” he mumbled, walking off towards his goal.
Not wanting to seem rude, Salem only shot off a quick text to Gwendolyn telling her he will respond later before looking up and acknowledging their comments with a shy chuckle. He would definitely have to tell her about the homecoming situation; Gwendolyn was understanding, though, and he had no doubt she would realize the situation was out of his control. He truly was blessed with such a thoughtful girlfriend. His heart ached a bit thinking about her. Ah, the tribulations of young love.
The alphabetical curse of the Weber name being ever-present, Kirk was seated and attentive for a very passionate explosion of his thoughts, to the selfsame tune and words — Archer. The aromantic boy felt choked by romance, but the fiery smoker boy could experience it, yet was denied the pleasure regardless. It was a thought he would linger on as Mari sat Archer back down, his attention being concentrated on Mrs Sanders once again. Names drifted by like the waves of the ocean, Kirk shifting back and forth as they did, swimming in mystery and anticipation. He wasn’t particularly excited about the whole ordeal, but at least he could make some fun out of overthinking how to say “I don’t feel romantically attracted to anyone, so your Homecoming is gonna suck even more than it would’ve with a regular stranger”.
“...Mr. Weber and Ms. Regan shall be in each other’s company for the night!” Kirk instantly deflated in his seat, the force of tension leaving his body, its rigid form collapsing. He knew Trip well enough for Homecoming to be at least tolerable, though the two had a lot of ground to cover in terms of actual friendship, or knowing her as a person instead of a name and a face. With a groan, he got out of his seat, eyes scanning the horizon. Most of his friends, or people he valued, seemed to have already gotten lost in the crowds of other 12th Graders, so he slumped his shoulders and made his way to the outside world. He needed some air and a lot of time to think.
While Kirk was busy with his philosophical analysis of the situation he was in, Marisol and Salem were making the way down the hallway, their arms still absentmindedly linked together. Salem hung back slightly and let Marisol slightly lead the way to the cafeteria, since he was still a bit unsure of where he was going in the school.
“Soooo…,” Salem started, staring at the walls and the posters displayed, “What’s your favorite food?”
“Fucking enchiladas, man,” Mari’s response was instant, eyes glowing at the thought of her grandmother’s delicacy, and it was said with such passion that it was obvious that the answer came straight from the heart. “My abuela makes them when we go visit twice a month, and I fucking swear to God that shit is like an orgasm in my mouth. Every. Freaking. Time.”
He laughed in response, his nose scrunching and his curls bouncing with the movement. Ruffling his hair with his free hand, Salem gestured vaguely in the air in front of them while shrugging his shoulder, “Well, you are definitely going to have to bring me some of your abuela’s enchiladas sometime. And I’ll bring you some of my nonna’s amazing cannoli. It has the taste of heaven, I fucking swear it.”
Marisol grinned. She'd tried the Italian delicacy on a family trip not that long ago, and it had definitely been an experience. She could only imagine how they would taste when being homemade.
“Deal,” she responded, offering up her pinkie for the two to make their first unbreakable promise.
Chuckling in amusement, Salem clutched Marisol’s pinkie with his own, giving a slight squeeze playfully. “Yeah, deal.”
As they entered the school building Archer and Marlene were met by a strange scene. Not only was Jun holding hands with Victoire, but not far away Marisol was arm in arm with a mystery man. Archer shot Marisol a confused look as the pair arrived at the scene. “Oh hello! Uhmmmm, who are you? And also… Why are you touching my friend?” Archer grinned at them.
The sheepish look in the girl’s face was instant. Marisol wasn’t exactly known for being physical with anybody that wasn’t close to her, so it made sense that Archer would give her that look when seeing her so comfortable with a complete stranger. But even then, she made no motions to unlink her arm from his… Because she really didn’t mind it. “Archer, this is Salem,” she explained, waving a hand in the newcomer’s direction. “Salem, this is Archer, one of my best friends,” she told him, repeating the motion but in Archer’s direction.
Salem waved his hand currently not linked with Marisol’s awkwardly, feeling oddly guilty for being friendly. He hoped Marisol didn’t feel pressured to continue linking arms with him, or that he had accidentally invaded her boundaries. Salem relaxed the arm Marisol was holding, giving her a chance to pull away if she wanted to.
“Hey, it’s nice to meet you.” he said courteously, putting his previously waving hand into his jean pocket. Nodding towards the general direction of the cafeteria, Salem added, “We were just heading to get lunch.”
Still smiling, Archer gave the newcomer a friendly wave. “Yeah, nice to meet you too, dude!” his eyes lingered on their linked arms. “I can see that… I might just join you. I mean, if I'm not interrupting something?” the curly haired boy raised a quizzical eyebrow towards Marisol.
“What the fuck could you possibly be interrupting?” she scoffed, shaking her head with a smirk.
“I don't know. You tell me, Slim.” He shrugged as he turned around to ask Marlene if she wanted to join them for lunch, but she had already gone off to aid Victoire. He turned back to face them. ““Well? Shall we?”
“Yeah, sure, let’s go!” Salem said amicably, tousling his hair once more. The Italian-American began walking towards the direction in which he was seventy percent sure the cafeteria is located, Marisol following right beside him. “Hope the cafeteria food is good here.”
“Our tuition is the third highest in the country. You bet your ass our food is good,” Sol started as they walked down the hallway.
As the newly united Homecoming date (with bonus third wheel) set off, the realisation came to Kirk that today wasn’t going to be a quiet one. Even the path to fresh air and contemplation was wrought with drama and sexual tension, worst of all between people he knew and valued. The scene was like something out of a bad young adult novel, except the reader was being held at gunpoint to read it. The Weber boy felt he was in the same situation, probably because of some rare undiagnosed and unknown anxiety — if he couldn’t go around, under or over it, he’d have to go through it, so go through it he shall. He seemed to have a good enough understanding of the situation to hop in.
“So, guessing this handsome loverboy right here is your school board-sanctioned Homecoming date,” Kirk teased, in his typical cliché bored voice, sidling up next to Mari. To say ‘next to’ would be a bad term for it, really, since the boy never walked ‘next to’ anybody. He had a tendency to linger to the bottom-right corner of a group of people, with quick diagonal access to any sort of escape route he might need. Not that he felt uncomfortable or unsafe (to an extent) around Mari, Archer, or even the ‘random-guy-I’d-fuck’; it was more of a force of habit. If anything, it was an act of being uncomfortable with himself more than anyone else.
“Fuck yeah he is,” Marisol declared with a sly smile, gently squeezing Salem's arm, and a hint of pride in her voice she didn't even realize she had in the first place. She looked around Kirk's direction and frowned. “The fuck is yours at?”
“Oh, uh, I kinda abandoned mine. I say abandoned, but I don’t think she was looking for me. Didn’t see her, so,” he responded, snapping himself out of idle thought.
Salem preened at the unsaid compliment Marisol’s voice implied, his smile turning crooked with gratification. “Hey, I’m Salem Rivera.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard that kinda name. ‘Salem’,” he rolled the name around his tongue, like he was savouring the flavour, “Huh. Nice to meet you. Now, I’m hoping Mari is leading us to the cafeteria and not towards some romantic bench where we can all sit and watch the world pass us by, because my stomach is rumbling with furious fire a’plenty.” He stopped himself from rambling again. The typical quiet type would be speaking as little words as they could in this situation, murmuring responses when needed, but Kirk often found himself overtalking when faced with a stranger. Not that Salem was a stranger, of course — Kirk knew his name now! Instant friendship.
Archer couldn’t help but scoff, he hadn’t heard Kirk talk this much in… well never. What was going on today? Did he miss something in the auditorium in his fit of rage? “Well you know, what’s in a name and all that!” He shrugged and shoved his hands in his pocket as he trudged behind the gang.
“‘That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.’” Salem quoted, earning himself a bewildered look from his homecoming date. Romeo and Juliet being one of his favorite Shakespeare plays, he could almost recite the entire play verbatim. “On an unromantic note, my name is my ma’s middle finger to Nature Conservancy after they called her a ‘witch’. If you ask her, she’ll lie though and say its to honor her Jewish father.”
“So Salem would, were he not Salem called, retain that dear perfection which he owes without that title,” Kirk grinned faintly, “I love an interesting backstory, even if it makes my name ever more boring. I don’t really get the trend of naming your kids after yourself.”
“You guys are fucking dweebs, I swear to God almighty.”
“Aw, c’mon, you don’t like a little bit of Romeo & Juliet? Not even the Leonardo DiCaprio movie? I thought you were a real romantic, Mari.”
The girl scoffed. “Romance can suck my big fat dick. I don't believe in that shit.”
“Preaching to the choir, don’t you think?”
“You’ll have to excuse Marisol, she’s not used to guys reading… let alone them being able to.” Archer quipped dryly in Salem's direction. Not sure if Sonny or Jun had even ever picked up a book without boobs on the cover.
“Fuck you,” came Mari's quick reply, using her unlinked arm to playfully shove her friend. Salem laughed in response.
They entered the cafeteria together and Salem grabbed the first free table for them all to sit at. It was near a large window with the light filtering in and Salem swung his bag down from
his back to claim his spot. With his bag saving his seat within the group, Salem turned to Marisol, “I’m going to get my lunch, I’m absolutely famished.
Salem pursed his lips and added, as an afterthought, “Since I’m going up there anyways, let me get your lunch for you, Marisol. Anything in particular you want me to get?”
To say that the green-eyed girl was completely taken aback by this was an understatement. In fact, she had been rendered speechless: an event that happened once in a blue moon for someone as mouthy as she was. Never in her eighteen years in this Earth had anybody outside her family and close friends offered to get anything for her. This was a whole new experience for her, and her wide-eyed self had no idea how to react to such niceness coming from someone who was pretty much a stranger.
After a few seconds of stunned silence, she cleared her throat awkwardly. “A mushroom Swiss burger with fries and a Coke sounds fucking amazing right now,” Mari admitted, already savoring the delicious combination in her mind.
Giving a thumbs up, Salem wandered away from the table. In all honesty, he would have offered to get the others their food too, but he only had two hands. Since Marisol was his mandatory homecoming date, it was only natural that he get hers and treat her nicely. Besides, she seemed like a sweet girl and he wouldn’t mind using this homecoming opportunity to make some friends in Palm Beach. The past few days he had been miserable in his solitude, with only one ray of sunshine lighting up his world the few times she could. As if summoned by his thoughts, his phone buzzed in his pocket and Salem smiled. He’ll respond in a second, after getting some grub.
As Salem walked walked away, Archer stared at his small friend until she gave him her signature annoyed face. It didn’t stop him from continuing to stare, still confused.
“So, are you going to tell me what’s going on? Who is this kid?” he finally said.
“I already told you. The dude is my homecoming date, he's new to the school, so he asked me to show him around. That's all that's going on,” Mari explained to Archer through gritted teeth in an exasperated tone of voice. “What's so weird about trying to do something nice for a change?”
Rolling his eyes he decided to drop it. A little change in company couldn’t really hurt right now. He started to pack up his lunch made up of leftovers from last nights shift. “I think you know why it’s weird, but I’ll leave it at that.” he said as he poured way too much ranch dressing on his Caesar salad, not noticing Marisol rolling her eyes at him. “Anyway, back to me! What the fuck am I going to do about this whole Judas situation?!”
“Ignoring the backstabber is always an option,” she told him with a shrug, placing her belongings on the table and taking the seat facing Archer that was next to Salem, arms crossed in front of her. “That or you can follow my example and just let it go. Because if I was able to let go of most of the crap that happened last month, you can let go of what Judas did. Now, before you chew my head off: letting go does not mean forgiving and forgetting. To me, it just means that you stop giving a fuck and are too busy living your best life to let shit people like that take up any of your headspace. You get what I'm sayin’?”
He sighed “I guess…” he said once again stabbing at his salad. “I don’t have much of a choice do I?” deciding to himself that he would look Ariel up later.
“Not if you want to graduate,” she said simply, shrugging her shoulders again.
“Getting nailed to a cross and becoming eternally recognised sounds like a fun time. Least you’d get a kiss out of it,” Kirk piped up from the edge of the table, chewing on whatever snack he found in his pocket while waiting for the lunch queue to thin out. He wasn’t particularly good with these types of situations, so a more facetious approach came naturally to him.
It was around that time that Salem ambled back over to them, precariously balancing food and drinks in both his hands and in the crook of his elbows. With the careful way he placed the food in front of Marisol and rearranged items so he wouldn’t drop everything, he could have been a juggler in a circus. The curly-haired Italian-American let out a loud, relieved sigh as he finally sat down.
“I love you so fucking much right now,” Mari declared, her eyes glued to her food. Without wasting any time, she quickly wolfed down a few fries and took a big bite out of her burger. “Thanks, dude!” she told Salem through a mouthful of food, giving him a thumbs up.
“It’s really no problem. Least I could do since you’ll be stuck with me at homecoming. Anyways, what did I miss?” he said before taking a bite of his burger, fully expecting a ‘nothing’ response. A recounting of a ten-minute conversation seemed a bit unnecessary, especially since Salem might not understand the conversation fully.
“Oh you know, just wallowing in endless despair.” Archer smiled pleasantly up from his lunch at their new found friend.
“Nice, wallowing in endless despair is one of my hobbies!” Salem said while covering his mouth, to avoid giving them a front row show to the mushy-moshpit in his mouth.
“He gets me… I like this dude,” Archer said, pointing towards Salem with his fork giving the new guy a quick wink.
“Let’s be fair, he gets all of us.” Kirk smirked, standing up and preparing himself to face the queue. “I’ll return with whatever crap was left over, I guess,” he mumbled, walking off towards his goal.
Not wanting to seem rude, Salem only shot off a quick text to Gwendolyn telling her he will respond later before looking up and acknowledging their comments with a shy chuckle. He would definitely have to tell her about the homecoming situation; Gwendolyn was understanding, though, and he had no doubt she would realize the situation was out of his control. He truly was blessed with such a thoughtful girlfriend. His heart ached a bit thinking about her. Ah, the tribulations of young love.
