From the Stone by John G. Hartness

Author:John G. Hartness [Hartness, John G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Falstaff Books
Published: 2015-08-12T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

“Dude, you are a legend!” Lance said as he slid into the seat next to Rex Monday at lunch. His plastic tray was covered with a beige paste that purported to be chicken and dumplings. Rex poked at his with a fork, trying to find anything even vaguely chickenish in the slop. He gave up after a few minutes and dug a pack of emergency Pop-Tarts out of his backpack.

“What did I do now?” Rex asked.

“The whole school is talking about you dumping punch on Morgan’s head at the dance, man! Nobody has ever put that bitch in her place before, and to do it in front of everyone at the biggest dance in the fall? Epic, man, I tell you. You are not going to have any trouble getting a date for the prom now, unless you still wanted to go out with Morgan. ‘Cause I hate to be the bearer of bad news, bro, but I think that ship has sailed.”

“Yeah, thanks for sticking up for me, Rex. It means a lot, really.” Rex turned to the voice and saw Gwen sitting down with a brown paper lunch sack. It was a Gwen that Rex barely recognized—dressed like a normal, sloppy high school kid. She had her hair pulled back in one long ponytail and wore a giant shapeless gray sweatshirt over baggy jeans. Her shoes and socks even matched. Each other, no less.

“Gwen?” Rex asked. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said, her voice flat. The normal mocking lilt was as absent as her ever-present neon glitter eye shadow.

“Yeah, sure,” Lance said.

“Stay out of it, Lance,” Gwen said without looking up. She took out a can of soda and a sandwich from her lunch bag. No sushi, no fruit rolls, no juice box—nothing out of the mundane.

“Okay, I’ll stay out of it, just like last time those bitches got ahold of you. You want to tell Rex what happened then? Why you’re really repeating Murden’s class and every other class you had last semester?”

“Don’t,” Gwen said, her voice small. “Please, Lance…just…don’t, okay?”

“No, G, it’s not okay!” Lance shouted, slamming his lunch tray down on the table and splattering dumplings all over the place. “It’s not okay that one look from those…cunts can make you go all fucked in the head like this! It’s not okay that my best friend is hurting because those fucking bimbos are stupid and close-minded! It’s not okay that I had to leave my belt and shoelaces at the desk when I went to visit you and they had to cut the pull cord off the lamp so you wouldn’t have anything in the room you could hurt yourself with!” Lance was standing up by then, yelling at the top of his lungs across the table.

He turned and glared across the lunchroom at Morgan and her friends, who watched his outburst from behind their hands so the rest of the lunchroom couldn’t see their nasty grins. “Yeah, bitch, I’m talking about

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