NaNoWriMo, Part 18: ~Character Development~

Today's word count: 1,689 words
Running total: 30,795 words
Summary: Chase has deep conversations with both Alistair and Brian.

Also, Twilight gets bashed.

     …I know.  How can I explain this to Alistair?  She’ll hate me either way.
    Why?
    She—can’t you tell?  She hates me so much.  Every day I walk into that club room—
    You don’t walk into it anymore, now that you’re out of school.
    I know that!  Is he really listening to me!?  But I’ll have to walk in there one hundred eighty days next year.  And it’ll start again.  Whenever I see her the first thing she does is glance at me with pure contempt.  Back in ninth grade, I tried to chat with her.  Just… maybe make a friend.  At that point my relationship with Brian was strained, so I didn’t want to be left alone.  But Scarlett stereotyped me immediately.  In her eyes, I was a terrible, ugly nerd, and I could only be as equally ugly on the inside.
    …There just wasn’t a point to convincing her otherwise.  It would have taken too much effort.  So I became what she thought I was.  It was a lot easier than it sounds.  When you’re busy being mean to everyone, you forget about being lonely.
    As I say this I recall all the pain from my ninth grade year.  That goddamn awful ninth grade year… when everything went wrong.  Alistair feels my pain and amplifies it.  I cannot help but feel the loneliness I’ve been trying to hide in the past year.
    Our group made it to the lodgings by this point.  It’s all really nice, actually.  Both the guys and the girls get their own bathrooms; it doesn’t feel like those usual camp lodgings which are always downright horrible.  My mind’s elsewhere, of course, but tonight when I lie down on the bed I’ll be sure to appreciate these nice rooms.
    Kenneth notes how I’m acting and asks, “Chase, you okay?”
    “…Yeah, yeah.  I’ll be fine.  I just… need to be alone.  Do you mind if I just… step out for a minute?”
    Mr. Williams looks me over carefully, then says, “All right.  Don’t go too far, we wouldn’t want to lose you just yet.  But be my guest.”
    I smile weakly.  “Thanks.”
    Before I duck out, Brian calls out, “Hey Chase!  You want a top or bottom bunk?”
    “Ah… I’ll take a bottom.”
    “Mmmkay.”

~~~~

    Fortunately I make it outside before I start crying.
    Chase, did I make you cry?  I’m—
    Alistair, it’s fine.  I mean it, it’s fine.  This was going to come out one of these days, and better here than on a therapist’s couch years later, I guess.
    A therapist’s couch…?
    Ah—therapists.  Basically, you tell them your problems, and they can tell you what’s wrong with your life or your head and how you can go about fixing that.  I chuckle.  It’s such a simple concept, but Alistair is so old—he’s so easily fascinated by the stuff I take for granted.  I wish I could be that easily excited.  A lot of psychotherapists have couches in their office for patients to sit on during their visits.  Gives the room a more comfortable, approachable feel.
    I see.
    I wipe away the tears on my cheeks to make room for more.  I feel awful right now, and I’m having trouble explaining exactly why.  I’m upset about everything from years ago, but I’m feeling happier now.  Kenneth is a real friend.  Brian’s been acting friendly, and not in that dumb pretend friend way where he pretends to really care but really doesn’t give two shits about the way I’m feeling.  He seems like he genuinely cares this time.
    But Scarlett.  Oh, Scarlett.  My first love shall go wholly unrequited.  It’s not what I want, but that’s the only way things are ever going to happen.
    I wish we hadn’t done this as a club, I think to Alistair.
    Why not?
    Because I’ve just had this revelation about Scarlett.  She’ll always hate me and hurt me, and I can’t change that.  She won’t magically change her opinion.  The only reason she hugged me that one night was because she was in shock… She just doesn’t love me.  Hell, she doesn’t even like me.  And not that I’ve had that revelation, I could quit the club with no regrets.  But Kenny needs my help right now.  I can’t leave him all alone.  And he’s with the club, so…
    Alistair listens calmly to my entire rant.  I didn’t think it was in him to be so calm and understanding in a time like this.  I guess he’s getting better at separating his emotions from mine, too.
    Why can’t you meet him out of club? he asks.
    Because we’ve already made all these arrangements.  At least for the summer… it’s too hard to leave right now.  I pause.  Okay, I’ll tell Kenny tonight.  As soon as school starts in September, I’m leaving the news casting club.  I pause.  Thanks for listening to me for all of this.
    You’re welcome, he thinks, and I’m suddenly awash in a feeling of contentedness.
    A few minutes later, I hear a familiar voice.  “Hey, Chase.”
    I turn around to find Brian standing over me.
    “You all right, man?”
    “…Yeah, I’m fine now.”
    “You sure?  Your eyes are all…”
    “I… wasn’t fine a little while ago, but I’m fine now.  I thought through it all.  It’s like a veil has been lifted from my eyes and I can see everything clearly.”
    “Huh.  Really?”  He slides down the wall, sitting next to me.  I realize that we’re not that different in the height department—and he used to be rail-thin like me.  Besides the fact that he has dark hair and I’m blond, we’re not all that different-looking.
    “What were you… thinking about?  If it’s all right and stuff.  I don’t want to—“
    “Scarlett.”
    “…Oh.”  He adjusts his position until he feels most comfortable.  He thinks carefully before answering.  “You know, man, you don’t deserve all the shit she gives you.  I mean, I know you like her and stuff, but she can be a real bitch, you know?”  He stops again.  He’s really looking for the right words to say, not wanting to hurt my feelings accidentally or seem superficial.  “Well, if it’s any consolation, I think you’re pretty cool, Chase, and if Scarlett gave you the chance I think she’d find you pretty cool, too.”
    I smile—I didn’t really want to, but I couldn’t help it.  Suddenly, I’m remembering middle school, when I first met Brian.
    “And, you know, Chase—this is between you and me, so don’t tell anyone about this, especially Scarlett—but as high and mighty as she is I don’t think she’s really that tough.  You know when Mr. Harris got into that fight with her, and she was totally bitching at everyone for like a week?”
    I laugh.  “How could I forget?”
    “Well, one day I saw her after club coming out of the restroom, and she was crying.  Like, really crying, not just a few tears but being loud about it.  A real basket case, there.  It’ll take years of therapy to sort that one out…”
    “You think she has some sort of dark secret, maybe?”
    Brian shrugs.  “Maybe… hey, you know something?  I always got that she was jealous of Patricia.  And I mean, we all know she’s jealous of Patricia’s popularity and all, but I think it’s more than that.  I think she has a crush on Dean.”
    “Get out,” I say.  Come on—what human could possibly have a crush on Dean?
    “No, really, look at the way she looks at Dean.  It’s one part contempt to two parts ‘if he were my boyfriend I would change him and we’d all live in a pretty white castle somewhere and be happy.’  Like, Ashley’s into that Twilight stuff too, and the girl falls in love with this dickwad who’s really handsome, because she thinks she can change him with her love or something.”
    That… makes sense, now that he mentions it.  It’s at this moment that I suddenly realize I’m having a normal conversation with Brian.  Before he got a girlfriend and started using all sorts of drugs.  It feels good; Brian and I shared a nearly brotherly bond; I could talk to him about things that no one else would understand.  He likes to analyze people and things the way I do, and in a way I don’t know anyone else likes.
    “Does she change him?”  I ask.  Then I add, “And how do you know so much about Twilight, anyway?”
    “Hey, man, Ashley made me read the books.  And then see all the movies with her.”  He laughs.  “Well, the chick does change the dude, sort of, in that he lets them get married, but she decides not to go to college so she can iron his shirts or some shit like that.  She gets pregnant at, like, eighteen.”
    Wow.  What a terrible, terrible book to model your life after.
    Then a thought occurs to me.  “Hey, Brian, in that book—the romantic interest is a vampire, right?”
    “Yeah…”  There’s a note of confusion in his voice, a ‘where are you going with this?’
    “Well—do you think Scarlett might be… into that stuff?  Like—“  How do I explain this?  “Do you think she might want to date a vampire if she could?”
    Brian sees what I’m trying to get at now—thank you, Brian, for being so perceptive when you’re sober!—and says, “Dude.  She’s totally into Kenny.  She’s been into him since he walked through the newsroom door the first day.  You see the way she jumped on him and said he was handsome enough to put on camera where the rest of us were Neanderthalic slobs?”
    I was afraid of that.
    “But you bring up a good point.  Probably just wants to bang that shit harder now that’s it’s a were-ghost or whatever.”
    “Scuro.”
    “Like I said, whatever.  I think were-ghost is more appropriate than ‘dark.’  I mean, I just can’t help but think of the way you’re supposed to put enough black and dark colors in paintings to balance out the light parts.”
    “Yeah, yeah…”
    We sit there in silence for a few more minutes, neither of us knowing what to say.  Finally, I say, “Brian?”
    “Yeah?”
    “Do you think… I