“Mmn, mmf. Mnn…”
Unaware of the presence of the voyeurs on the other side of the wall, Lawrence continued to share a passionate kiss with Suzie that befitted two lovers sharing a private moment with one another.
Of course, to Lawrence, she was nothing of the sort. Suzie is the head of the debate club. She lives in a world completely separate from him, who led the basketball team to the current glory they’re enjoying. So how did they become like this?
Due to an array of circumstances, the girl had caught Lawrence’s eye. With her pigtails, freckles, and large, rounded glasses, Lawrence would normally never cast a girl like her a second glance. But he is someone who fancies his own ability to see the true beauty within women, to the point of obsession.
He believes that he can tell a woman’s body-type behind a nun’s gown, and he could tell what a woman’s face looked like even if she wore excessive layers of make-up. Any of the noise that obfuscates a woman’s potential beauty doesn’t exist to him. He sees the real girl hidden beneath.
And after taking a look at Suzie, he had decided, in his own head, that if this girl simply straightened her hair and got rid of her round glasses, that she would be a beauty worth conquering.
And so, he set his plan into motion. He attended a few of her public debates, just enough to have a fair grasp of how these things went, then afterwards, he decided to make his move. He weaponized that smile of his that had won over many before Suzie, alongside his signature sense of humor that played on his exaggerated self-confidence, and, with very little effort, he managed to sink his teeth into the girl before him. He sung her sweet songs of her beauty, and spoke highly of how attractive she was as an intelligent woman, and, without much effort, her hair and her glasses both came down.
What Tristan and Zoey happened to be spectating was simply the result of those weeks of steady peeling away of her shell. He took the final step toward conquering his prey, who all this time, had still selfishly and naively decided to view him as her lover. And just as he was beginning to ready her to go further, the low buzz of a cellphone filled the room.
“Mm, wait, hold on.” Lawrence pulled himself away from her and looked down at his phone. He input his passcode and found that he had received a text message from Gwen.
Ben’s skipping class and won’t respond to my texts. I don’t know what he’s planning, but I’m worried.
The sight of the message took Lawrence out of his rendezvous with Suzie completely, as he had already witnessed the mood his friend was in earlier today. He shoved one of his juniors in the halls when he was asked how Zoey was, and he completely ignored Lawrence’s attempts at being calmed down.
Gwen going off is one thing, but someone as uncontrollable as Benjamin acting out would spell trouble for both the homecoming game on Friday and his friend group. In fact, even without both of those things being in jeopardy, it wouldn’t be surprising if his emotions were running wild to the point where he did something dumb enough to get suspended.
“Ah, shit. It’s Ben. I might need to leave.””
“Huuuh? Come on, that can wait. I finally have you all to myself, I don’t want to let this chance slip...” Suzie placed her arms around his shoulders and leaned in to kiss him again. The action irked Lawrence.
If there’s one thing he disliked, it was pushy women. Understanding boundaries when they are put up is an integral part of maintaining interpersonal
relationships, and he had no respect for women who couldn’t do the bare minimum. However, he decided for the time being that it would be best to placate her with a short kiss rather than showing his frustration.
“No, I should probably get this. He got dumped by Zoey and he’s been really down about it all morning.”
“Wait, dumped? Already? I thought they started going out yesterday?”
Lawrence suddenly thought that, for all her intelligence and quick wit on the debate stage, Suzie was just as vapid as the average cheerleader. Her lack of emotional intelligence was setting him off. However, he decided to swallow his frustration once more and began typing up a response to Gwen.
“Well, that’s how it goes with girls like that,” he said to Suzie.
“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean? Zoey’s not a bad person. She goes out of her way to show up to our big debates and take pictures. She’s a real sweetheart.”
“Yeah, I’m sure Ben’s learning just how much of a sweetheart she really is right now.”
“Fair enough. Though I will admit, dumping someone after one day is a bit of a statement. She must really hate your friend, huh?”
After finally sending off the message, he looked back up at his prey.
“Sorry Suzie, you know how breakups go. We have the homecoming game on Friday, remember? I really need to get ahead of this so it doesn’t affect our performance.”
“But… They were only dating for one day. He can’t be that beat up about it, can he?”
Oh, if only she knew, Lawrence thought. Like everything he touches, the nature of Benjamin Otto’s desires for Zoey Brahm was obsessive in nature. The only reason the school’s basketball team was any good in the first place was because Ben’s excessive lust for victory caused him to live and breathe basketball to the point where he could score points in any situation.
To Lawrence, Benjamin could only be described as a demon.
An insatiable, lustful demon.
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And right now his eyes were focused on Zoey Brahm.
“Yeah,” he muttered. But all he could do was reluctantly agree with her. He felt that he couldn’t tell that to Suzie. He wouldn’t let some innocent bystander get involved in the things that he knew. Lawrence read the new message that Gwen had sent his way.
I’m certain. I know him. We’re like, soulmates, I swear it. Look, if he’s anywhere, it’s probably the men’s room. I don’t want to go in there because it’s dirty, so do you think you could go in there and talk to him?
Lawrence did his best to ignore the fact that Gwen’s only issue with entering the men’s room was related to germs. He couldn’t deny that she was right to be worried. Ben had been acting strangely after the break up. But there was a part of him that couldn’t help but wonder how much of Gwen’s inferiority complex was playing into this.
The fact of the matter was that Zoey had completely won over her.
Whether she intended to or not, she had not only shown Gwen that she could have Benjamin if she really wanted to, but she also discarded him and left him off worse than before, which was almost just as harmful to Gwen as outright dating him.
Lawrence wasn’t sure just how well Gwen was handling any of this. Was she truly focused on Benjamin, or did a part of her feel complete and utter hatred for her nemesis?
“Alright, fine. I’ll drop it. Go help your friend.” Suzie’s voice brought him back to reality.
Regardless what the truth of the situation was, he had to calm Benjamin down. There were too many things riding on him right now. Lawrence thought that this should be Warren’s job as his best friend, but for all his insight and wisdom, his social skills left a lot to be desired so he couldn’t be depended on.
“Yeah, thanks. Let’s go,” Lawrence replied. Without looking away from his phone, Lawrence walked Suzie out of the empty club room. After dropping her off to her class, Lawrence swung by the men’s room in the main building.
One of Lawrence’s free periods is on Wednesdays at 10am, so he usually spends those 50 minutes fooling around with whatever girl he’s interested in at the time in the empty clubroom he found as a sophomore.
The room was technically reserved for the Political Science club, but the club leader who had graduated two years ago was one of his close friends. He made him a spare key so that he could make use of it during school hours. This was all painstakingly set up by him because his womanizing adventures at this hour were an important part of his week.
So, to be interrupted during his fun in the way that he was set him off a lot. But he had no plans of showing that displeasure to Benjamin. After all, he recognized that something more important hanged in the balance. Upon entering the room, he was immediately assaulted by the heavy sensation of tobacco smoke entering his nostrils.
Lawrence had a lot to say about Gwen and Benjamin’s smoking habits. It was something they picked up together while they were dating. He talked their ears off about it in a way that only he could, but he hadn’t made any progress on getting either of them to quit.
This was just one of many things that bothered him about his friends. But at that moment in time, he would even stomach the smoking if it meant that the two of them would go back to normal. The past two days had been incredibly painful to navigate.
“Yo Ben, you in here?” Lawrence peeked his head past the stalls, and found Benjamin leaning against the sink with a cigarette in hand. He appeared to be in a daze. His expression was empty, and his body didn’t react at all to Lawrence’s call.
“Hey, you doing okay man?”
Silence.
Benjamin had clearly heard him, but there was no response all the same. He simply took another puff of his cigarette and calmly blew out a cloud of smoke.
“Who did it?” he finally asked.
“Huh?”
“Who got her to break up with me?”
“Wait, I don’t… someone got her to break up with you?” Lawrence held his ground well, but he was sweating bullets. His mind raced back to the interaction between Gwen and Zoey after school the day before.
Surely, he had to have heard about it by now, Lawrence thought. There were far too many witnesses. Word must have reached his ears by then. And yet, he was asking. The possibility that he was simply feigning ignorance as a sort of test couldn’t be ignored.
“Yeah, yesterday she suddenly changed on me,” Benjamin continued. “She got way colder suddenly, and like… fuck, when was it…” Benjamin started pacing back and forth, as if he had been waiting for someone to bounce his thoughts off of this entire time and was just going with the flow.
Lawrence’s brain scrambled to find a way out of this. His only hope was that maybe Ben hadn’t heard about the details of Gwen and Zoey’s confrontation after all. If there was any silver lining to this situation, it would be that. But if he continued pursuing this, the truth would eventually come out from someone else’s mouth, and that would lead to their friend group falling into an almost irreparable state.
“Isn’t it possible that she just changed her mind?”
“Oh, of course she changed her mind. But what I’m asking is why. And the most obvious conclusion to come to would be that someone else poisoned her mind. Someone else put the idea in her head to break up with me. I know it. Things were smooth sailing until after school. In fact, during lunch we were talking like normal… wait.” Benjamin stopped.
“During lunch. Yeah… that’s it. That’s what changed. When I was talking to Naomi, that creepy-looking guy snuck up behind me and started talking to Zoey… fuck, what was his name…”
Lawrence had no idea what Benjamin was talking about. He hadn’t eaten lunch with the two of them yesterday because he was with the rest of the basketball team.
“What creepy looking guy?” he asked.
“Yeah. He has that ugly bowl cut covering his face. Lance’s friend.”
Considering that he had mentioned Naomi and Lance, it wasn’t hard to guess who Benjamin was talking about. But that left him wondering why that person would be the reason Zoey would break up with Benjamin. Certainly, he had thought it was weird that Zoey had suddenly caved to Gwen’s demands, but he chalked it up to Warren’s theory: that the relationship being nothing but a farce to begin with.
Was the farce a result of that person? Did he blackmail her into doing it? Was it a bet? Or perhaps there was something else going on between the two of them? Whatever the case, getting Benjamin off Gwen’s back was the most important thing to Lawrence in that conversation.
“Do you mean Tristan?” Lawrence asked.
“Tristan… yeah, that piece of shit. The one with the lame name. He did it. He must’ve said something fucked up to her. Now she’s broken up with me after everything I went through to get with her… fuck. God, fucking FUCK!” In a fit of rage, Benjamin slammed his fist into the wall.
His body shook with a palpable anger that had even Lawrence frozen in place. After a few seconds of ragged breathing, he eventually cooled himself down and went back to leaning against the sink with his cigarette. He took a singular puff and returned to his calm demeanor.
“Maybe I should just kill him,” he said.
Lawrence smiled nervously. He was caught between worrying about an innocent person’s life and trying to save Gwen from this demon. But was Tristan really innocent? Could he be the missing link that explained Zoey’s actions yesterday? “Hey, there’s no need to be so passionate about it. You don’t even know what they talked about, right?” Lawrence asked.
He was fishing. Whatever it was that happened between Zoey and Tristan might have been the key, so he decided to play along.
“Yeah, you’re right. I don’t. But so what? Who else is there that could’ve done it?”
“No one,” Lawrence lied. “But-”
“BUT!” he interrupted. “You’re right. I don’t know what they talked about. So I think the two of us should go find out, huh?”
“The two of us?”
“Do me this solid. It’s scarier for the little shit if there’s two of us interrogating him. I’d ask Warren but he’s… you know how he is.”
Warren was certainly an x factor when it came to situations like that. It showed itself in basketball games constantly. He would sometimes ignore the play the coach has set out for the team and simply do his own thing. The reason he hasn’t been kicked off the team despite that is usually because his calls are correct, but his lack of communicating those ideas of his with his teammates is the issue.
And that aspect of his personality affects his social life too. He hasn’t made any close friends outside of Benjamin, who he’s known since childhood, due to his inability to communicate properly with others.
Lawrence was hesitant about taking the opportunity, but it was certainly better than selling Gwen out. And besides, he was curious too.
Just what was Tristan’s relationship with Zoey?