Brenda sat on the stairs, sobbing her eyes out. She had never been this alone in her life, never been this separated from the crowd. “Why did I ever tell on those stupid kids?” she asked herself between sobs.
The kids in question were her former circle of friends, one of who had been her “devoted” boyfriend and Head Quarterback, Ace. At the beginning of the school year, all of them had signed up for the same class to be together. But near the end of one of the grading periods, the teacher assigned them a test that would be worth most of their grade. Brenda had heard about a group of players on the football team that had found the test and made a copy to circulate. She became distressed and told the teacher, who immediately made a different test for the class. When the test came up, it was no surprise that most of the class failed it. The big surprise was that all of Brenda’s friends and even the supposedly honest Quarterback Ace failed as well.
Since Brenda was one of the only two students to pass the test, the blame for revealing the cheat sheet was assured because she knew to study everything, not just what was on the old test. When the formerly excellent team lost a pivotal game big time because of failures, the student’s anger turned against the “self-righteous” bitch that had tattled. Brenda went from a straight-A popular student to an ostracized pariah. But the biggest blow came not from the populace, but from her Ace. He bitterly told her he held no love for her and was only with her for social respectability. In reality, he would rather be with her supposedly best friend, Rita.
“At least she gives me blow jobs,” he stated, bitterly.
“Don’t you love me?” she sobbed.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because you don’t put out,” he sneered, “You’re an ice queen.”
That last comment hurt her more than anything else. Since they had been together, she had believed that he loved her and would wait for the right time to get intimate. That he had gone behind her back was enough, but only because he wanted sex hurt her even more. She had been humiliated in the eyes of her peers and rejected because of her honor.
While the new status as a reject hurt her socially, it did have unexpected, yet somehow ineffectual, benefits. With more diverted from such social things as hanging out with friends and dating, Brenda was able to focus more thoroughly on schoolwork. Her grades and class standing improved from the already excellent plateau they had hung at for quite some time. But this meager reward was not enough for her ordeal and she spent most of her time crying in lonely places.
During one of these sob sessions, Brenda was on the main stairwell of her school an hour after school had let out. She was crying so hard that she didn’t even notice the lanky kid walk slowly towards her until he was right next to her and she could feel his heat.
“Tissue?” he politely questioned. As he observed her, he added, “You definitely need a few.”
As his kind words soaked in, Brenda began to feel less despondent and began to slightly cheer up. “Thank you,” she said shakily, her voice recovering from sadness.
He smiled. She didn’t know why, but that smile somehow assured her that everything would be alright and she took heart. “So why would a pretty girl like you,” he queried, sitting down beside her, “Be sobbing in a stairwell after school?”
For all her years, Brenda had believed that unloading secrets to a stranger wasn’t the right thing to do, but a feeling came from deep down that this stranger could be trusted. She started telling her story, sniffling all the way through. Rather than grow disgusted at the fact he was beside a rat, the boy seemed to grow more attentive and caring as she talked. At the end of her tale, she felt a great weight lifted off of her because of the kindness of the boy.
“So you’re Brenda Thompson,” the boy said. Brenda’s confusion must have shown through the tears because the boy laughed and explained, “I’ve heard about you through the rumors, but didn’t know what you looked like.”
The boy stood, dusting off his pants. “I don’t like leaving people in suspense,” he said helping her up, “I’m Daniel Portman.”
Brenda thought she remembered the name from somewhere when she felt something slam against her back. She heard Daniel’s footfalls thunder up the steps as the shout echoed through the halls, “RAT BITCH!”
She reached back to feel the goop left on her back, only red paint. “At least it’s not rat blood,” she thought, relieved that a stench would not be following her.
The thunder down the steps brought Brenda back to reality. “I didn’t get them,” Daniel said, “Sorry about your shirt.”
“It’s okay,” Brenda sighed, “I’ve found a way to get out red paint.” She looked down at her watch and gasped, “Oh no, it’s 6 o’clock!”
“Is that bad?” Daniel asked, confused.
“Yes,” Brenda cried, “My apartment building changes their gate code at 6 o’clock and I don’t know what the new one is.”
“Well that’s not too bad,” Daniel said, comfortingly.
“What do you mean?” Brenda replied, sniffling.
“Well,” Daniel started, “You could spend the night over at my place.”
“You have your own place?” Brenda asked, shocked.
“Well mine and some roomies,” Daniel said, “But they won’t mind one overnight guest.”
“Maybe we can do a little bit of studying while we’re at it,” Brenda agreed.
“If you’re up to it,” Daniel said, grinning.
Brenda was smiling all the way out to the car. This guy was kind, funny and handsome. He wore his clothes so baggy that it was difficult to tell, but Brenda had felt his tone body as he held her close during her cry session. His face was smooth and well shaped, but his eyes were the main feature. The pair seemed to have some rocky inner glint, almost like diamonds in the rough.
She sat next to him in the car, back stinging from the humiliating attack, and listened as he mused about certain things. She could tell from the way he talked that he definitely had an opinion about many things, but held back for some reason. Maybe it was a sense of decency that made him refrain from launching into a rant on her situation, to make at least this time be free from the constant problems of her new status. But what she really wanted to believe is that he cared for her enough to stay away from talking about it. As the drive progressed, she thought less and less of the ambush and began to lose herself in the easy conversation about the advantages of cold pizza over warmed up pizza for breakfast.
As Brenda began to mount a stunning counterpoint for warm pizza, Daniel slowed and turned into a driveway. The house was moderately large, an old house that looked as if it had been repaired recently. The second story was swept back from one of the largest porches she had seen. A female sat reading on a rocking bench near one of the corners, but the shadow of the late day sun concealed her. “We arrive,” he quipped as he looked up on the porch and yelled, “Hello Tran!”
The pretty, young Asian woman stood and looked over. She let out a little squeak of joy as she began to run down the stairs to him. When she reached him, she leapt into his arms and sighed, “It’s so nice having my man back.”
“Are you two dating?” Brenda inquired, strangely disappointed about it.
“No,” Tran moaned, leaping lightly out of Daniel’s arms, “Sadly not. Why do you ask and who are you?”
Taken aback by her sudden defensiveness, Brenda was faintly happy when Daniel replied, “Her name is Brenda Thompson, a person I know from school, and through a series of interconnected events she has to stay over here tonight.” Daniel announced, grinning, “Might I add she is a nice lady who has been through an ordeal recently and deserves some respite from questioning.”
Tran gave Daniel a look of curiosity and Brenda could tell that Tran had just been playing around. Daniel stared at her for a second and Brenda suddenly felt alone with these two people off in another world. All of a sudden, Daniel came back and slapped his forehead. “Stupid me!” he exclaimed, “Tran, Brenda’s clothes were ruined by a cowardly rogue. You look about her size, do you have something for her to wear while I get her other clothes clean?”
Tran looked Brenda up and down, smiled and said, “Why yes I do. I’ll take her up to my room and get her fixed up while you go take care of it.”
Brenda smiled faintly and went with Tran into the house. The petite Japanese girl almost glided through the medium-sized living room and practically lept up the staircase. Having a difficult time keeping up with the little pixie, Brenda let out a sigh of relief as the pair reached a small room at the end of a hallway. “Here is my humble abode of privacy,” the cherubic tart sighed, a wry smile crossing her face. “This is where I can do whatever I want,” she said, the wry smile growing bigger, “Sometimes I even have an audience.”
Brenda let out a shy giggle, which aroused the Tran’s eyebrow like blood to a shark. “So I see we have a prude in our midst,” she laughed, a slight eyebrow arch joining her grin, “No wonder Dan likes you.”
For some reason this hit Brenda differently than she expected. “What do you mean by that?” she queried. Tran cocked her head, almost taken aback by what she thought was a silly question, “Can’t you tell?”
With Brenda still possessed the deer in the headlights look, Tran shook her head letting her hair roll over her shoulders. “Well if you don’t know, I shouldn’t mess around in it,” she said, rifling through some dresses lying around the room, picking out a slim black dress that seemed to be more fit for a Barbie doll than a living person.
“Am I supposed to fit into that?” Brenda asked, a faint hint of distrust in her voice.
“It stretches,” Tran replied, her monotone voice implying that this was common knowledge.
