Mutual Benefits

Mother could hold a grudge.

"What are you gonna tell Taylor?" Kevin asked as we walked together towards the front doors of the school. "You're gonna need to think of a good way to put it. Saying, 'hey Taylor, sorry, can't study with you this week, my mommy grounded me' isn't gonna do wonders for your sex life with her."

I shook my head. "Can you stop saying that please?" I asked him with an annoyed voice. "Especially in public. It's really weird how you keep talking about that, especially when I'm not interested in her like that."

"I'm trying to make jokes. Lighten up, dude."

"How would you like it if I made jokes about you and, I dunno, Daniel?"

Kevin gave me a weird look. "Um, I'd say I'm not gay," he said with a weirded out voice.

"Right, yeah. So it feels weird and alien, right?"

"Are you gay?" he interrupted.

"No, but-"

"Then it's not the same thing."

"But I'm trying to s-"

"No, I get it. It's an analogy, super clever. I just don't think it applies here. You get stupidly tongue-tied around her."

"You've seen me interacting with her like twice at this point. I'm more comfortable around her when we're just alone studying," I pointed out.

"Whatever you say, dude," he huffed.

"Why is this such a big deal to you?" I asked as we entered the school.

"I just feel like you're either lying to me or yourself. I know you better than you know you, you know. I just wanna know why you feel the need to lie to me."

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, Kevin. Whatever you say."

We continued walking for a few more seconds before I decided to press the issue. "Doesn't that mean she's lying to you too? How often are you talking to her, anyway? You gotta know all eyes in the school are on her. Constantly."

Kevin stopped walking as I babbled on. In a second, I noticed he stopped and turned back to see him intently looking somewhere else. I followed his gaze and noticed his friend Robyn, staring. Not at him... but at me.

I looked from side to side in awkward silence. People walked by us as she stood there, staring at me with some kind of distrusting expression. Eventually, she turned and practically ran away.

I turned to Kevin. "What the hell was that?"

Kevin turned to me and sported a massive shit-eating grin. "Oh Quinn, you wonderful bastard you..."

"What?! What did I do?" I sputtered.

Of course he never answered me. It was clear that our conversation rattled her somehow though. Was she maybe a friend of Taylor's? Did she know something? Was the word getting out?

If so, it was getting out through Taylor herself. And worse yet, Kevin seemed to know something.

But that didn't make sense. Taylor clearly didn't want any of this getting out. Did someone else know...?

***

"Look, if this is about Bryce, I had nothing to do with it," Morgan defended herself.

"No, I know, that was all Crystal. But I think some... rumors are spreading about Taylor and myself. Some, uh, untrue rumors."

Morgan furrowed her brow. "Like what?"

"I don't really want to go into that. Just... do you know something? Not that there's anything to know, but, you know, did..." I trailed off.

Morgan was getting more confused by the second. "Huh?"

"Is... did Taylor talk to you about me or something? I know you look at the floor and don't say anything when I'm brought up."

Morgan's expression returned from confusion to whatever her furrowed brow was trying to express, and she just stared off behind me. Was she... blushing? "No. Taylor didn't say anything to me."

"Do I need to know anything?"

"I'm not talking about you when my friends bring you up, so clearly I'm not bringing you up to strangers. If there are rumors going around, that sounds like a you problem." She opened her locker hastily, despite clearly having all of her class supplies already. "Can you leave me be please?"

"Uh... yeah. Sorry," I mumbled lamely, backing up instantly. I felt my cheeks burning as I walked away.

***

"What?" Taylor asked me, in a voice clearly louder than what the study period allowed. Most of the students, and Mrs. Li, looked up at us, but didn't say a thing.

I shrugged bashfully. "I can't do it. I have to go home immediately after school every day this week. It's a... parents thing. I don't have any control over it."

"Well, can you make it end quicker or something?" Taylor asked.

"...That would mean I do have some control over it."

Taylor rolled her eyes. "Quinn, finals are coming up soon. I don't want to lose what I've, y'know, what I've got going. I don't want to fail."

I stayed silent for a bit before Taylor's face darkened. "And you don't want me to fail."

I looked up at her with a weird expression. What did that mean...? "Are you...?" I managed.

She sighed and her face returned to normal. "No, I'm just... frustrated. With, like..." She looked around instead of continuing, clearly not wanting to continue the conversation.

I decided to take initiative. Raising my hand, I addressed Mrs. Li. "Could I have maybe two minutes in the hallway with Taylor? We just need to go over binomial distributions quickly, and I don't want to disturb the class."

Mrs. Li smiled slightly in acknowledgement, mouthing 'go ahead' and pointing to the door. I smiled back awkwardly, before turning to Taylor and motioning towards the door.

Once we were outside, I promptly shut the door and Taylor and I immediately started talking over each other. After a few seconds, Taylor held up a hand, attempting to shut me up, and pressed forward.

"Look Quinn, I'm just saying, this is like an ongoing contract thing. You agreed to help me out here, and like, you clearly want to, and I definitely don't get this new unit, so... figure something out!"

It was my turn to speak. "I'm not a miracle worker, Taylor. You haven't met my mother. Me coming home late is the reason I'm grounded..." I turned pink. "I mean, for lack of a better term... in the first place." I felt like a child. I turned pinker still as I continued. "She probably won't make an exception for the thing that got me grounded in the first place. Are you comfortable coming to my place?"

She bit her bottom lip in thought. "I mean, like, it's not the most ideal situation, but it'll have to do..." She whipped out her phone as I was about to continue. Did she really have to be glued to her phone every second?

"Okay, because second of all, I wanted to address you about a..." My phone vibrated. Confused, I looked at my phone and back to Taylor. Her face remained plain and emotionless, almost challenging, as I took my phone out of my pocket and read the message.

Plus, i wont be able to properly pay you if your at your place with kevin, so this is in your best interest too...

I looked up from my phone and couldn't help but give Taylor a sarcastic smile. "That's not exactly at the forefront of my mind, you know. Your education is still my top priority."

Taylor smiled at me, shaking her head in the way she always did. "So are we good?"

"There is one more thing," I confessed, looking around to make sure the hallway was empty around us before continuing. "I think the word about us is getting out," I admitted in a low whisper.

Taylor looked at me with concern. "Did you...?"

I shook my head. "And Kevin doesn't know. He teases me about it, but that's because I'm still his virgin brother. He only finds this funny."

"Another reason not to study at your house," Taylor observed.

"Tell me about it. Anyway, I think it's just because the school has seen us together a lot. And we need to make sure it stops. I've asked Morgan about it, but she says she didn't say anything. Maybe it's Crystal, but..."

"Wait. Why do you care?"

"Because the last time something like this happened, I was almost pulled into the air by my shirt."

"Right, okay." Taylor seemed deep in thought. I couldn't tell exactly what she was thinking, but it seemed like something clicked in her head. "Okay, I'll try to make this go away, but only if we can study after school. ASAP. So, like, tomorrow."

She was bold. Bold and presumptuous. Mother would kill her. "I'll make it happen one way or another."

"And in the meantime we should probably not spend so much time around each other. No more lunches, and after this, no more private conversations. I'll text you when you can approach my car. Okay?"

It was weird how I went from wanting the popular girls to acknowledge my existence more, to being thankful when they proposed the opposite. "Okay."

"And one more thing." She chewed on her lip again. "Don't talk to Morgan anymore. Like, at all. At least until I have some stuff, like, figured out. I think it was her."

"Did you tell her...?"

"No. But I think... it's complicated. Look, Morgan is Morgan. You don't even like her anyways, right?" Taylor asked.

"Um, well, I think she's perfectly fine as a person, I wouldn't-"

"Quinn." Taylor's face regained that same darkness. "Trust me on this. Okay?"

"...Okay." Taylor could be scary when she wanted to be. I guess Morgan really was upset with how she treated me. I guess that explained the blushing, and the looking at the floor. It kind of just made me feel bad. If Taylor hadn't been so adamant about me not talking to her, I would have wanted to talk to Morgan and make amends or something. She did seem kind of cool, most of the time. Just overprotective.

But, Taylor knew better. She clearly had a plan. Maybe Morgan was this weird mastermind or something. Before I knew it, Taylor had walked back into the classroom, with me snapping to attention and following. Nobody looked up at me, and nobody cared. You'd think if rumors started, they'd originate at, or at least end up at, the classroom we shared, but the students here really didn't seem to give a crap. I couldn't help but wonder where it originated.

***

One thing was certain, I would have liked more allies. So far I had Taylor, who wouldn't explain the plan apart from "don't talk to this popular girl," and needless to say, I had years of experience avoiding just that, so we were fine there. I suppose I had Kevin, but he clearly would have turned on me for a joke. Plus, he also seemed to know stuff I didn't. So, I decided to make my own plans.

"Bryce!" I called out to the group of guys, all in a group outside the gym. Bryce turned to face me, and seemed to genuinely forget who I was for a few seconds before his eyes lit up in realization.

"What?" he asked finally.

"Do you remember me?" I asked. I had no idea why I asked that. Internally I cringed.

He sighed. "Look dude, I probably shouldn't'a' grabbed you, that was my bad, so can we just be cool about it?" He asked in a rehearsed voice, before beginning to turn back to his friends.

"No no, that's not why I'm here. You've got English next, right? With the Hamlet test?"

He gave me a weird look. "Yeah... why?"

One thing the Gifted crowd loved to do was lording over the jocks, especially knowing which jocks were particularly bad with which subjects. I could recite it in my sleep - Calvin was decent at English but bad at math. Connor had a good work ethic but was deceptively dumb. And Bryce? Bryce sucked at English.

"Would you like a boost? I had the test first period." I held up a piece of paper in my hands.

Bryce stared at me, puzzled. "What's on that?"

"The answers."

Bryce's eyes moved from side to side, in shock. "What?"

"Do you want it? If not, no problem."

A crooked grin appeared on his face. "Are you for real? Sure, I'll fuckin' take 'em." I held out the sheet and he snatched it up, looking over the sheet. It seemed the answers translated to him well. "Holy shit!"

I stayed silent until he looked over the paper fully and clapped his eyes back on me. His grin temporarily vanished. "Wait, why me?"

I shrugged. "We got off on the wrong foot. Just wanted to do something nice."

"Dude, right on!" His grin returned. "You saved my fuckin' life, buddy." He turned back to his group. "Yo, get a load of this..."

I smiled as I walked away. That paper couldn't be traced back to me. My name wasn't on it, and I was known as a goody nobody in this school. Even if Bryce ratted me out for whatever reason, I could just deny it. And now, without a doubt, Bryce had quickly gone from not trusting me to, knowing how much his English grade meant to his scholarship, owing me his first-born.

***

Mother was, as expected, the more difficult one to appease.

"This is a punishment for her only. I do not-"

"Speak English," she barked.

"This only punishes her. I don't hang out with friends. Mother, I don't even have any. But if I can't tutor her, she might fail the class."

"If I just took away your video games, you would accept it and not complain. But now, I tell you no going out, and you complain. So clearly, this punishment is the one that truly impacts you."

"I..." I sighed. "This isn't about me. I just don't want to let her down."

"Let her down? She is failing. Her education let her down. She let herself down!" She laughed derisively. "Her success is not your responsibility, Quinn."

"But I... care about her success. Just because it's not my responsibility doesn't mean I don't want to help." I shuffled my feet as I stood.

Mother turned to me. "You have feelings for this girl?"

I don't know what made me pause. I didn't think I did. Did I? I wasn't sure. "Um, maybe I do," I replied lamely.

Mother took this as bashfulness and shook her head, forming a smile. "You fell for a whitey!" she joked.

"Mother, the entire school is white people. The entire town is white people."

"Isn't your class president a black man?" she asked.

"Black woman, and student council president, but okay, bad example. My point is-"

"Bah!" Mother flicked her wrist as if to backhand my very sentence away. "Your point is you fell in love. You'll do whatever she wants. You need to assert yourself, Quinn!"

I didn't recall asking Mother for romance advice. "I tried that and it led to me staying later than usual. But it won't happen again!"

"Of course it won't happen again. Because you're not going out at all!" Mother laughed.

"Mother, I would-"

"Zhùkǒu," she replied, again with the backhand to the air. I stared at her for a few more seconds before she slowly started to smile again. "If you promise to be a good man for her, I will give you this one. But! If you are late home one more time, this happens again and it is for eight weeks! Nǐ tīngdǒng ma?"

"Mother, she and I are not dating," I protested. "It's just..." It's just something I said without thinking about it.

"Ah, now!" Mother wagged a finger in my face with a cheeky expression. "I just gave you freedom to see her, you are no longer grounded. Do not argue with me now!"

I smiled a muted smile. "I appreciate it, Mother."

"Yes you do. Now go set the table," Mother ordered. I was halfway done setting the table when Kevin burst through the door.

I looked up at him, then back to Mother. "Looks like I'm not the only one running home late," I joked.

Kevin pointed a finger up at me and gave me an expression I never saw him give me before. It was like a, 'you dare to say that to me?' expression. "I just saved your ass," he told me.

"How?!" I asked.

"No saying 'ass' in the kitchen," Mother barked, not looking at him. Kevin looked back at her, then me, then motioned with his head towards our room and walked off. I quickly finished setting the table, then followed him.

As soon as I was in, Kevin shut the door, and shoved his finger in my face. "Are you trying to get expelled?" he asked with a seriousness I didn't know he had in him.

I couldn't speak for a few seconds. "...What?"

"I asked if you were trying to get expelled. Are you trying to impress somebody here? What's the story, bro?"

"I... don't know what you're talking about."

"I'm talking about you, sneaking answers to, like, the entire third period English class. That sort of shit can get you expelled, dude!"

What the hell? "...How did you-"

"I got eyes all over the school, Quinn!" He cracked a quick, breathy half-smile. It was the first positive emotion I'd seen out of him since he arrived home. "You gotta know this by now."

"I... showed one student the-"

"But why, man? That's so not you! This shit sounds nothing like you! Do you realize that you could face serious consequences for this?"

I could feel my brow furrow. "I don't need the speech from you."

"Dude, I just saved your ass! And by the way, a fucking 'thank you' would be nice."

"'Saved me?' How did you save me?"

"Lemme just say, they won't be questioning you about it," he answered.

"What, so you heard about me doing this through the grapevine, sweet-talked the teachers into letting go me accidentally starting a mass cheating, and you think I'm going to believe you?"

He shrugged. "Something like that. So, what the fuck's up?"

I huffed. "I wanted to be on Bryce's good side-"

"For what? What the fuck do you have to do with Bryce?"

"Shut up for a second, will you?!" I exploded. "I wanted a freaking ally on my side because it seems like half the school thinks Taylor and I are sleeping together. And who knows, maybe that entire thing is your fault!"

Kevin looked at me like I was insane. "What?"

"Taylor's friends didn't like that Taylor was hanging out with me so much, so I think they assumed I had ulterior motives or something. So they stuck Bryce on me, and he grabbed my shirt and stuff. And I'm getting the impression that half the school is talking about us at this point, so I wanted Bryce to see me as a good guy, and not a-"

"Dude," Kevin interrupted again. "Doing favors and being the geeky little servant for the jocks is not going to make you one of theirs. It's just going to make them feel like they can use you for more shit."

"I don't need them to see me as one of their own, I just want them to remember me as the guy that did them a favor instead of not knowing who I am. They don't know me yet. It's not about popularity. It's about what they know about me. And if I'm not popular and they never heard about me, I'm as good as a stranger. If I'm gonna survive whatever fallout happens from the latest drama about Taylor and I, which you may have caused, I want the most physical guys in the school, the ones most likely to bully me if things go south, to at least know me, and know me for something I did for them, instead of knowing nothing but 'destroy the shady outsider.'" I was breathing heavily with anger by the end of my monologue.

Kevin was breathing heavily too, his expression still angry yet his mouth firmly closed. "Hmm," he finally acknowledged. "I see." He stayed silent a bit longer. "For the record, I'm kidding when I talk about Taylor and you. And I only talk to you about it."

"Yeah, well, I need you to stop, okay?" I asked him, my tone weakening.

"Yeah, okay, I'll stop. But for real, never do this again. Can we both make a promise here?"

"What did you do exactly?" I asked him, now curious. Kevin may have been one of the pseudo-popular types, but here it sounded like he was some sort of self-installed eye in the sky at Hazelwood.

"Look, I was in the right place at the right time, doing something unrelated. You're just lucky I happened to... do what I did."

"This sounds shady, Kevin," I replied honestly.

"Yeah, maybe it does," he admitted. "But look, I feel like it'll dig you a deeper hole if I involve yourself in what I got going on. You got your shit, I got mine. I happened to cross paths with your shit once, but from this point on, no joking about Taylor, but in return, I can't talk to you about my shit either."

I shook my head. "This is weird, Kevin."

"Sure as fuck is," he agreed, then went to open the door. He paused. "Do you really think I started any rumors about you and Taylor?"