Homeroom 23

Chapter Twelve: Good Cop/Bad Cop

It was time for lunch about 30 minutes later, and I couldn't tell whether it felt like an eternity or no time at all had passed. I was just barely able to pull myself out of bed, and was halfway to the cafeteria when I came to a realization. I could walk with Daniel! I found myself being irresistibly pulled towards his room, and out of an entire day of knocking on dormitory doors, his was definitely the only one I didn't feel sick standing next to.

When Daniel opened the door he had a very tired look on his face, so much so that the dark circles under his eyes appeared to be ingrained into his skin.

"Is everything alright in here?" I puzzled, looking his __ expression up and down. In response he only opened the door further to reveal Samantha and Xavier who were lying in bed passionately making out with each other. I nodded in understanding.

"As bad as I do feel, you realize you can just leave the room, right?' He then looked down and smiled at me.

"Great idea! Wanna go down to lunch with me? I'm starving," and just like that he began strolling down the hallway to the cafeteria.

While we were walking, he began talking to me about everything he had heard from the people he interviewed. "Yasmin didn't really tell me anything of interest, but I did get insider dirt that before Ava got with Henry, she apparently dated this girl named Kendra—"

"What?" I interrupted him. "Ava's dating Henry?"

"Did you not know this?"

"No!" Daniel looked at me as if I just told him I wasn't quite sure what the color of the sky was.

"I thought it was common knowledge," he continued, perplexed. "In fact, if I didn't know any better I would guess that the only reason Ava was really ever invited to their clique was because Henry was best friends with Matt, who was best friends with Xavier, who was dating Samantha, which forced her to tolerate Ava."

"What?" I reiterated.

"Mel," he scolded me. "You seriously need to get caught up on the homeroom gossip. I mean come on, they dated for weeks!"

"They were only together for weeks? That's probably why I haven't heard about it yet. It usually takes gossip a couple months to eventually circle back to me."

"That's funny because I can't tell if you're joking or not," Daniel laughed, and I was confused as to what about that statement sounded like a joke.

"This is perfect!" I exclaimed, "Henry will probably know a lot about Ava, and what she was doing that night!"

"I wouldn't count on it." Daniel remarked.

"Why not? Does he not care about her or something?"

"Lack of care isn't the issue," Daniel explained, looking as if he was searching for the right words to use. "Henry isn't, well, Henry is a nice kid. He just sometimes...most of the time...never has any idea what's going on. Hell; he could've been the one to slip poison in Avas drink and I'm not so confident he would even be aware of that."

"So what I'm garnering is that we're not getting anything useful out of him?"

"Something like that." I was so busy looking at him and so enthralled in our conversation, I didn't even realize we were approaching the large metal doors of the cafeteria until I had slammed face first into them. Just my luck that the moment that had happened, Brandon and Max were walking out of the other double door.

"Gnarly dude," Max laughed, elbowing Brandon as he walked past.

"Damn girl, you okay?" Brandon asked, genuine concern apparent in his voice.