Drowned Silence

Five Bucks

Reaching for a blue and white carton of milk, the brawny youth didn't notice that the faint brown slime had escaped from its confined compartment and was intermingling with the small mountain of frost-bitten peas at its side. But his hand holding the tray soon fell victim to the gravy's path of domination and alerted him to the precarious status of his lunch. He groaned under his breath, balanced his milk carton on top of the dividers, and used a barely-rescued napkin to wipe his tray to no avail. With only a minimal turn of his head, he glanced around and smiled to see that no one reacted in horror or indignation. He straightened himself to his full height—his head and broad-shoulders an unavoidable homing beacon in light of the fact that the rest of the crowd was several inches below him—walked in smooth steps towards his usual table, and sat down on the empty bench. He hadn't noticed the two eyes hiding in the lowest portion of the crowd, eyes that had from the standpoint of his waist safely devoured his every movement since he had entered the cafeteria. But now the girl lost beneath an oversized sweatshirt stood facing him, her own food tray poised before her. Once he had lifted his gaze to meet hers, she rewarded him with a pleasant and amiable smile—and he knew that there was no escaping her now.

"Hi, Brian! Mind if I sit here?"

"Oh, Nicole... Well, I'm waiting for my friends..." Brian looked beyond her, feigning a search for those he knew wouldn't yet be there.

"I know, but there's always a few extra seats at your table. And I really needed to talk to you."

"Still, I think today we'll have a few more—" he began as Nicole set down her tray and swung her legs—or what seemed to be her legs beneath excessively baggy pants—around the bench and fixed herself to face him. "Well, sure... Go ahead then," he managed to utter incredulously.

Nicole began to arrange her lunch, concluding with a napkin across her lap. "So how are you? Did you have football practice this morning? Or were you too tired from partying all weekend? You did party, I assume?"

"Yeah... No... I mean, fine," Brian stammered, holding his fork inert above his food. "How about—"

"Oh, I'm great, as usual." Nicole rolled her eyes upwards and shrugged her shoulders before turning to directly stare into Brian's gaze a second later. "Look, I just had to thank you for what you did on Saturday."

"Oh... There's something you should know about that. It... It was no big deal, so you shouldn't—"

"But it was a big deal to me! I didn't think anyone else would be there by themselves." She stabbed at the leathery chicken on her tray. "Certainly not you, Mr. Star Player!"

Brian gaped for a moment at her battle with the dead chicken before he composed himself. "Well... I was going to take a girl from Holland, but she got sick that morning."

"How convenient! Just like I was going to take a guy from Germany!" Nicole winked, finally managing to free a piece of chicken and make it hover in front of her mouth on her fork. "But you know how expensive it can be to fly from Europe just for a weekend!" She smiled as she seized the chicken in her jaws.

Brian forced himself to chuckle with her as she chewed violently on the meat. "Actually, Holland's a city a few miles—"

"Still, more important is that we both wound up at Homecoming alone. And I seriously think we were the only ones without dates there! That's a little embarrassing, don't you think?"

"But... But you've never had a date to any of our dances the four years we've been in high school, so why would this time have been any different?" Brian flushed. "I didn't mean it like that..."

Nicole shrugged her shoulders and dashed a spoon into her pile of mashed potatoes. "It's okay, I didn't take it as an insult. You're right... Although it never really bothered me before. I guess it's because I intended to at least have a date my senior year—a memory for my last Homecoming dance and all that." She poised the potatoes before her mouth a second before another shrug. "Ah, well. There's always Prom!"