The Iconoclast

Chapter 7

one hundred eleven days before

MONDAY HAD ARRIVED and I was bored and sitting at the lunch table while scrolling through the pictures I had taken at the party. I had gotten pretty drunk, so most of the pictures were not overly satisfying, but a few were okay. Winston sat next to me, eating a fried chicken steak that looked more like a piece of crusty, dried up cardboard. When I gave his food a look of disgust, he shrugged and muffled, "It's good, try it."

"I'll pass."

Samantha plopped down in front of my brother and I a few minutes later, having an over-used copy of Milk and Honey. I stared at Samantha as she opened the black book and rummaged through the pages. "You read poetry?" I asked. "Sure, if it's good. This was recommended to me by Iris, though. It's hers."

Winston stopped chewing for a moment then continued shortly after. "You're telling me you and Iris actually had a decent conversation?" Winston asked while taking another bite of his lunch. She flipped through more pages before looking up at him. "You, sir, make good observations."

"Well, I've been given the impression that the girl is a cold-hearted and curt bastard. The only way she could have recommended a book to you was either 1. you would've asked her for it but that brings us 2. you don't read, Samantha which gives us 3. you two must've had a deep conversation about something which led to 4. an even deeper topic, like books and other weird shit."

I was definitely impressed at Winston's hypothesis. "Are you some kind of detective now?" my voice came out a little more annoyed than I intended it to be. "Winston Holmes doesn't exactly suit me, but sure why not?" he gave me one of his famous charming grins. I tsk-ed at him before grabbing my camera and snapping a picture of Sam's concentrated face buried into the book.

She looked up surprised and immediately opened her mouth to yell at me but I stopped her. "Before you freak out," I stuck my arm out, handing her the camera. "Look how cute you look, being nerdy and all." She angrily snatched the camera and studied the picture for a long time. A disgusted look flushed on her face before she said, "It look's like I've frowned for years, look at that dent in between my eyebrows! And you can notice that I'm biting the inside of my lip! Look, you see that? Right there, my little mouth is twisted in that weird way."

I shrugged, knitting my eyebrows together. "So? That's the face you always make when you're concentrated. Please let me put it in the yearbook. I'll put it where all of the other bookworms are at."

"No! Delete it, Mitchell!"

I pouted. "Fine," I barked.

"Fantastic," she shot back.

"Marvelous."

"Amazing."

"Terrif-"

"Okay, I get the damned point," Winston interrupted. We sat at the lunch table for a while longer until I finally realized that Lillian was missing. I looked around the loud lunchroom, specifically towards the lunch lines to see if I could spot the brunette. "Where's Lilly?" I asked humbly.

Sam shrugged, continuing to read. "Dunno. I wasn't with her when I came to lunch."

"Have you and Nixia made progress?" Winston blurted. Sam smiled before taking her black thick-rimmed glasses off the bridge of her nose and bookmarking her page, setting the book down. "Well, you know the girl is basically a nun. I kind of dig that, to be honest. I mean, it's not exactly something I was ever into, because I've really never seen a sucker that oblivious and naive to everything, but it's acceptable. She's sweet, and funny, but god, curvy and gorgeous." Her pale hand made a little wave, emphasizing how "curvy" Nixia was.