Modern Day Breakfast Club

You Don't Even Count

   Alan unbuttoned his varsity jacket and as he finished I heard a clicking sound from behind me, the others seemed to notice and we all turned around to see Abby hunched over biting her fingernails. She looked up to see us staring at her looking really confused then bit her nail again.
   "You keep eating your hand and you won't be hungry for lunch," Brent responded making her spit a nail at him then he continued, "I've seen you before, you know."
   Brent started humming the intro to Sunshine On My Love and Cassandra whispered, "I can't believe this is really happening to me."
   "Oh, shit!" Brent exclaimed, "What if we have to take a piss? You got to go, you got to go."
   "Oh, my God," Cassandra said looking appalled.
   "You're not urinating in here, man," Alan snickered as Brent unzipped his pants.
   "Don't talk, it makes it crawl back up," Reis replied as I stared down at my paper trying to ignore them, honestly fighting made me a nervous wreck, I don't really know why but my heart starts beating out of my chest and I can hardly breath, but this wasn't enough to make me feel all that just a little nervous.
   "Whip it out and you're dead before the first drop hits the floor," Alan said giving Brent a threatening look but Brent wasn't scared at all.
   "You're pretty sexy when you get angry," Brent replied zipping up his pants and sitting back in his seat then turned to Bram, "Hey, home boy, why don't you go close that door? We'll get the prom queen impregnated."
   "Hey," Alan defended.
   "Hey!" Cassandra exclaimed.
   "What? Ever heard of sarcasm?" Brent asked calmly.
   "If I lose my temper, you're totaled, man," Alan warned but failed at scaring Reis.
   "Totally?" Brent asked mimicking him.
   "Totally," Alan confirmed.
   "Why don't you just shut up? Nobody here's interested," Cassandra insisted.
   "Can you please stop?" I looked her straight in the eyes seeing Brent smile out of the corner of my eye and Alan look at me in a threatening way.
   "Bitch," Alan whispered as he turned around making Brent speak up again.
   "Hey, sporto, what'd you do to get in here? Forget to wash your jock?" Reis fired back.
   "Excuse me, fellas, we should just write our papers," Bram tried but failed to stop the argument, I doubt even I could stop it.      
   "Just because you live here doesn't earn you the right to be an asshole, so shut the hell up!" Alan yelled turning back to look at Brent making my heartbeat quicken in slight fear.
   "It's a free country," I whispered getting a pissed look from Alan.
   "He's doing it just to piss you off, just ignore him," Cassandra said softly.
   "So, are you guys like boyfriend-girlfriend? Steady dates? Lovers?" Brent asked Cassandra and Alan, "Come on, sporto, level with me, do you slip her the hot beef injection?"
   "Go to hell!" Cassandra screamed.
   "Enough!" Alan yelled.
   "Hey! What's going on in there?" Vernon yelled then said to himself, "Spoiled little pricks."
   "Scumbag," Alan whispered as he turned back around and faced forward again.
   "What do you say we close that door. We can't have a party with Vernon checking every few seconds," Brent got up from his seat then sat on the railing surrounding the tables.
   "The door's supposed to stay open," Bram protested.
   "So what?" Brent replied.
   "So why don't you shut up? There's four other people in here you know, well five if you count that nobody," Alan said looking at me.
   "God, you can count, see I knew you had to be smart to be a wrestler and yes she counts why the hell wouldn't she she's just as much of a person as we are," Brent replied making a smile tug at the corner of my lips but it vanished at the thought of Alan calling me a nobody.
   "Who the hell are you to judge anybody?" Alan asked.
   "Really," Cassandra added.
   "Please, just stop it," I insisted trying to defuse the situation but obviously it wasn't working when Alan turned to me.
   "You know, Casey, you don't even count, if you disappeared forever, it wouldn't make any difference, no one would care, you may as well not even exist at this school, and you too Reis, you don't even count, if you disappeared forever, it wouldn't make any difference," Alan said, I could hear the smirk in his voice, I bit down on my lower lip trying to hide the pain from all of them and it seemed to work until I looked over at Brent whose expression was angry.
   "Well, I'll run right out and join the wrestling team or the prep club, student council," Brent said sarcastically.
   "Nah, they wouldn't take you," Alan insisted.
   "I'm hurt," Brent clutched his chest and perched his lower lip looking cute as shit.
   "You know why guys like you knock everything?" Cassandra asked.
   "This should be stunning," Brent sighed.
   "Because you're afraid," she answered.
   "Oh, God, you richies are so smart, that's exactly why I'm not heavy into activities," his thick sarcasm made me feel better which was weird because nothing ever made me feel better.
   "You're a big coward," she let out having that 'I know it all' expression sprung across her pretty face, "You're afraid you don't belong, so you just dump all over it."
   "I'm in the math club," Bram tried to butt in but it didn't work.
   "It wouldn't have anything to do with...you activities people being assholes, would it?" Reis wondered having a pretty good point.
   "You wouldn't know, you don't know any of us," Cassandra narrowed her eyes at him.
   "Well, I don't know any lepers either...but I'm not joining any of their fucking clubs," Brent murmured making me laugh softly.
   "I'm in the physics club too," Bram tried again this time getting Brent's attention.
   "Excuse me a sec," Brent held up a finger to Cassandra then asked Bram, "What are you babbling about?"
   "What I said was that...I'm in the math club, the Latin club, and the physics club," Bram answered and stuttered a bit, out of the corner of my eye I could swear I saw Cassandra smile.
   "Hey, blondie," Brent got Cassandra's attention and continued, "Do you belong to the physics club?"
   "That's an academic club," she laughed.
   "So?" Reis countered.
   "So academic clubs aren't the same as other kinds of clubs," Cassandra shrugged.
   "Ah, but to dorks like him, they are," Brent turned to Bram, "What do you guys do in your club?"
   "In physics, well, we talk about physics, uh, properties of physics," Bram answered.
   "So it's sort of social, demented and sad, but social, right?" Brent asked making me laugh quietly  and no one seemed to notice.
   "I guess you could consider it a social situation, I mean there are other children in my club and, uh, at the end of the year,
we have, a big banquet at the Hilton," Bram explained.
   "You load up. You party," Brent assumed.
   "No, we get dressed up, but we don't get high," Bram corrected him.
   "Only burnouts like you get high," Cassandra squinted her eyes at Brent as Bram kept telling a story  about one year at the banquet but I didn't really pay much attention.