Rust and Frost

Five

Mark felt that something had changed. Not in the dark, looming way change usually came about, but change nonetheless. He couldn't put his finger on it at first. He thought it may have been the transition of fall fading into wintertime, but it became apparent to him this wasn't the case. It was something more specific.

He started to pinpoint it after school when he and Ronnie met Dave and Brandon at their refuge. An old, beaten-up stop sign by the crosswalk. It may have been Monday and they may have all had homework, but they agreed they'd prefer to put those assignments off.

The change he'd picked up on was about Ronnie. Or maybe it was Brandon. He hadn't narrowed it down yet. In the cafeteria, at lunch, Ronnie seemed calmer than usual. Reserved. Mark originally thought he may have been upset about something, but now, out on the street, Ronnie actually looked happy. Something inside of him lit up. Something that needed lighting up.

Mark couldn't decide if this was what had changed, or maybe a side effect of it, but it was nice to see Ronnie glad to be alive for once. He usually kept up his facade of having a will to live with snarky jokes and an abundance of sighs. It never did work very well.

Something told Mark that maybe he should leave the apparent electricity in the air alone. Some things were not to be poked at, and after all, it may have been in his head. Curiosity killed the cat, right? Though satisfaction brought it back.

He vowed to keep an absent-minded eye out.

The windows in Brandon's kitchen were fogged with frost. It'd been a week, and Mark had mostly forgotten whatever strangeness he'd picked up on the Monday before.

The task was simple: bake for the sale the red school would be having. Even as a not-so-proud student of the blue, public school, Mark was opposed to helping the other. His knee-jerk reaction when Brandon mentioned the bake sale was to run for the hills, but Brandon was helpless in the kitchen. Mark was in the same boat, but two hopeless souls could help one another out.

Ronnie was the only one in their social circle (square, rather) who knew how to cook, but he'd be drumming at the restaurant his mom worked at. He'd gotten inconsistent with that, and needed to get back into it. Dave, who actually went to the catholic school, was busy giving his parents a presentation on why they should get a dog. (Mark would later receive a call from a distressed Dave who'd failed miserably at making a dent in their stone-cold hearts).

Mark was not in the slightest familiar with the organizational system of Brandon's kitchen, and if he couldn't find a measuring cup within the next thirty seconds, he'd blow a fuse. He was already starting to regret volunteering his time. He easily could've asked for help, but Brandon was in a groove. Of course he was. He'd given himself the easier task, making fudge, while Mark was entrusted with making biscuits. What kind of prestigious twats went to this school? (Other than Dave and Brandon). Everyone whose parents didn't want to subject them to public school.

Unlike the majority of teenagers around, Mark didn't mind the school he went to. It sucked, that much was certain, but at least when they had bake sales, they sold chocolate chip muffins and cookies instead of damned biscuits.

Mark managed to find a measuring cup. It wasn't actually the right size he'd been looking for, but a rough estimation would have to do. He'd given up on the dream. All perfection ever did was get in the way of progress. The new problem at hand was that he couldn't find any salt, which was one of the few things people were supposed to have a lot of in their kitchens.

Mark thought he heard a loud-pitched shrill, which was annoying in part because it distracted him from intently staring at the kitchen counter, and also because it hurt his ears immensely. He couldn't tell if he was hearing an actual sound or a frequency in his head though. Ever since he'd heard a loud firework crack (or maybe it was a gunshot) in the late summer, he'd heard a constant assortment of sounds. It was usually a uniform ringing or some static, but occasionally it'd be a quiet pulse. After plugging his ears only to find the sound was in his head, he refocused on what was happening in the real world. Brandon was humming something, which was by no means unusual, but it'd captured Mark's attention.