Survival Of The Fittest

Joanne didn't turn, but she seemed to notice the attention. The wind whipped tension that had snarled up the lids of her eyes dissipated. Pleasantly neutral seemed to be the order of the day.

"Sadly I don't have enough of those men hormones, or we'd see." Her hefty fingers traced the triangular foundations of her hypothetical awesome facial hair over the spot where her chin bubbled down into the makings of a second. She nodded. "But you're right. I think I've got the shape for it." Soft, but not so rotund the contouring silhouette of the goatee would be a detriment.

Joanne glanced back in the passenger's side mirror, half time to the musical phrasing of Alton's own glance backwards. She took the time to carefully exaggerate a disapproving shake of her head, and a loud click of a tut.

"Not a student driver. Unless mom hair is now officially in fashion, and if so, I curse the fashion kids in advance." Joanne typically implied certain names she liked to complain about to Alton from time to time with that moniker. Without saying those names, 'The Fashion Kids' were the thorn in Joanne's side: according to her, the thorn in the collective side of all GHHS.

Her grievances with members of the student body aside, Joanne's brief rant was punctuated by her unwavering flow with her makeup brush, as she grumbled at the fault line of her cheekbone until the barely apparent mistake was fixed to her satisfaction:

"They should be more careful about the types of folk they hand licenses. No kinkshaming, but I'm condemning people trying to become the next James Spader."

The compact went away, neatly folded up into her bag along with her end of that conversational swerve.

"I'm hearing that. Well, I guess a guy with a bit of extra bulk too, ain't anything bad with that. But like..." Joanne smirked, shook her head for the umpteenth time since the virtually brief moment prior she'd been just throwing herself into the passenger seat. "It's asking for too much. Present company aside, men and women of this generation like to live out their middle school years in long form. YA novel characterization, in reality, turns out to not be such a good fucking idea. But hey. I'm not judging.. just not biting, you know? I'm thinking I won't be in the dating pool much until college comes around."

"I get you," Alton said. He mused for a moment further, enjoying the airflow and the chill of the morning. It was still dark out, and in fact would be until near the end of the day's first class block. Alton didn't mind the dark, either the dark of actual night or this pre-dawn blackness. He was about as comfortable with it as the light, which was another little thing that made him different. Most people preferred one or the other.

What was occupying his thoughts most clearly, however, was a little turn of phrase Joanne had used. Young adult novels, she'd said, and put like that it made a lot of sense. Middle school was an important time for learning life lessons, or failing to do so. A lot of their peers had never grown out of their tweens; conversely, Alton had matured quickly especially around that time, and so had missed out on a lot of the typical touchstones. And, while he wasn't the sort to crack a book for pleasure too often, he'd never much cared for YA. It felt simultaneously insipid and patronizing.

"Too many twenty-year-olds still read Twilight," he added, wondering idly if Twilight still had any lingering relevance. "Everyone wants to be Peter Pan. But nobody wants to date him."

He shrugged.

"I hope college helps."

Truthfully, he didn't think it would change much, but who was he to say? He wasn't going. He'd made his share of acquaintances around UTC, of course, but they weren't necessarily representative. The sort whose circles he slipped into tended to be the party-goers, guys who bought or sold alcohol, freshman girls looking for a date. A number of them weren't strictly speaking entirely aware that Alton was still in high school, either; when it worked to his favor, he played the wide-eyed innocent, but most of the time he just let others assume what they would. It was remarkably similar to dealing with his classmates, except without the challenges of working around parents.

They'd made it through another few intersections now, riding the green wave, other vehicles coming and going in the typical flow of light traffic. The streets were quiet still, though the houses and apartments flying by showed intermittent signs of life. Some windows were illuminated, and here and there a man or woman retrieved the paper in mirror to what Alton's Mom had done. He pressed his lips into a tight line, watching the road but always letting Joanne divide his attention.

"Whoa."

A pregnant pause followed, a clear timing in terms of abatement.

"That. Was too real. People want to be the annoying one even when they don't want to date them... 's, like... lack of self awareness. Something." Joanne lowly whistled and her tone briskly traveled down a bassy thrum of an octave. She nodded without looking at Alton and with a gaze into yonder distance, where the flat and vista of Chattanooga vaguely mutated into a hazy and haphazard horizon.

The sun still wasn't up and the moon was gone, and shadows gouged deep.

"Too many forty year olds still read Twilight, hun. Reminder-slash-PSA-slash-doomsday prophecy."

She paused and drank down the breeze whipping by with a wide mouthful of breath. Turned out to be a yawn, loud enough to need her hand and louder still to be heard all the same.

"Not even going to visit UTC. I mean, besides the parties. Like, do you get the sense that those kids are lamer than us GHHS kids, somehow?"

Earnest question, likely. Joanne had been at Alton's side at least a few times when he'd dealt with the faces and places while wandering the third or so floor of the library looking for a reserved study room full of rambunctious kids neither of them would know. College kids were a fickle sort when it came to their exchanges with the high school crowd. Joanne had used Alton as a shield to deflect a generic reedy beanie-wearer smelling vaguely of vape at least once. Had been a while since she'd last done anything like that with Alton though.

Nowadays he mostly just saw her bringing her to school or at parties where he didn't know she was invited. She liked to claim she likewise hadn't known before ending up there.

Alton chuckled. The middle-aged did still read Twilight, and Joanne's insertion of that perspective was almost chilling enough to justify her hyperbole. But then again, what differentiated twenty from forty for the average teen fiction reader? Alton thought that a large chunk of the populace hit a certain stage of maturity and then stopped developing on any notable mental and emotional scale. He'd heard something like that in a psychology class, hadn't he? That was what was so disappointing about twenty-somethings still stuck in their middle school minds, and what would an extra two decades do to change that? Maybe it was just more jarring because Twilight was a relatively new phenomenon. Alton could remember a time before it, so for some in their forties to seek it out meant they came to the work already grown up.

"I think you're right about who's lamer," he said, keying back into the conversation as the subject turned to the university. "We're here because our parents live here. UTC kids chose Chattanooga."

The light ahead was about to turn orange. Alton could feel it, could tell from the blinking of the pedestrian signal. He eased their speed up a little, just to make sure they'd sneak through before the red was visible. The wind roared louder for a moment, then quieted as he slowed again when they were on the other side, cross-traffic resuming its journey behind them as the light turned.

The truth was, Alton had pretty mixed feelings about this town. He didn't think he'd be living here forever, or even for long after graduation. It wasn't that he disliked it, more that it was safe and quiet and predictable and comfortable. It was a good place to grow up, a place where he could stretch his wings and get into trouble without it being actual trouble that meant anything, and it was far preferable to Denton in many ways, but sometimes he still felt like he didn't quite belong.

He made sure to give Joanna a little grin, to convey that his silence was contemplative and not dismissive.

Joanne gave that one-liner a moment of dignified silence.

"Maybe worse still if they lived here first and still chose to stay."

And then a pause, and then, "but I'm not trying to be insensitive, don't get me wrong." Quick and snappy, an entire tiny print paragraph's worth of disclaimer and warranty. Quick and snappy like their blitzkreig through an almost dangerous intersection, and like the flashing of lives before eyes. Joanne's head snapped Alton's way and she smirked. Amused, bemused, whatever it could have been.

"In the future, if you could alert me before you almost get me killed or arrested." And that line came attached with a vague memory of shenanigans long past, perhaps even long forgotten among the many others.

She stared at his smile with one of her own. Her eyes didn't stray much from that standardized position, save one calculated sideways glance. Wayward of the windshield, but apparently enough to declare their general location.

"Shit, we're even early. Now what?"

"Of course," Alton promised in a tone of voice that said he might take Joanne's request for forewarning into consideration if he felt like it and if it wouldn't ruin the adventurous mood too much. He gave her a smile and wink, with his right eye so he could watch the road with his left, because he wasn't about to actually run them into anything or anyone.

And then, moments later, they were arriving, cruising into the senior parking lot. They were early indeed, having caught a light point in traffic and a nice wave of greens, but that just meant that Alton's trip to class could be at a relaxed pace, which was how he preferred it. It also meant he got his pick of parking spots, and he chose one near the entrance to the school. Were he alone, he would've picked one at the far end of the lot, the better to get moving quickly when class was done, but he wasn't going to make Joanne walk all the way across the lot just to humor his own mild preference.

"I guess we put the top up and find something to keep us busy until the bell," he said. Normally, he slowly made his way through the halls, perhaps stopping at his locker if there was something he didn't want to carry all day. He had nothing of the sort today. He might use the time to see if he could find anyone to check in with about his plans for the night.

First things first, though. Once he was assured that the car was in the spot straight, Alton killed the engine, cutting off the music, then set the parking brakes and checked his hair in the rear-view mirror. It looked alright. He was still going to fish his brush and compact out of the glove compartment when doing so wouldn't mean reaching over Joanne, though.

Toby normally got to school early. Force of habit, really; track team meant he was up before dawn a lot of the time, so even on school days he'd wake up at like four am.

He usually managed his sleep okay, but sometimes he needed his coffee. That was how it was today, with him leaned against the flagpole with a Styrofoam cup pressed against his sternum with both hands. Technically this was his own fault this time; he'd been following a late-night Magic stream and then it got too late at night while they showed some Iconic Masters stuff. Then it was past midnight! Oops.

Toby liked his coffee black, since it tasted shitty anyway so why not make it wake you up as much as possible? It was still real hot too, almost scalding, so he'd try to tip a little onto his tongue before lowering it as it was clearly still too much. He had like, ten minutes before he needed to go inside? Maybe less. But whatever, he was fine standing here, watching cars pull up. The poor saps on the buses weren't even here yet. He had time. And if he sat down he might fall asleep.

Hey was that Alton? Nice. Alton was on the team, so they knew each other pretty good. They had good vibes. He was giving a ride to...Joanne? She was some kind of Tumblr hipster or something, but she was cool if you didn't get into politics, and that went for like, 80% of the population anyway.

He raised his hand in greeting and gave a single wave as the car turned off.

Ah, GHHS parking lot. The little known cousin of America's amber waves of grain.

Joanne had looked ready to relax as the car gently purred- clunked, maybe the more accurate verb- it's way onto it's parking spot. She'd been reclining slightly, preemptively pumping the back of her seat into a lazy backwards lean, and she didn't even have to look to find the lever. Benefit of this car being like her own car away from family car.

She glanced up and saw Toby, about when Alton was busily focusing on getting the angle into the parking space just right.

"T. Underwood. Look alive, we've got our 'something to keep us busy'." With a forward tumble and the smack of inorganic moving parts Joanne brought her seat back up and threw a smart salute Toby's way. Followed, in the exact same hand gesture, by a beckons over. Gesture was exactly that one scene out of the Matrix where dude in weirdly body-tight trench-coat taunts his opponents with a 'come to me'.

Alton knew that Joanne and Toby were casually acquainted, at least. Nothing important enough to actually memorize, but worth being able to recall if contextually relevant.

"Excellent," Alton said.

T. Underwood was Toby, short for Tobias, at least Alton was pretty sure. Underwood called to mind typewriters, but Alton couldn't say whether that was an actual half-memory of some lost piece of trivia or an erroneous free association based on a forgotten misinterpreted pop culture connection. It was ultimately meaningless; he liked Toby's surname, thought it had a nice classical twist to it like old European whiskey, and that made him like Toby a bit more.

There were of course plenty of reasons to like Toby besides his name. He was on the team, a distance runner much like Alton was, and a decent one. He was into Magic, not Nick-Ogilvie-style illusions but performed with a deck nonetheless. He'd explained it to Alton a couple times, walked him through the basics with a lent deck, been courteous enough not to let things devolve into a complete stomp despite his obvious ability to do so, and Alton had found it intriguing and interesting especially on a mathematical level, though not enough to commit the rules to memory in any real way, leaving him a perpetual novice. What was more interesting than the actual game was the way in which it appealed to Toby. It showed his potential to excel, something he didn't necessarily display in the everyday course of class activity.

Joanne beckoned the boy towards them with a dramatic flair that Alton approved of. He gave a small smile and a nod, ceding the stage to her. That, he thought, was an important bit of self-awareness and a skill well worth mastering. Nobody needed to be the perpetual center of attention, and nobody wanted to be around someone who sought that status. In fact, it was often advantageous to be able to fade into the background a little. It certainly made it easier to get to know others.

As he waited for Toby to come their way, Alton undid his seat belt and smoothed his hair with his hands. He figured he might not get a chance to brush it after all, but that was alright.

Oh damn, Joanne was calling him out. Or something. He smirked and walked over to the car, taking another careful swig of coffee. He grimaced and rubbed his throat; still too hot, and he'd swallowed a little more than was advisable. Really wakes you up, though.

"Mornin'." Toby said, stopping on Alton's side a few feet back, finding another purchase to lean against. Apparently leaning on things was his...thing. Today at least. He was almost sure that it made him look like a dorky greaser-tryhard or something but there was something satisfying about it. Whatever.

As far as he could remember Alton was a pretty willing chauffeur for people, so that was a good guess for why Joanne was arriving with him. That or they were boning, but he had his doubts for that. "How's it going, Joanne?" He looked over past Alton and raised and eyebrow at his passenger.

Joanne glanced sidelong at Alton, as he preened himself straight out of focus, and she interlocked her fingers over the dash with a headstrong forward lean. She gazed into Toby's eyes as he approached, coolly smiling a nod.

"Don't burn yourself, hun."

Didn't need to pause to catch the rebound, either. Response was almost faster than the question:

"Life well lived, the usual." To the heavens she reached, contemplating with her mortal touch something immaterial and way the fuck up there relative to where she actually sat in some dude's drop-top Celica. Joanne's moment of Shakespeare was ill-considered and quickly went away, she seemed to have no accompanying line and she clarified as much.

"No monologue from me today, I'm feeling low key. Is track actually meeting today? That's two for two on track dudes I've seen before seeing another human face out and about. Like, the witching hour but with boys and girls in slightly tight shorts."

"Good morning," Alton said, giving his teammate a nod and deciding that his hair was good enough, at least for now. If it started to bother him, he'd just fix it in the bathroom or else duck back out on a break or fake bathroom run and get at the brush and mirror then. The other two exchanged their pleasantries, and Alton just basked in the glow of his assorted social circles becoming a functional Venn diagram.

It wasn't always this way. He had a wide range of friends and acquaintances, and some of them loathed each other. He'd become quite good at playing the sympathetic ear without actually taking a stance unless he was sure he meant it; "That sounds rough," was a favorite phrase that implied agreement and encouragement but turned the focus on the speaker and their feelings rather than the actions of others that might have prompted those feelings. And of course, he'd fudge things when he had to. It was part of being a friend, sometimes.

"No meet today," he said, slipping into a gap Joanne left, before giving Toby a raised eyebrow and adding, "right? I hope?"

He was pretty sure there was no official practice for the team today, and certain there would be none for him.

Huh. Toby raised his eyebrows at Joanne, smirking slightly. He wasn't sure what was up her ass this time, or if it was just her thing. He wasn't gonna let it bug him. Why bother?

Toby turned his attention to Alton. "Nah, not yet." It would be fun when it got going, but it hadn't started up yet, and for the moment he wasn't ready to get serious at, like, anything yet.

Rubbing his eye with his free hand, Toby stepped back to allow Alton to open the door at his convenience. He still had like ten minutes before class, but maybe sitting down wouldn't be so bad. He nodded again and headed towards the building.

"Later, guys."

He sipped more coffee, Joanne be damned. It was alright now, at least. Mostly.

"Huh, busy part ended not so busily," Joanne reflected with an idle, weary tone. She stared deeply into some part of the distant sky Alton couldn't particularly identify. "Guess he's not in the mood."

Joanne dipped her fingers into her back and produced the compact she'd fiddled with earlier that car ride. She fiddled without actual usage. And for a moment she was fairly silent, her lips not moving as she affixed a gaze onto Alton. Not focused directly onto his eyes but somewhere off-center, distracted by some other feature of his face for a good second of complete silence and the sharp edges of her eyes slightly tense.

The compact was put back into the bag.

"Hope you guys don't have one. Bet you could use the afternoon free." She nodded, punctuating her verbiage with body as she usually did. Her eyes stayed roaming just shy of his gaze as her phone briefly rattled a salutation and she checked it. No unlocking, merely a glance at the message summary offered. The name of the sender, unseen.

"Titty Brigade's sent out the signal," she smiled. "That's me gone."

She treated Alton's car gently as she left it, taking visible care to close the door so it muffled instead of a more thunderous crash. She waited a moment, silently waiting for something, then she offered thumbs up. Her pace was quick as she disengaged from the car, her eye contact affectionately steady all the way until she nearly tripped over a trash bin just outside the main door leading into Math Department, that forced her attention away for good.

"Ta ta." A wave, a nod, smiles all around, and Alton was alone in the car once more. He was feeling pretty good: good company, good morning so far, and he got to get out his compact and fix his hair after all. He'd be seeing Toby and Joanne around, and their somewhat quick departures didn't nettle; people had a tendency to drift into and out of Alton's orbit casually, and as long as he didn't have any specific need or want for them to stay longer that was all well and good.

He gathered his belongings, exited the car, retrieved his belongings, put the top up and locked the doors. The odds of anyone messing with vehicles in the school parking lot were fairly low, but a convertible presented an easier target, and while his was not the fanciest car on the lot, it did a lot with what it had. It was 2018, so most likely nobody would bother stealing CDs for their monetary worth, but Alton just did not like the idea of others rooting through his belongings uninvited. It wasn't that the objects even had emotional value to him, per se, but that the invasion and imposition would cause discomfort. And of course, it could always rain.

Alton turned and made his way towards the main school building, backpack slung over his left shoulder only, step light as his mood. He had a little while to make his way to French class, but being a few minutes early wouldn't be a problem today. If anything, it would be nice to center himself before Madame Clarke-Moone and the presentations.

Slipping through the doors, Alton entered the school, and his day began in earnest.