Survival Of The Fittest

[Camilla Bell continued from Cut the Thread]

Camilla walked into the cafeteria, and quickly scanned the room. Shoot, were all the tables filled up? Her eyes drifted to her usual table, in the back corner. Looks like she got here late, a bunch of freshmen had taken over that one. But what's so bad about that? Well, a senior suddenly sitting next to a bunch of freshmen strangers would be a bit odd, she supposed, not quite knowing why. It just felt odd.

However, there was a table right in front of her. No one was sitting there right now, but there were some lunch bags on it. Maybe they left to go get a snack, who knows. Actually, this was a riskier move than sitting next to the freshmen- who knows whose bags those were? They could be delinquents, for all she knew.

Well, Camilla decided she'll cross that bridge when she gets to it. There's no one there now. She had time to sit and eat in peace. Only for a few minutes, likely. When whoever owned these lunches came back, what then?

Camilla took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Nothing wrong with meeting new people, right? Even if they were delinquents. Besides, one lunch with the wrong crowd probably won't do too much. Though with that logic, she might as well with the freshmen...

She sat down at the table, and opened her own lunch bag. Too late, decision made.

((Myles Roux continued from Let Me Borrow That Top))

There was a delicate art to timing one's arrival at lunch just right. Getting there early meant unimpeded access to the microwaves, but you usually had to sit by yourself and hope that whichever faculty member was monitoring the cafeteria that day wasn't in a Mood about cell phone use during school hours. Getting there too late meant that you had to wait in line for the microwaves, and unless somebody was saving you a seat, the choice of where to sit was pretty much diminished to which table had a free spot and was populated by tolerable people. Myles wasn't really into sitting alone unless he was sulking about something, and he was even less into getting lectured about Millennials And Their Dependence On Technology if Mr. McClellan was on monitor duty, so he'd gotten pretty good at timing things just right for the optimal lunchroom experience.

Unfortunately, well... something something best-laid plans of mice or whatever. Some underclassman had decided to have a meltdown like right in front of Myles's locker, and he'd had to wait until someone herded her out of the way to put his class supplies away and retrieve his lunch, and by that time they were already a few crucial minutes into the lunch period, disrupting Myles's routine.

He hadn't even gotten the details about what the underclassman girl's deal was, annoyed as he had been about his lunch getting delayed. Probably some dumb romance entanglement where she thought one of the older guys was really into her and he just wanted a quick and cheap date to get somebody off his back. That or grades, and how one B minus had ruined her chances of getting into Harvard or something. Those were the usual culprits with underclassman meltdowns. Whatever.

The universe had cut Myles like half a break at least, since there were still a good number of free tables when he finally arrived. He still had to wait in line for the microwave, but he was able to save himself a seat first. He'd gotten some reasonably-friendly company too, so things were looking up despite the irritating delay.

...Of course, a new wrench in the works revealed itself when he returned to the table with his reheated leftover pizza (still higher-quality than school cafeteria pizza, no matter what sort of good things people had to say about Hunter High's lunch program). Not only had his original company apparently gone off on some errand, but a new opponent had appeared. Was opponent the right word? Well she certainly was an uninvited guest, and Myles was drawing a blank on her name. Go figure.

He didn't hesitate to resume his rightful place at the table though, greeting Newgirl with a polite smile and slightly less polite raised eyebrow. "Hi?"

((The debut of Cheridene Williams))

Wasn't lunch grand?

It was, in a way, both Cheri's least and most favorite period, offering up a serving of practically forced socialization, catering to the birth of uncomfortable opportunities for drama. Cliques formed from the first week of every person's freshman year and those same cliques carried, changed or unchanged by some random amount, all the way through the last day of school as a senior. Sometimes they were easy to categorize: goth kids, nerdy kids, the stoner types. Sometimes they were a little more obtuse, like four or five kids who sat together because during the first month of school they had to work on a Louisiana Purchase project as a team in Mr. McClellan's room and made friends then and there. Whatever, those reasons were there business, not hers.

As for Cheri, she just liked to sit... wherever. A 'social chameleon' is what she liked to call herself, regardless of whether or not that was a 'thing' in high school. As in, a thing besides that being what she called herself, and it only seemed appropriate because whatever group she involved herself in, she just did her best to blend in. That's how you stayed out of trouble in high school. Staying out of trouble was good, and you stayed out of trouble by being as entirely unremarkable as possible. Like, what the fuck did it even matter ten years down the road that you were cheer captain and head of the GSA, or you were picked on all the time? Once you left George Hunter, you went off to some college on the far reaches of the country or you got lost in the flood at Tennessee U. Nobody's gonna pay attention to you when you're one of more than a few thousand. Then you get a job, you live your life in the 'real world', and you die.

Woah. Got a little dark there for a second. Backspace, backspace.

Cheridene reached the end of the lunch line, balancing the acts of sliding her tray down the line towards the register and fishing her school ID out of her wallet, which she first had to scoop out of her purse. If clothes designers would just give her pants that had actually fucking functioning pockets she could have a boy's wallet and just keep her ID in there, but whatever. Let's make shit complicated for the sake of having a really sweet-looking ass. Sighing as she finally pried her ID from the clutches of her Michael Kors, Cheri swiped the barcode in front of the little red light on the scanner until she heard the beep. Fake smile, genuine thank you, and vamoose to a table.

The act of selecting a table, as always, was completely random. Looked like today's lucky winners were that geeky looking stick figure, Camilla something-something, and... oh christ, Myles. Maybe she could scoot just a little further do- no, damn it, she'd already made eye contact and that would look way too standoffish. Despite Myles' presence killing any chance of a quiet lunch, she'd have to make do. Besides, it wasn't like sitting next to Myles was the end of the world. Things could get loud in a hurry but at least he had the decency to be entertaining about it.

Yeah, alright, this was a fine crowd, Cheridene decided. Or a tolerable crowd... let's not go crazy here. Cheridene set her tray down first and turned her purse so it'd be primed to rest beside her when she sat at the table, leaving space for one between Camilla and herself. She looked between the two, gave that sort of smile that was more than a half-smile but less than a full one, almost like... the minimum considered to be polite lest people be whiny about it, then she set about opening her milk.

"Another lovely lunch at school, huh, gang?" Cheri emphasized in a sarcastic, but delightful manner.

Camilla's head jerked up at the sound.

"Hi?"

She turned to the greeter. Oh, who was this? Well, she had the feeling she saw him somewhere before. Wait, he was... oh no no no. It was Myles. This guy. That meant she invaded the party kids table, didn't she? Fuck. But he said hi.

"...Hi." She responded. It was only polite.

Oh, and another person came along, wonderful. Camilla didn't quite recall her name , but that was okay... for now, at least.

"Another lovely lunch at school, huh, gang?" said this new girl. There was delight to it, but something else too. What was she implying? Probably nothing, Camilla assured herself. Getting worked up over hidden meanings would do nothing. That's what Aunt Caroline said. She nodded in acknowledgement instead, and put on a small smile. She just referred to this group of strangers as a 'gang'. That was kind of funny, now that she thought about it. What a way to bring people together, no? No, that's probably not it. But it was worth noting anyway.

"Yeah, I guess."

"Oh hey Cheri," Myles returned her greeting in an equally chipper manner. He wouldn't have necessarily called her a friend and the feeling was probably mutual, but they were on the same page. Newgirl on the other hand... Tallgirl? Myles still wasn't sure of her name. In fact, he was pretty certain he had never spoken to her at all before now and vice versa. He recognized her, but in that vague way that you might recognize someone unremarkable that you pass on the street regularly.

"You guess?" He echoed Newgirl's less-than-enthusiastic response, a smile toying at his lips. She didn't seem very confident for somebody who was comfortable enough to claim a seat with people she didn't really know. "What's wrong with it? Something getting you down? Not appreciating the beautiful scenery of our cafeteria? Personally, I think all of the gum stuck underneath the tables really gives it character."

Myles took a bite of his pizza without waiting for a response. Newgirl was obviously already on the back foot here, and the scales weren't tipped in her favor what with Myles and Cheridene at least being comfortable enough to joke around. He wasn't in a mean mood, but he couldn't help wanting to prod at her a bit and see what happened.

Camilla took out her sandwich, and took a bite of it. As she chewed, she pondered on the questions Myles had asked her.

There was nothing wrong with the cafeteria, no. At least, nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing that would make sitting at a table you stole from a bunch of strangers any better or worse, that's for sure. There was nothing wrong with her lunch. It was literally just a sliced turkey sandwich. You can't go wrong with one of those, because there's nowhere to go wrong. Unless of course, you consider being boring to be a form of going wrong.

"Something getting you down?" What even was the point of that question? Did he really think that would do anything. Besides, let's say for the sake of the argument there was something upsetting that had happened earlier. For example... no breakfast. Alright, so now some party guy walks in an asks you "What's been getting you down?" Are you really gonna tell that random guy that you didn't have breakfast? Of course not, that's not how socialization works! Right? Okay, maybe that's how party kid socialization works, but Camilla was not a party kid.

However, there wasn't really anything 'getting her down' today. Except this incident right now, that was a bit strange. But there's nothing wrong with saying "nothing", right?

"Ah, it's nothing," Camilla quietly responded. She muttered under her breath, "Sorry about your table."

It was only polite.

"Man, shit, you're takin' him too seriously."

Cheridene propped herself up on her shoulder, leaning hard into the table and shaking up the carton of milk. It was just regular milk, not chocolate or strawberry or anything but she swore these fucking things were just powder reconstituted with the same tap water that ran through the drinking fountains. And if the milk legitimately came squirting out of a cow and went straight into a carton, then fuck, she didn't know what happened but it just made her feel better to shake it up a little before opening it.

"The cafeteria been shit since Freshmen year and like, dang that's impressive because wasn't it new back then? Or did they get these tables from some other old school that was here before?" Cheri asked without really expecting an answer. But, knowing Myles, she placed a solid bet on getting one anyway. Him doing the unexpected had become, for lack of a better word, expected. But Cheri didn't know Camilla all that well. Maybe the more boring person stood to be the more interesting one after all.

Oh well. Time for a bite of french bread pizza.

And it tasted like string cheese on top of bread covered with Ragu. Ooooof course it did.

Camilla's eyes wandered to... what did Myles call her? Cheri? Right. Her eyes wandered to Cheri, though she kept her head somewhat lowered to eat her sandwich as Cheri posed her question. It was probably just a rhetorical question meant to jab at the poor quality of the cafeteria, but it was something to ponder.

Well, yes, the cafeteria was much newer back when she was a freshman. Novelty doesn't exactly translate into effort, though. Schools can be cheapskates, that's just a fact. Honestly, if the tables had been brought in from another, older school, Camilla wouldn't be surprised. However, that would  mean that school had extra tables lying around. Actually, didn't this school have extra tables? At least, that's what she thought she saw that one time she got a peek into the janitor's room. Well, that other school must have had a lot of tables, then.

That explanation made some sense. It felt incomplete though, like there was some piece of the puzzle missing. Maybe the tables were just crappy to begin with. Occam's Razor, and all that. Crappy tables straight from the factory, just like those plastic spinning tops that break with a bit of toying around by a bunch of three-year-olds. Okay, that explains how the tables have stayed up for this long- no three-year-olds around to break them.

"Maybe they were just garbage the minute they came off the assembly line," answered Camilla.

The school is a cheapskate. The factory is a cheapskate. That made sense, right?

Myles gave Cheridene's own inferior pizza a pitying glance as he finished his own slice. Reheated Domino's wasn't a feast or anything, but it was miles better than whatever frozen sauce and cheese slapped on top of a flatbread passed for cafeteria pizza. The saddest part of all was that Hunter High's cafeteria was actually pretty quality as far as school cafeterias went; Myles could remember plenty of middle school lunches that couldn't even be charitably described as "subpar".

"I'm pretty sure they actually spent a nice chunk of money putting this place together. The gum tables are your tax dollars at work." He smiled and grabbed his water bottle, uncapping it to take a swig.

"Our tax dollars, anyway. The rich kids don't pay taxes, of course."

"Well, you know, fuck Canon," Cheridene spat. "And fuck the asshat stickin' all the gum to these tables. Desks too. I swear I was moving my leg in math and like, got my knee all up in it." She reflexively reached under the table to brush over the fabric of her pants. "Woulda been pissed if it marked my pants."

Cheridene took a bite of cheesy cardboard and, with a healthy dose of Stockholm Syndrome, found herself able to swallow it. Myles was practically taunting her with Dominos, which wasn't exactly high quality shit but to her, it might as well have been straight outta Rome. George Hunter certainly wasn't the worst school she'd ever heard of or seen in her entire life, and things probably would have been worse in a larger city (she shuddered to think about inner-city schools in, say, Los Angeles or New York City). It treated her well enough and she'd survived three whole years; did she hear four?

Following the flow of conversation, however, Cheridene continued with her thoughts. "You know, kinda talking about it, why isn't this school a little bit fancier? They got the gated community right up the way and it's like a quarter of the kids here, right?"

A quarter of the school is from the gated community? Camilla didn't know the exact statistic, but that seemed about right. So with all these rich kids attending, the school should be-

The rich kids don't pay taxes, of course. Isn't that what Myles said just now? That explained a lot. Still, why would these well-off families be sending their kids here, of all places? That was something Camilla had wondered about for a while now. Didn't this kind of crowd usually go to private schools, or something like that?

Maybe they wanted their kids to get out more. Talk with the common folk? That was a silly thought. She couldn't put her finger on why, but it was a silly thought. Probably projection, too. Heck, most rich kids seemed social enough to her.

"Didn't you hear the guy? The rich kids aren't paying for this," said Camilla, trying to downplay the bitterness in her voice. She then added, "Though, it does raise the question of why they're here, instead of some private school. How would I know, though?"

"If I had to guess? It's because all the real money went into the athletics department." Myles sniffed. "No offense of course, Cheri. But I mean, if I was rich..." Well, if he was rich, he wouldn't be slaving away at school. It wouldn't be a problem at all, if he could rest easy knowing that there was a million-dollar cushion there to catch him however badly he messed up.

Yeah, fuck Canon. Myles would go one better and say fuck all the rich idiots on all sides. They didn't know what real life was like.

"Well, the money's in the athletics building and paying Coach Oppenheimer's mob debts," he added instead of finishing that other thought. "Covering up all the students Mr. Faust has murdered for playing out of tune and burying them under the new football field, you know?" Myles rested his chin on his hand and smirked, twisting a loose lock of hair around.

"As far as why the rich kids are here and not in private school... well, this is free, right? Technically. I sure wouldn't pay for high school." He sure wouldn't be college-bound if he was paying that out of pocket, no sir. The thought of having to pay for his high school experience on top of that was nightmarish, and Myles couldn't even say he'd had one of the worse high school experiences, realistically speaking. Imagine if he was like...

Well, if he was Newgirl. Myles knew a lot of people, and he still couldn't remember her name. Imagine paying to have all the staying power of a particularly boring ghost. No thank you sir.

Unfortunately, it seemed like Camilla was latching onto one of Myles' weaker sticking points. Best case scenario, she was just being a troll like Myles hopefully was, yet Cheri found that wholly unlikely. Contemptuous as she might be for those who had ten times the money her family ever had and still pretended like they had problems equally bad to everybody else's, it just seemed wrong to pretend like they didn't at least pay taxes.

But that ball was rolling and now Myles was going crazy with it. She kept silent at the comment regarding the athletics department. She was an athlete, but such a remark didn't exactly personally offend her. She wasn't married to sports or anything like that, anyhow. It was a little harder to keep still about Coach Oppenheimer though; Cheri thought that he was a nice man, a solid coach, and he was leading a good team and maybe Myles was laying it on just a little thick in order to make a statement. Just what that statement was, though... well, the proverbial jury was at recess trying to figure that one out.

"Covering up all the students Mr. Faust has murdered for playing out of tune..."

Oh.

Yeah, okay, Myles was just being an idiot and was about 0% serious about anything. Just when it looked like there was some feasible threat of taking matters seriously, all the bated breath in Cheri's lungs wheezed out in one long half-sigh, half-laugh of disbelief, and she put her pizza an inch away from her lips.

"You're such a goofy dipshit, d'you know that?" Cheri asked before taking another bite.

Camilla hadn't though about that. Well, she should have. It made sense. I mean, nobody likes wasting their money, even rich folks. I mean, they're people too, right? Well, Camilla wouldn't know, she hadn't talked to many rich people before. Or a lot of people in general. At least, not the way her current lunch-mates did. In their eyes, she might as well be a total shut-in.

Wait, what did he say about Oppenheimer? And Mr. Faust? Well, with a last name like that, he was bound to get made fun of, but- wait, that was an off-topic thought. Never mind. Right, about burying students under football fields... she began responding.

"I dunno. Wouldn't the bodies really smell after a while? And besides, how would you cover up-" her mouth suddenly snapped shut.

Wait, what was she doing?! It was painfully clear that this was joke. No point in it, no logic to it. Heck, Cheri just said it! She just said Myles was a goof. She also called him a dipshit, but that was besides the point. Replying with anything other than laughter would be strange, and probably make her look really dense for not getting the joke.

She diverted her eyes from Myles, and let out a nervous chuckle.

Myles laughed in return. Cheridene seemed exasperated, but in the way that people were when they found something amusing despite themselves. Newgirl on the other hand... well, she was a real treasure, Myles could tell. Bless her heart, et cetera.

"Hey, I don't consider myself goofy. I'm like... a charmingly witty dipshit."

He tilted his head to the side, eyeing Newgirl and considering her obvious discomfort. "I don't know about the smell," he continued, as though Cheri had never called him on his nonsense, "but the bodies would be great for the grass, don't you think? Tons of nutrients. Well, unless they've mainly been living on the cafeteria food, anyway."

Myles smiled invitingly, waiting to see if she'd take the bait or just shrivel up even more.