Even with the sky threatening to let down droplets of rain any minute, Francine spots Brain studying his Advanced Placement Biology textbook at a picnic table in the courtyard. She swats at my arm and gestures for me to follow her before marching forward, agenda in mind: confront. I inhale slowly and follow close behind, hoping beyond hope that Francine doesn't immediately pull out the big guns and put Brain on the defense.

"Hey, Brain!" She reaches the table before I can join in and flattens both palms down on Brain's scattered notebooks. He glances up at her, brows furrowed. I can tell that my hopes of a peaceful exchange of grievances and misunderstandings are about to be squashed.

Francine hunches forward, eyes boring into Brain, who is somehow not intimidated. He waits for her to speak, and Francine quickly obliges to his silence. "Care to explain why you acted as though I wasn't even there in the hall today?"

Brain narrows his eyes. Not in accusation, just disdain. "Were you talking to me? I couldn't tell since you didn't use my name."

Francine huffs, already aggravated. I intervene. "C'mon, Brain, we've called you that since we were in pre-K."

Brain—Alan looks back down at his book and places a bookmark between the pages before slapping the covers closed. "Well, quit it. Call me Alan or don't be surprised if I don't answer you." He trains his focus back on Francine at that last part, baiting a snarky retort. Again, Francine obliges.

"A normal person would tell me that to my face instead of ignoring me in front of your hoity-toity friends. Too good for your plebian pals from outside the biology lab?" She straightens her back and crosses her arms across her chest, never removing her eye focus from him. Instinctively I mimic her posture, standing up straight—as if I was way more invested in telling Brain off than I was in letting the ground swallow me up so this ordeal would be over with.

"Plebian?" Brain raises an eyebrow and smirks. "Three-syllable adjectives are a part of the Francine lexicon, now, huh?"

Francine jerks forward, undoubtedly to shove all his stuff off the table. I get in front of her before she can knock over this house of cards our constipated emotions have built. I take the brunt of an anger-exacerbated shove and ignore her subsequent "Arthur!", instead looking towards Brain, silently pleading. C'mon, man. What's changed?

Brain calculates my expression with a neutral, somewhat cold gaze and simply sighs, shoving his book into his backpack. "Don't get all bent out of shape over nothing. You're acting as if this is the biggest deal in the world. I've just acquired new interests and a new schedule and…" he trails off for a second, gathering the rest of his belongings into his hands. Francine and I don't speak, we just fume and brace for impact, respectively.

"And new friends." He slings his bag over his shoulder and gives an emotionless shrug. "This stuff is bound to happen in high school. Might as well get over it." With that, he calmly strolls over towards the school doors, not even sparing a second look over the shoulder. He has effectively cut us off with little more than a quick jab to the psyche.

I feel like utter shit. Reasonably-and perhaps pessimistically, I knew this was going to happen. But emotionally? I guess I still was holding onto whatever remaining optimism Buster, Sue Ellen, and even Fern had already dumped. How could one summer separate the comfortable mundaneness of what was always the same from the total upheaval of everything you knew?

I feel my shoulders sag. What else had I missed?

"You asshole!" Francine calls out to Alan's retreating form with contempt, although it's fleeting as her words bounce off his back with little impact. She turns around and kicks the table bench. The wood gives a sad crack, easily splintered by a combination of Francine's soccer punt and its own old age. I watch her breath in and out, shoulders rising and falling as she attempts to calm down.

After a few seconds, she turns back towards me. "It's fine," she mumbles, fists still clenched. She tucks them underneath each arm and gives the same shrug that Alan did, albeit less convincingly uncaring. "Let's just go."

Leading the way back towards the school, Francine is unnervingly quiet. We reach our lockers in silence, grab our backpacks, and reconvene in the center of the now long-deserted hallway. I'm itching to say something, anything, just to get rid of the heaviness that's weighing on both of us. My mind wanders back towards my earlier thoughts, the ones where I tell Francine I…like her. I guess. Or something. I can feel my cheeks flush at the very thought of confessing. No, I can't do that just yet. Besides, now was hardly the time, given what crappy moods we were both in at the moment.

Francine tucks a piece of hair behind her ear and I try not to stare at her side profile. She wears earrings now, I notice. They're pretty.

"So. You heading home?" She breaks the silence, as usual. I nod, not wanting to separate just yet but not knowing how to articulate words into sentences without sounding…desperate? I don't know.

Francine glances at the clock above our heads. "The late bus has already left. Wanna walk?"

I nod again, relieved. A few more minutes of awkwardness with Francine is far better than a few minutes of walking home by myself. "Sure."

We begin the trek in a more comfortable silence, the anger from before slowly evaporating as the minutes pass. I suppose we both have begun to realize that, even though Alan chose to be undeniably dickish about the whole thing, he was still sort of right in the sense that some friends are bound to drift apart. Before long, we begin to joke about classes and the rest of our remaining crew.

"Oh my God, did you notice how Sue Ellen was glaring at Binky the other day in the Sugar Bowl?" Francine laughs, kicking a small pebble a few feet ahead of us. I intercept it in the next few steps and kick it farther. "She was so pissed at him. I don't even know why."

I smile, recalling the look of disdain Sue Ellen was wearing earlier today when the subject of Binky Barnes came up again. "I think she just thinks he's trying too hard to seem cool. We all know he's soft, but he always puts on an act of being tough."

Francine considers this. "I guess. Binky's just the type of person who's a little insecure. I bet he thinks that if people know how vulnerable he can be, they'll tear him to pieces." She gives the pebble another sideswipe with her right foot, and this time it goes sailing into the grass.

"Well, maybe Sue Ellen likes the vulnerable type." I look over at Francine, wondering what type she's into.

Francine meets my gaze, curious. "What, you think Sue Ellen would like Binky if he acted differently? Or do you mean Binky likes Sue Ellen?"

Whoops. Was Francine supposed to find that out? "Well…if he does, he's not exactly doing himself any favors, that's all."

Francine rolls her eyes. "Leave it to Binky." She pauses for a moment, then adds, "Well if Binky needs to open up more, Sue Ellen needs to quit being so obsessed with the type of guys that are in her books and realize that real people aren't perfect."

Francine gauges my response. She's right, so I laugh quietly. Smiling, she nudges my arm. "Oh well, that's their problem. Let them figure it out."

My arm tingles. "What happens if they actually end up together?" What happens if everyone else starts dating people and I'm still pining over you?

She laughs again, harder this time—head falling back, sound towards the sky. I watch, my own smile slowly creeping back onto my face. Francine should be happy like this all the time. The world should collectively stop and make Francine Frensky laugh, every day.

"We mourn the loss of our innocent eyes and ears as we witness Sue Ellen's inevitable PDA." She clasps her hands together in delight before finishing with, "And watch Binky melt into a puddle of embarrassment and total soppiness."

We share another laugh before Francine stops walking, finally reaching her driveway. She grins at me as I wish our walk together didn't end so quickly. "See you tomorrow, Arthur."

I give a hesitant wave back. She reaches her front door before I can formulate more than a "see you" in response. I look up towards the darkening sky and remember that weather is indeed still a factor in my enjoyment of the remaining walk home and hurriedly start up the sidewalk.

The house is already noisy when I finally make it home. Or, rather, the people inside it are. D.W. greets me as soon as I walk through the door with a "Help me with my homework!" Looking past her, I notice that Dad's got his catering stuff in the kitchen, meaning dinner will be a fend-for-yourself kind of event tonight. I gently shove past my sister so I can at least set my backpack down before dealing with her.

"Arthuuuuur! I need help!" She remains planted at the doorway, swiveling her head to send me her whiniest tone. Ignoring her, I kick off my shoes and plod into the kitchen, greeting my dad and opening the fridge in search of something to eat.

D.W.'s protests are muffled by the ring of the landline. As I open a gallon of milk and take a sip, Dad promptly answers the phone, looks towards me, gives me a swat with his oven mitt while mouthing stop that, and proceeds to cradle the phone in the crook of his neck. "It's for you, Arthur."

I wipe the milk mustache from my upper lip and take the phone, wondering who would want to talk to me and why they'd choose to do it over a landline. "Hello?"

A gruff snort is heard on the other end. "Hey, Read. It's Binky."

Speak of the devil. I close the fridge and walk towards the stairs, maneuvering my still-badgering younger sister out of my path with my free hand. "What's up? Why are you calling?" Padding up the stairs, I reach my bedroom and shut the door, locking it so D.W. can't barge in and interrupt whatever deathbed confession Binky must have to necessitate calling my home phone.

"Uh, it's about Bryce Lamb's party. Could you…I dunno, could you maybe come? And bring Sue Ellen with you?"

You've gotta be kidding me. "She didn't seem like she wanted to go."

I can hear Binky tapping his fingers on a table or something on the other end. "I know, but—listen, I may have made a bet with Rattles that I could still get her to come. And I know I can't really do that unless…unless you get her to."

Binky's poor decision-making skills never cease to amaze me. "I really don't think she'll want to—"

"Pleeeeaassseeee?" Binky crooned, making me cringe from the sudden shift in attitude. "I'll never hear the end of it! And I really want to talk to her. Maybe convince her I'm not a total idiot. C'mon Read, just ask her! Tell her Francine will be there, and Leo Bates—"

My heart skips again at the reminder that Francine will also be there. I cut him short. "Okay, okay! I'll ask." A small cheer erupts from what I can only imagine to be Binky as he clutches the phone to his chest like a teenage girl in a rom-com.

I wait for him to have his moment before continuing. "But if she won't go, can the rest of us still come?"

"Yeah, sure, whatever man! It's after the football game on Friday, maybe around ten P.M.? You can just come in through the back. I'll be waiting for you guys. Waiting, Read, so don't let me down, okay?"

"Okay, Binky—" and with that, the line's dead. I run my hand across my cheek, wondering however on Earth I'm going to pull this off. As I cross the room and unlock my door, D.W. comes spilling in, obviously just having finished eavesdropping. I sigh and walk past her, trying not to act like a teenager who's planning on sneaking out to his first ever high school party.

D.W. pounces. "What was that about? Who called?"

I give her a quick glance. She's staring at me in eager fashion, hoping I'll let her in on some amazing secret. I shrug instead, killing her excitement while doing my best to suppress mine.

"Nothing much. Just school stuff."

As D.W. begins to whine for more details, I go downstairs, mind racing over what to say, how to sneak out, and where to go from here. Above it all, though, I keep coming back to the same thought.

How can I impress Francine Frensky?