I've been working on this off and on pretty much since I finished writing Because of You. This takes a slightly different look at what happens between John and Madison (and others) from late 1983 to mid-1984. It is perhaps slightly darker than Because of You but is no worse off because of that in my mind. It felt like this story needed telling. It can be read on its own, although I would recommend reading Because of You first as you may get more of an understanding of the characters involved.

I, of course, own nobody except my original characters (who are the majority of characters for at least the first 6 chapters)

Friday, August 26th 1983

It was late and yet nobody was moving. The hilarity and chatter of the evening had long since died away and now the only noises were the crackly tape somebody had put on at some point and the muffled giggles and sighing of those who had coupled off. It could make somebody jealous, John Bender mused as he took a long drag on his cigarette. Jealous or sickened.

If he had hoped that coming to Diego's house tonight would take his mind off of the scene he'd left behind at home that day, he'd have been disappointed. As it was, he'd learnt over the last few years that no amount of alcohol, nicotine or pot would change the fact that his old man was a grade-A asshole and his mom was a cowardly bitch who deflected his blows onto her own son. At fifteen, John might have moaned and complained. At almost eighteen, he'd dealt with it.

Having friends like Diego sort of helped. That is, if Diego was really a friend, which John still doubted. Friends were surely supposed to know things about each other; all he really knew about Diego was that he scored some seriously mind-blowing marijuana. In truth, he wasn't even really sure what the Puerto Rican guy did for a living, nor how he afforded the house that the ever-changing bunch of misfits flocked to on an almost-nightly basis. As for Diego, he knew John was in high school and that was where the questions had stopped. He certainly knew nothing about the Bender household, and John intended it to stay that way. Life was so much easier when people didn't know.

Still, being silent and alone at gone midnight wasn't exactly how he'd envisaged the evening going. If there was one thing John Bender had learnt by seventeen, it was that when drink and drugs failed to block out life in general, a hot girl could distract him for a bit. It wasn't that he'd come to Diego's this evening purely to get laid, but it would have been something.

Instead, he now eased himself off of the sagging couch and threaded his way through the entwined bodies to the kitchen. He helped himself to a beer out of the fridge and popped the lid. He'd only just got it to his mouth when he was interrupted.

'Any left?'

In a move he'd perfected over the past couple of years, he didn't move the bottle, feigning disinterest as he allowed his eyes to roam over to the source of the interruption. The beer was likely colouring his judgment a little: this was his seventh bottle of the evening. Even so, his first thought was that the intruder had good legs. Great legs, actually, and she was kind enough to share them with the general public in a pair of miniscule denim shorts. The off-the-shoulder top was a little overkill in terms of flesh on display, but the pouting red lips and mass of brown hair lent her a dishevelled sexiness which didn't seem out of place at one of Diego's parties. She was hot, and that gave her a certain access level into John's life.

Still, it never did any good to appear too keen. He swallowed his mouthful of beer slowly before replying. 'Last one. Sorry.' As lies went, it was pretty pointless, but telling the truth wasn't something that came that easily to him anymore. The way she looked at him suggested she knew that and was just deliberating over her next move. He was happy to give her the time to think: she was mildly entertaining.

'Pretty rude of you, to just help yourself to the last one without asking, don't you think?' she said eventually, coming further into the kitchen, her hip-swaying walk only serving to emphasise those legs further.

'Who was I gonna ask?' John gestured around the empty kitchen. If the sign of a good party was everybody congregating in the kitchen, this was surely a sign that the party was over. In truth, he was surprised anybody else was still prowling around the house, especially somebody who looked like this girl; she should have had no trouble taking her mind off of life tonight.

'It's Diego's house.' She raised her eyebrows challengingly, even as her red mouth stretched into a teasing smile, standing almost toe to toe with him despite the space around her.

'I think Diego's pretty tied up at the moment,' was John's response. He was speaking metaphorically but for all he knew, it could be literal; Diego was a kinky bastard.

The humour wasn't lost on her, her dark eyes sparkling with mischief. She seemed to know Diego at least as well as John did, perhaps more. John let his eyes drop down her body again. Yes, almost certainly more. He couldn't remember seeing her here before, but that wasn't wholly surprising: Diego's guest list was vast and fluid, the same group of people hardly ever mingling in their entirety again. John's attendance at these gatherings was sporadic, and besides, a girl like this would likely have found herself kept well-occupied whenever she was present. It only made it seem stranger that she was here tonight. And there was a nagging feeling that he had seen her somewhere before, somewhere an impossibly long way from this moment.

'So what am I supposed to do if I get thirsty?' Her voice was more like a purr than actual words, John thought, his mouth creasing into a smile again at the performance she was putting on, presumably for his benefit. It was working. The girl certainly knew what she was doing.

Still, there was no harm in playing her at her own game. 'That,' he took a long swig of his own beer before continuing, 'is not really my problem.'

There was a moment when it seemed her reaction could go one of two ways, and John looked into her eyes with a certain amount of alarm: man, she looked young. Then they creased into laughter and his next thought was wondering how even a laugh could sound quite so sexy.

'You're John Bender, right?'

It was no surprise to him that his reputation might go before him, but even he wasn't quite vain enough to believe that his fame had spread to Chicago at large. 'You go to Shermer?'

She nodded. 'I've heard all about you.'

From adults, John usually found that particular comment was imbued with a sense of weariness and irritation that they'd been landed with him in their class for that semester. Strangely, when the words fell from girls' lips, it usually signalled that they wanted to be part of the next story. This girl would make a pretty good tale, actually.

'Yet I've heard nothing about you.'

She tilted her chin up suddenly, sensing her advantage. A self-satisfied smile spread across her face, like a cat basking in sunshine. 'It'll cost you a beer.'

He was unable to maintain his cool in the face of such brazen blackmail. Laughing, he held the bottle out to her, figuring she'd earned it. The way she wrapped her lips around the bottle silenced his laughter and caused him to momentarily have a problem with catching his breath.

'So,' he said at length as she looked triumphantly back at him. He slipped his hands into his jeans' pockets, trying to behave nonchalantly when the truth was that she'd wrong-footed him from the moment she'd sashayed into the kitchen. 'What's your name?'

There was a pause before she replied, as though she was enjoying keeping him in suspense. Her mouth stretched into a smile, and that feeling crept over him again: she's young. 'Nancy Kennedy.' Then the feeling was gone and a very different one took its place.

Leaning in towards her, he could smell the beer on her breath as he pulled the bottle from her hand. There was a mock-pout on her lips but he couldn't help notice she didn't protest as he took her hard-won beer from her. Her eyes sparkled again, the pupils almost undetectable against the dark brown irises. She was hot by any standards, especially gone midnight on a depressing Friday. He'd feel no regret at what he was about to do.

'You wanna get out of here, Nancy Kennedy?'

August in Chicago was often unpleasantly hot and sticky, especially in places like Diego's that had no air-conditioning. John sometimes wondered whether Chicago had been specially selected as one of God's experiments, with summers that scorched and winters that burned cold. Certainly it made having two wardrobes necessary.

However, he had always been grateful for the mild summer nights the climate afforded. For somebody who hated going home as much as he did, being able to be outside and not cold was a blessing. It was something he'd become increasingly grateful for as he'd gotten older and occasions like this had become more frequent. Not having to take Nancy Kennedy home with him was a massive bonus.

Now, as he zipped his jeans up and she wiggled back into her shorts, his earlier assertion that he'd feel no regrets about doing this faded a little. It was how it always went on evenings like this: him, a girl, a hook-up, and then the crushing realisation that he probably shouldn't have done that. That Nancy wasn't crying was a sign that things had gone better than they had on previous occasions, but from the little he actually knew and understood about girls, no visible tears didn't mean that they weren't harbouring some secret hurt to bring up in the future. It was the story of John Bender's life that an attempt to make himself feel better had resulted in his actually feeling worse. Needing to do something whilst she straightened her clothes, he pulled out his cigarettes and lit one, taking a long drag as he hoped he could disentangle himself from this situation.

'Is that the last one too?' In the gloom, he couldn't see her face, but something told him that that teasing smile was back on it. This he could only take as a good sign.

Without replying, he lit a second cigarette and handed it to her. Her face was briefly illuminated in the glow from the end as she too inhaled and for a moment he saw a hollowness in her cheeks and eyes, as though whatever made her Nancy had gone. Then she gave an awkward giggle and he pretended he'd imagined it.

'So,' she said after a pause, and he was heartened to hear no trace of a wobble in a voice, nothing but the honeyed-tones which had got them into this situation in the first place. 'I guess I can forgive you for taking the last beer now.'

'Oh yeah?'

'Yeah.' Then, 'Anyway, it's late. I should be getting home.'

That was normally John's line and it took him a moment to fashion up any kind of response. 'Oh yeah?'

'Yeah.' She sounded a little impatient with his sluggish responses. The end of her cigarette flickered as she took several long pulls on it before stubbing it out. John had never seen Diego's backyard in daylight but he imagined cigarette ends were more prominent than any flowers. 'You can walk me home if you like.'

It was the sort of offer no sane girl would ever make, certainly not one who had heard of John Bender. Nancy spoke so casually and confidently, as though it was obvious that he'd want to, that for a moment he was unable to think of an argument against it. He didn't do walking girls home. He didn't do dates or relationships. God, he had never even hooked up with the same girl twice. He'd seen what that sort of commitment did, tying people down and together. It was the last thing he wanted for his life.

He'd clearly paused too long, as Nancy gave a small snort. 'Okay. I'll take that as a no.'

'I didn't say…' Why was he protesting? His silence had said everything it needed to without him opening his mouth. They could part on reasonable terms and there'd be one less chick he needed to avoid around here. Nancy Kennedy might just become his perfect hook-up.

'Honey, you didn't need to.' Suddenly business-like, she planted a firm kiss on his lips and he heard her flip-flops slapping the pathway as she walked away from him. 'I'll see you around.'