Chapter Text
Todd was one more fucking detention away from leaving high school and never coming back. It’s not like he really needed to be there, anyway. Everyone knew that he had no prospects in life. A high school diploma wasn’t going to fix that. And at least if he dropped out, he could smoke and play guitar in peace without some asshole dean trying to guilt trip him for it.
“Mr. Brotzman, is that a cell phone I see?” Speaking of asshole deans…
Wilson wasn’t Todd’s worst enemy, but they definitely weren’t allies. At the present moment, though, Todd couldn’t be too pissed at her. She hadn’t dug his stuffy, paper-scented, grave. No, that honor went to Friedkin.
Todd thought that he would do pretty much anything to spite Friedkin. And Todd knew Friedkin would do the same for him. Just as Todd’s attempts at ditching class were getting more and more creative, so were Friedkin’s punishments.
And apparently, Friedkin couldn’t be assed to even administer Todd’s detention himself today. Todd didn’t blame him. If he could have forced a co-worker to sit in an overheated classroom for an hour and a half after school instead of doing it himself, he would have in a heartbeat.
Today’s punishment wasn’t the worst that Todd had endured as of late, but it wasn’t a normal detention, either. In fact, this punishment didn’t only affect Todd. Friedkin had turned the heat on in the whole building and then gone home, probably with some bullshit excuse as to why, leaving Todd, Wilson, and any poor soul stuck in an afternoon club to rot in the hell he’d personally created.
Wasn’t the worst afternoon Todd had ever had.
Amanda was pissed. Okay, not pissed pissed, but she wasn’t happy. She couldn’t remember the last time Todd hadn’t been in detention after school. Normally, that didn’t bother her, but normally Martin didn’t have the fucking flu and she had a ride home.
Todd’s shitmobile was her only way of getting home, but she still had 45 minutes to waste outside alone while he roasted inside. She should have just walked with the rest of the guys to Vogel’s house, her mother’s “come straight home” be damned.
“Hi…” came a timid voice from somewhere behind Amanda’s perch on the curb.
Whipping around, she asked, “Who’s there?”
On the sidewalk stood a boy Amanda was vaguely familiar with, but had never spoken to. He was gangly to the point of being comical, and he looked extremely uncomfortable approaching her. Or maybe he was just overheated from wearing a fucking button-up shirt in August.
“Oh, sorry, I’m Dirk,” he said. “And you are...?”
“Amanda.”
“Right.” He paused for a moment and fidgeted with his collar. Amanda felt a little sorry she had been so curt.
“Uh, nice to meet you,” she said hastily, “do you wanna sit?” She motioned to the curb next to her.
“Oh, yes thank you,” Dirk replied eagerly.
“So…” Amanda said after a pause, “why are you here this late?”
“Oh, I had detention,” Dirk said. Amanda thought he sounded far too cheerful about it.
“Oh shit man, what’d you do?”
“Oh, um, I think the dean just doesn’t like me very much.” Dirk seemed reluctant to share this piece of information, which only furthered Amanda’s confusion towards how cheerful he seemed to answer her first question.
But at this point, she was determined to be sympathetic, if only to find out more about this weird, friendly, admittedly kind of cute boy.
“Friedkin?” Dirk nodded. “Yeah, he hates my brother, too. I think he’s just a dick, to be honest.”
“Could not agree more. Did you know he turned on the heat in there? It’s 3--sorry, 80 fucking degrees out. And what’s worse is he couldn’t even be bothered to show up. He had some teacher sit with me for a half an hour.”
“That’s weird,” Amanda said, “Todd got an hour and a half.”
“That is weird,” Dirk agreed. “But I think perhaps part of it may have been my uncle. He can’t get me out of all punishments, but he has some pull in the school district so I never get anything too harsh. Well, at least nothing that other people will be able to tell is too harsh. Like he can get away with the heat, but probably not with keeping me for more than an hour.”
Amanda nodded. “That makes sense. Oh, also before I forget: where are you from?”
Dirk’s face lit up. “England! I used to live in London before I moved here to Seattle to live with my uncle.”
“Dude, that’s so cool. Is there any particular reason you moved in with your uncle?”
Dirk seemed to close off again. “Uh, not really. He was just lonely, I think, probably.”
“Right.”
Dirk was fucking weird. Amanda loved him already.