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Tommy Dawkins was in her house. Tommy Dawkins was in her freak brother's bedroom. Tommy said him and Freaker were friends.Oh. My. God. She was still reeling from this after she hung up her call to Heidi. There was no way her weirdo brother could be friends with the Tommy Dawkins! Heidi had agreed, it had to be some sort of fluke! They'd talked it over for an hour (until Becky's mom had told her to get off the phone and go to bed) and had theorised that Tommy was really there because he needed Merton's help with something. Like studying. Probably history because Merton was into all that boring medieval stuff. And Tommy had just been too embarrassed to admit it because he was so cool and popular, of course, and that was why he'd lied about being friends with the school's resident freakshow. It made perfect sense! She and Heidi had agreed to keep this between them, since obviously Tommy didn't want anyone to know. It was with that comforting thought that she settled down, pulling the covers up and switching off her bedside lamp. His secret was safe with her.
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OK, so maybe it wasn't a fluke. It had been three weeks and Tommy had been coming over after school almost every night to hang out with Merton. In fact, they were down in the Lair right now. Surely if Tommy needed something from her brother for school it wouldn't take that long, right? She had no idea what they even did when they hung out together, they had nothing in common! And they were always sneaking around, it was too weird! She expected this from Merton but not Tommy. Her brother was clearly a bad influence on him, he was... corrupting him somehow. She frowned at the thought. He could be down there poisoning Tommy's very normal, very not freakish, mind right now.
She stared up at the Backstreet Boys poster above her, legs dangling off the end of her bed. Maybe she should intervene. Maybe Tommy didn't actually want to hang out with Merton, but he was too nice to tell him to shove it. Her heart clenched at the thought of Pleasantville's beloved Tommy Dawkins held social hostage by her geek of a brother. She sat up suddenly, mattress bouncing underneath her. Clearly it was up to her to rescue Tommy from the Freaker in the basement!
She hurried down the stairs to her brother's room, pausing at the door, ear cocked for anything unusual coming from within. She could hear the muffled voices of Tommy and Merton, but nothing distinct. Steeling herself, she knocked on the door, waiting only a split second before barging in (this was a rescue mission after all). There was a flurry of movement from over near Merton's computer as she entered, and both boys looked distinctly sheepish. She eyed the room, trying to act casual. There were books scattered about on Merton's desk, all of them those weird old looking ones from his shelves. She couldn't imagine that Tommy would need help studying anything that might be in those, so it looked like that theory was out. She plastered on her best smile and directed it at Tommy, completely ignoring the indignant protests from her brother about her intrusion.
"Hey Tommy, I was just wondering if I could get you a drink or anything? I bet my brother is a terrible host and hasn't offered you anything."
Tommy smiled at her "No thanks Becky, I'm good" he casts his gaze over to Merton still smiling "and Merton's a great host."
Merton beamed smugly at her. She glared at him.
"Well, you know where I am if you need anything. You know, like better company." She turned and shut the door harshly behind her, stomping back upstairs.
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Weeks later, and Tommy was still hanging out with her brother. Becky was starting to wonder if she hadn't fallen into another dimension or something, but that sounded too much like Merton talk to her. She grudgingly had to admit that this probably meant that Tommy and Merton were sort-of-maybe friends after all. She scowled at her brother from across the hallway where he and Tommy were standing by their lockers. They were smiling about something and Merton looked far too relaxed in the presence of Tommy Dawkins for her liking. He should be grateful that Tommy even gave him the time of day, let alone be seen with him in public. Then Tommy laughed at something Merton had said (God, he looked so cute when he laughed) and threw an arm casually over Merton's shoulders. She slammed her locker door and stalked off, jealousy twisting in her gut. Why was Tommy maybe-friends with her social pariah of a brother and not her? It wasn't fair!
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Maybe it was blackmail, she thought, a little desperately, as she watched them from across the cafeteria at lunch. Tommy had just said something that made Merton snort suddenly, drink coming out of his nose, and he was attempting to pat him on the back, all while laughing so hard he could barely sit up straight. It could be blackmail.
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He was just being nice, she thought more desperately still, as she watched Tommy rescue her brother from Tim and Travis, yet again. He pulled Merton out of the way, standing almost protectively in front of him. You didn't have to be friends with someone to be nice to them. Tommy turned after T 'n' T had been seen off, putting his hands on Merton's shoulders, asking if he was alright. See? Nice.
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OK, they were friends. No mistaking it. The whole school had heard about the party, and Tommy's part in trying to promote it, regardless of his own social status, and how further association with Merton would damage it. It was hard to ignore the facts when they were standing on the cafeteria tables shouting or handing you leaflets in the hallway.
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Now this was just ridiculous! She thought as Merton kissed Tommy on the cheek after they won the quiz bowl.
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Mind control, that was her new theory. Merton had all that weird stuff in the Lair (and who calls their bedroom that, seriously?) and there was always hypnotism and brainwashing in stuff on TV, it couldn't all be fake right? Why else would Tommy be, she shudders, friends with her brother? She contemplated this as she sat on her bed, idly flicking through a magazine. By now the whole school was used to seeing them together, and in fact, they had become some sort of bizarre packaged deal; you very rarely had one without the other these days. Mind control was looking more likely every minute.
Maybe further investigation was in order, she thought, tearing out another poster for her wall. Merton was at one of his stupid club meetings today and he wouldn't be back for another hour at least. She could be in and out of the Lair before he even knew she'd been in there. She crept out of her room and downstairs to the basement, still feeling the need for caution even though her brother wasn't home. She snuck inside, closing the door behind her. Once inside, she was greeted by a scaly face and the flick of a forked tongue. She wrinkled her nose at Rasputin, sticking her tongue out at him on her way past. Snakes were so gross.
Nothing immediately jumped out at her, so she spent a few minutes examining the books lining the wall (and wow her brother was a freak, no normal person had a book on 15th century torture instruments) but saw nothing that could explain away Tommy's continued association with Merton. She rifled quickly through his closet, careful not to disturb anything but again came up with nothing, other than further proof her brother was a fashion disaster. After 15 minutes she had covered most of the room as best she could without leaving any evidence, and isn't sure of her next move.
She turned to look at the bed, considering. Hmm. Crouching down, she squinted into the darkness underneath. Aha! There was definitely something under there. She reached out, her fingers closing over something soft, and pulled. It was a sweatshirt. A sweatshirt that definitely did not belong to Merton. For one thing it was a faded orange colour, and Merton's whole wardrobe consisted of black with the occasional splash of blood red. She held it up for inspection. It showed the name and logo of a sports team she'd never heard of and looked at least a size too big for her brother. Before she has time to contemplate this further, she heard footsteps on the stairs behind her, and her heart leaps in panic. He was back early! She spun around as the door opened, sweatshirt still clutched in her hands. Busted!
Merton came through the door- and stopped dead at the sight of her.
“Becky! What are you doing in my room you-” his eyes flicker down to the sweatshirt in her hands.
He stopped mid rant, a range of expressions convulsing their way across his face, before he stutters out “That- er- that's- it’s- Tommy!” He managed. “Tommy must have left it here last time he was over.”
He laughed nervously, striding forward to snatch the clothing from her.
“I'll give it to him next time I see him.” he assured her, before shooing her out of his room.
Later she tells him that Mom told her to get his laundry out of his room and that's why she'd been in there. They both know it's a lie (Merton's been doing his own laundry since he was 14) but he doesn't call her on it.
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She goes into Merton's room again a week or so after this, but still, she finds no clues about the enigma that is the Tommy Dawkins/Merton Dingle friendship. She does, however, find the sweatshirt hidden inside Merton's pillowcase. Weird was an understatement. She also noticed that at some point a strip of photos have been stuck to the side of the computer monitor, the kind you get in photo booths, along with a larger polaroid underneath it.
The strip of photos are all of Tommy and Merton, but the larger photo includes Lori, that girl Tommy used to date. They've been hanging out a lot lately too, and she can't believe Merton has one friend, let alone two. She looked at the ones of her brother and Tommy, pressed close together to fit themselves into each little image. The bottom of the strip is ripped off, and she wondered if Tommy had the rest of them. She hoped, a little cruelly, that he didn't that the photos only held value to her brother and not to Tommy. It's not a pleasant thought, and for some reason she's almost ashamed that she thought it.
They looked happy though, she realised, staring at the photographs. Carefree. The kind of happiness that couldn't be faked.
She felt suddenly guilty for snooping about in Merton's room. There was something about the photos that made her feel like she'd walked in on something intensely private, and looking at them made her vaguely uncomfortable and strangely embarrassed. She stopped sneaking into the Lair after that, unable to shake the feeling she'd had after seeing the photographs.
But, as it turned out she didn't need to sneak about to further her investigation.
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One night after the incident with the photos she goes down to the Lair to call Merton up for dinner, and, as she's closing the door to head back upstairs, she catches sight of a football, nestled in next to the skulls and other spooky knick-knacks on Merton's shelves. She has to stop herself from pausing to stare because that definitely did not belong to Merton, and it had no business being in his room, as far as she was concerned. It had to belong to Tommy, but what it was doing in Merton's room was beyond her. It was like the sweatshirt all over again, which, honestly she'd suspected Merton might have stolen for some reason when she found out he'd kept it, but the football was in plain sight so it definitely wasn't stolen, so maybe the sweatshirt wasn't either. It bugged her so much over the next few days that in the end she just outright asks Merton the football.
"Tommy gave it to me." He said with a casual shrug. "Now put it down and get out of my Lair!" On closer inspection (I.E. when she had waltzed into Merton's room and picked it up without permission to ask about it) she had found the ball had a wonky little doodle of a skull on it in permanent marker, alongside another wonky doodle of what she thought might have been a cartoony wolf. They were pretty awful drawings, if she was being honest, so it was hard to tell. This does nothing to sate her curiosity and, unfortunately only serves to make the ball more of a mystery to her, but she does her best to put it out of her mind. After all, it was only a football.
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Sometime after this, she passed Tommy in the school hallway.He looked up, smiling as he sees her, lifting his hand to wave at her, and that's when she sees it. He was wearing a bracelet. A little black band made from strands of fake leather braided together. There were two tiny silver skull-shaped beads threaded onto the ends where it was tied. And she had that feeling again, like she was seeing something she shouldn't, because that was Merton's bracelet, she'd seen him wear it a hundred times before. She recognised the worn material, the way it had softened and creased from age, and the little chips of silver coating that were missing from the cheap, plastic, skulls. And Tommy was wearing it.
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She knew she should just let it go, just get over it. Her weirdo brother was friends with Tommy Dawkins? Big deal! But she just can't. She wants to hang out with Tommy, she want's to be friends with him, and she doesn't understand why Merton get's to have that and she doesn't. She want's to be the one to make Tommy laugh the way Merton does.
She felt like there was something she was missing, something just out of reach and try as she might, she just couldn't pin down what it was.
She wasn't kept in suspense too much longer.
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“Hey freaker” she swung the door to the Lair open “Mom wants you to-” She stopped dead. An undignified gasp squeaked it's way out of her lips and she gaped in shock at the occupants of the room.
She doesn't know what's more unbelievable, that Tommy Dawkins had just removed his hand from underneath Merton's shirt or that Merton had just removed his tongue from Tommy's mouth.
“Uh...” She wasn't even sure which one of them said that, her mind is still rebooting from the shock of seeing Tommy Dawkins making out with her brother.
“Becky-” Merton started, which is when she decided to make a strategic retreat.
She shut the door, running upstairs to the safety of her bedroom. She leaned up against her bedroom door, heart pounding against her rib-cage. There was that feeling again, that she had seen something she wasn't supposed to and it made so, so much sense now, because she had been seeing things she wasn't supposed to, like the photographs and the sweatshirt and the bracelet-
She took a deep, shuddering breath, and is embarrassed to find her eyes sting with unshed tears.
She knew that she and Tommy weren't really friends. He was always nice to her, and he called her “Beckster”, but they weren't friends. And deep down she'd always known that she'd never had a chance with Tommy. But having it confirmed still hurt. It felt like a betrayal even though it shouldn't. Did this mean Tommy was gay? Did this mean Merton was gay? This was all too much to process at once, her thoughts too frantic to slow down. She isn't sure how much time has passed before someone knocks on her door.
“Becky?”
It was Merton. For a second she's tempted to just ignore him but whatever conversation was coming she wanted to get it out of the way, fast. She opens the door and let's Merton slip inside, turning away to sit on the bed.
She stared at the floor, avoiding Merton's gaze because she still has a very vivid mental image of him and Tommy kissing in her head, and she's not sure she can look him in the eye without getting embarrassed all over again. She wondered if Tommy was still downstairs or if he'd left. Oh God, it would be so awkward the next time she saw him. There was a long, dreadful, awkward pause in which neither of them said anything. As far as Becky was concerned, this was not her silence to break, even if she could have thought of something to say, so she continued to stare at the floor, waiting for Merton to speak.
Second after agonising second seemed to tick by before he blurted out: “Please don't tell Mom and Dad!”
She hadn't even thought about telling anyone.
“At least, not yet” he continued haltingly. It struck her then just how big this thing she'd stumbled into was, how it affected Merton's life, and hers and her parents' and Tommy's.
“I mean- I'm going to tell them just- not yet- OK?” he continued, starting to sound a little frantic. She thinks about the photographs, about how happy they both looked. Oh. She get's it. She really does.
“We- we're going to tell people but just- there's-we're not ready to-”
“I won't tell anyone.” she said. She knew this wasn't her secret to tell. "Promise."
Merton relaxed, heaving a sigh of relief and slumping back against her door.
“...you're OK with this right?” He said after a moment, and she looked up at him to find that he really meant it.
He wanted her to be OK with this. It mattered to him that she was OK with this. He looked apprehensive, even scared, and Merton may be a freak, and a nuisance, but he was her brother. And dating a guy, even if it was Tommy Dawkins who she'd had the biggest crush on for the longest time, wasn't something she was going to judge him for. Everything else was still fair game though, he was still a freak after all. The fizzing, anxious mix of emotions inside of her settled slightly as she realised that, yeah, this was big, but it wasn't that big. She could deal. They could deal.
“Yeah” She said, smiling slightly “I'm OK with it.”
Merton grinned, looking immensely relieved, and rushed forward to smother her with a hug she isn't fast enough to dodge.
“But I'm still mad that you get to date Tommy and I don't."
Merton laughed and Becky knew things would turn out more OK in the end.