The study room was quiet, save for the rhythmic scratching of pencils and the occasional hum of the building’s aging HVAC system. Amelia Winters leaned over the table, her ponytail swaying as she tapped a highlighter against Tyrone Barrens’s textbook.
“Okay, what does a star turn into after it collapses?” she asked, her voice bright with the patient encouragement of a natural-born tutor.
Tyrone stared at the page, his brow furrowed in a way that suggested the information was in there somewhere, just buried under layers of high school glory and catchy rap lyrics.
“A movie of the week?” Chase mockingly echoed from a distance.
Tyrone giggled at Chases comment, then confidently looked at Amelia and said, “Black hole.”
Amelia didn’t flinch. “A black hole, Tyrone. Right.”
“Tyrone, you could be an astronomer,” she added, her eyes shining. To Amelia, Orangeside wasn’t just a safety school; it was a place of reinvention. She saw the potential in everyone, especially the former star quarterback sitting across from her.
Wilson Firestone, sitting nearby, leaned back, a smirk playing on his lips as he joked. “As far as I’m concerned, there’s only one black hole worth studying,” Tyrone and Amelia paused, giving Wilson a concerned look. Wilson then continued, “It’s called Sagittarius A. It’s in the center of our galaxy and it has the density of forty suns.” He paused for the punchline. “Just like my wiener.”
Tyrone let out a bark of a laugh, pointing a finger at him. “Ha-ha! You said ‘wiener.’ That’s funny.”
“Wilson and Tyrone didn’t get along at first,” Elvis muttered from the corner, not looking up from his notebook, “but now they’re bonding through mutual adolescence.”
“Shut up, that’s just a conspiracy theory,” Wilson snapped, though there was no real heat in it.
“I don’t know who this Mew-Tool person, and how do you know his full name?” Tyrone shot back.
The door swung open, and Dean Starmer swept in, wearing a suit that felt just a little too sharp for a community college afternoon. He paused, clasping his hands together as he took in the table.
“Hi, everybody! Well, look at this group,” the Dean chirped, his eyes darting from person to person. “Having some kind of meeting and being so… diverse. There is just—boy, there is just one of every kind of you, isn’t there?”
Wilson squinted at him. “Well, we are missing a pipsqueak, but we don’t want one, so beat it.”
“Wilson,” Chase Wright interjected, looking up from his phone with a practiced air of boredom, “that’s the Dean.”
“You kidding?” Wilson looked back at the Dean, momentarily stunned. “Sorry. Just my luck.”
“It’s all right,” the Dean said, waving a hand dismissively as he began to pace the room. “Don’t let me interrupt. Sometimes I just roll around campus like a little football.” He stopped abruptly, his theatrical gaze landing on Tyrone. “I can’t believe this! Here I am in a random conversation about football, and I’m talking to Tyrone Barrens, star quarterback from Orangeside High!”
Tyrone shifted in his seat, the mention of Riverside bringing a flick of old pride to his eyes.
“Tyrone, did you know Orangeside College has a football team?” the Dean asked.
“Did you know they had a football?” Chase countered.
The Dean laughed, perhaps a bit too loudly. “Good! Very funny. Chase,” Turning his attention back to Tyrone, the Dean continued, “ I was so sorry to hear about your injury, but now that you’ve recovered, we would love for you to play for the ‘Living Things’.”
The room went silent.
“The team’s name is the Living Things?” Chase asked, his face twisting in confusion.
“Yeah. My idea,” the Dean said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “It was the Orangeside Monkeys, but I thought… well, a lot of these students have been called animals their whole lives.” He brightened again. “Unfortunately, I don’t know what to do about the mascot.”
“Ooh, I could help with that, Your Majesty,” Wilson chimed in, suddenly eager. “I have a wealth of experience in image management and icon development.”
“Well, aren’t you found money!” The Dean turned back to Tyrone, his tone pleading. “Tyrone, all of your friends are lining up to turn Orangeside around. How about you?”
Before Tyrone could answer, Amelia stepped in, her voice firm. “Tyrone isn’t interested in football anymore. Getting injured in that keg stand was the best thing that ever happened to him.”
Dean Starmer rolled his eyes. “Whoa. Yoko Ono much? Bros before ho’s, Tyrone.”
Tyrone looked at the Dean, then at his friends. The ghost of the “Great Tyrone Barrens” hovered in the air, but he shook his head. “Listen, man, no offense, but I was the best and I finished on top. I wouldn’t play Madden on playstation here, let alone actual football.”
Chase leaned back, a smug smile crossing his face. “Dean, I’m sure Tyrone will sign up for football if and when some accident damages the part of his brain that feels shame. Until then, would you excuse us?”
The Dean’s shoulders slumped. “Well, if you Cabare your mind, the field is always open. Figuratively speaking. Wednesdays and Sundays it’s used as parking overflow for the Computer Fair.”
As the Dean shuffled out, Chase stood up, smoothing his shirt. “Now, let’s meet the minimum requirements for a computer class, shall we?
Sharon gave a polite cough, excusing herself, “ Yes, but I need to go to the bathroom first. Christina?”
Christina Puhr didn’t look up from her book. “Oh, no, I’m good. Hope everything comes out smooth.”
Sharon’s smile faltered, a flicker of hurt crossing her features. She turned and walked out of the room without another word.
“What? She’s offended?” Christina asked, looking around the table in genuine confusion.
“Girls go in groups,” Chase explained, as if teaching a toddler. “Did you learn nothing from late night sitcoms from the 2000s?”
Christina sighed, the weight of social expectation clearly annoying her. “I’m familiar with the concept, I just—fine. If it’s important to Sharon, I’ll go next time. I’m willing to try some more mainstream feminine stuff.”
“Then you should know,” Chase smirked, “nothing says ‘I’m a woman’ like doing it with me.”
Christina didn’t even blink. “Nothing says ‘I’m a pig’ like you.”
“Will they or won’t they? Sexual tension,” Elvis whispered, narrating the room.
“Elvis,” Chase groaned, “it makes the group uncomfortable when you talk like we’re characters in a book you’re reading.”
“Well, that’s sort of my gimmick,” Elvis replied simply. “But we did lean on that pretty hard last week. I can lay low for a chapter.”
The chemistry lab smelled of sulfur and unwashed lab coats. Christina sat next to Sharon, trying her best to be the “mainstream” friend she’d promised to be. When her phone rang, she ignored it, but the tension in the room was thick.
“I’m going to the bathroom,” Christina whispered, leaning toward Sharon. “Would you like to come with me?”
Sharon’s entire face lit up. “Well, yes. Yes, I would. That’s so sweet.”
They slipped out of the room, leaving a frustrated Professor Cook shouting about pens and rapid oxidation. As they entered the ladies room, Sharon began to vent, her voice rising with the familiar rhythm of a shared grievance.
“I had my blinker on about five minutes,” Sharon said, gesturing wildly, “and this no-good, clearly bald but trying to hide it with a bandana loser swooped right in! I couldn’t believe it.”
Christina, trying to be supportive but failing to suppress her natural instinct to debate, shrugged. “Maybe he didn’t see you.”
Sharon paused, her brow furrowing. “He saw me.”
“ Maybe he had his blinker on, too.” Christina prodded.
“Maybe,” Sharon said non-committally.
Seeking a safer topic, she asked, “So, you got any family, Christina?”
Christina gave a huff when hearing about family, “Yeah, whatever.”
Still trying to make conversation, Sharon continued, “ My mom might visit this weekend. She and I are gonna get makeovers at that spa…”
“Makeovers,” Christina scoffed, the word acting like a trigger. “They sure have us programmed right.” She dropped her voice into a flat, robotic monotone. “I am a female pleasure unit. I require a new coat of paint.”
Sharon stopped walking, her expression hardening.
“I just thought it might be fun,” Sharon said quietly.
But Christina was on a roll. “Here’s something I think might be fun: let’s find out the number of makeup companies that are owned by women. I’ll save you the trouble. It’s zero.”
She followed Sharon to the restroom door, slamming the adjacent hand dryer the sound of it roaring to life as if to mute the speech. Christina didn’t notice Sharon’s attempt. She was too busy dismantling the patriarchy, one lipstick tube at a time, unaware that she was dismantling her friendship, too.
While Christina was busy inadvertently alienating Sharon, the Dean’s office had transformed into a makeshift design studio.
Dean Starmer sat behind his desk, staring intensely at a sketch Wilson had provided. It was a muscular, nude figure reminiscent of Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, though it bore a suspicious resemblance to Wilson himself.
“I, uh, have been a little stumped,” the Dean admitted, tilting the paper. “But… the penis is a little small, I think.”
“Oh, okay,” Wilson said, unbothered.
“Here’s the thing,” the Dean continued, leaning forward. “If we are the Living Things, and we have a mascot that’s just a human, what message are we sending? Our symbol needs to reflect the diversity of our school and our world.”
Wilson nodded solemnly. “So, some kind of wolf/cat man thing?”
“No,” the Dean sighed, “because we’re not the Orangeside Cryptids, Mr. Firestone. Or the Orangeside Ghouls. We are the Orangeside Living Things.”
A sharp knock at the door interrupted them. Chase Wright strolled in, his eyes immediately landing on the sketch. “Sorry to disturb you guys, who are clearly looking at a clearly naked drawing of Wilson doing jumping jacks.”
“Chase!” the Dean brightened. “A quick download, please?”
Wilson gathered his things, mumbling about filling the Dean in later. Once the door clicked shut, the Dean turned his full attention to Chase. He reached out, his hand hovering dangerously close to Chase’s hair. “Is that real bed head, or do you put something in there? Can I…?”
Chase leaned back, his eyes narrowing. “It’s genetics. Dean, let’s talk posters. Why am I the frontman for your ad campaign?”
“Ah, yes.” The Dean pulled out a stack of mailers. “I thought the disembodied heads were a bit impersonal, so I went with full bodies for these mailers going out to the community.”
Chase froze. He stared down at the glossy paper. There he was—smiling, looking like a poster boy for academic mediocrity. “Mailers? I didn’t give permission for this. If someone from the outside were to find out I’m a student at a community college, it could kill my career.”
The Dean’s expression shifted from adoring to calculating. It was a look Chase recognized well; it was the look of a man who finally had leverage. “Goodness. Look what we have stumbled onto. An opportunity to help each other out.”
He tapped the mailer. “I suppose I wouldn’t need this promotional campaign if I could announce to the press that Tyrone Barrens is playing football here.”
“I think he’s been pretty clear about declining that,” Chase said, though his mind was already spinning.
“I think if you said jump, he’d say, ‘How high?’ If you said get me a water, he’d say ‘Spring or Tap?” the Dean countered. “You starting to get what I mean?”
Chase looked at the stack of mailers—the evidence of his fall from grace. Then he looked at the Dean. “You trying to blackmail me?”
“I think so,” the Dean whispered, looking thrilled by his own daring.
Chase found Tyrone near the empty, overgrown football field. Tyrone was looking at his books, but his eyes were far away, stuck somewhere in a high school highlight reel.
“You ever miss being a quarterback, Tyrone?” Chase asked, leaning against a rusted fence.
Tyrone sighed. “I miss being the best at something. I miss having a coach. I miss knowing what to think.”
“You still know what to think, Tyrone,” Chase said smoothly. “For instance, after the Dean talked to you, you and I were thinking the same thing: that dude looks like Moby.”
Tyrone let out a small laugh. “He does.”
“But we were also thinking… what if Tyrone did play for Orangeside?” Chase stepped closer, his voice dropping into a persuasive, brotherly hum. “You’d be surprised how many of your favorite players got started at community college.”
“Really? Name one.”
“Who’s your favorite player?”
“Me,” Tyrone said instantly, freezing at the shocking truth of it.
“Exactly,” Chase said, spreading his arms wide as if the cracked asphalt and weeds were a stadium. “When you played, you were a god. Now you’re not playing, and you’re… what, being tutored by a girl right outa highschool?”
Tyrone looked at the field. He saw a pregnant woman jogging in a jersey and a man who was barely five feet tall fumbling a snap. It was pathetic. It was Orangeside.
“It’s like a drug, isn’t it?” Chase whispered, sensing the hesitation. “Feel it, Tyrone. The scoreboard lights up. The girls, the glory, the scouts. It starts when you join this team.”
Tyrone gripped his backpack straps. “Is that linebacker a pregnant woman?”
“Look, the decision has to be yours, T-Bone,” Chase said, already turning to walk away. “And this decision has to be yes.”
Tyrone blinked. “How did you know my nickname was T-Bone?”
Chase didn’t skip a beat. “Because you’re a football player and your name begins with T.”
“My name begins with T” Tyrone whispered to himself, a grin breaking across his face.
Back in the hallway, the “mainstream feminine” experiment was crashing and burning. Christina caught up with Sharon as she exited the bathroom.
“Oh, are you finished?” Christina asked. “I mean, I have to go, but apparently, I failed yesterday’s tryouts for bathroom companion.”
“Wasn’t trying to hurt your feelings Christina,” Sharon responded.
“You didn’t hurt my feelings. I normally go solo on my bathroom adventures, I was just throwing you a bone because I like you.”
Sharon stopped, her jaw set. “You can keep that bone, Christina. Listening to a story about a person pissing me off and taking their side? Insinuating my mama’s a robot? That is the ladies’ room. A place where ladies go to share, listen, and support each other.”
Christina looked genuinely stung. “I’ve peed alone my whole life,” she admitted, her voice breaking. “Women have always hated me. I don’t even know how it started. Maybe it was when I got boobs before everybody…”
Sharon’s expression softened instantly. She pulled Christina toward the door. “Shhh. Not out here. In there.”
As the two disappeared into the sanctuary of the stalls, Tyrone swaggered into the hallway, a new bounce in his step. He spotted Amelia at their usual table.
“You dropped your books, Poindexter,” Tyrone joked, sliding into his seat after knocking the books out of another students hands. He began a rhythmic, aggressive rap about Orangeside High—a “shamefully outdated” fight song full of politically safe jabs and jock bravado.
Amelia’s face fell. “Tyrone, stop. Don’t become this person again. This is the arrogant jock that ignored the only people who truly saw how special he was.”
“Football is bad for you, Tyrone,” she pleaded.
Tyrone just shrugged, his eyes cold in a way she hadn’t seen since high school. “Chase said you’d say that.”
Amelia froze. “Chase… what?”
“Tyrone. Tyrone, Tyrone, Tyrone,” he chanted, walking away to find his new teammates.
Amelia stood alone in the center of the room, her heart sinking. She knew Chase Wright was many things, but she hadn’t realized he was a saboteur.
In the Dean’s office, the atmosphere had shifted from administrative to something resembling a mad scientist’s lab. Wilson and the Dean were huddled over a large drafting table, surrounded by skin-tone swatches and anatomical sketches that looked increasingly like something out of a horror movie.
“I think if we add in a little bit of Phylicia Rashad, we’ll be in better shape,” the Dean mused, holding up a beige marker.
“You’re right,” Wilson agreed, squinting. “That beige is a little light.”
They were deep into the creation of the “perfect” mascot—a creature devoid of any identifiable race, gender, species or feature that could possibly result in a lawsuit. Chase leaned against the doorframe, watching them with a mixture of fascination and horror.
“You see, Chase,” the Dean said, gesturing to a chart. “This is a list of features we’re staying away from: Pan-Asian eye folds, Irish chins, women’s breasts.” He pointed to a color wheel that looked like a gradient of muddy browns. “It goes from Seal to Seal’s teeth. What do you think?”
“I think not being racist is the new racism,” Chase remarked dryly. He looked at the prototype—a gray, featureless lump of clay. “What happened to the nose?”
“I left it in the kiln,” Wilson said dismissively.
The Dean turned to Chase, his eyes alight with triumph. “So, Tyrone is going to play?”
“Yes,” Chase said. “Which means I’ll be getting a bunch of mailers from you to use in my fireplace.”
The Dean’s smile took on a sharp, bureaucratic edge. “No. I won’t mail them, but they stay with me until the press announces Tyrone is on the team. I want him at that pep rally tonight. Reporters will be there, we unveil the mascot, and things finally start turning around!” He paused, a personal vendetta flickering in his eyes. “My ex-therapist is going to think twice before he makes fun of my job!”
Chase didn’t make it ten feet down the hallway before a rustle in the decorative shrubbery stopped him cold. Amelia Winters emerged from the leaves like a vengeful woodland sprite, her eyes narrowed.
“Aha! I’ve been following you,” she hissed. “How much did the Dean pay you to make Tyrone play football?”
Chase didn’t stop walking. “I’m not having a conversation with someone who emerges from a bush.”
“Because I’m right?”
“Because I’m not in a commercial for breakfast cereal,” Chase shot back. He sighed, stopping as she scurried to keep up. “Look, the Dean has pictures of me, okay? Horrible pictures of me… attending his school.”
Amelia’s jaw dropped. “And for that, you’ve convinced Tyrone to flush his life down football’s toilet again? Christina’s right. You are the most selfish person alive. I’m telling him what kind of friend you really are.”
Chase stopped and turned, his height looming over her. He didn’t use anger; he used the cold, surgical precision of a former defense attorney. “Maybe you should tell him you’re hopelessly in love with him.”
Amelia flinched as if he’d slapped her.
“High school must have been tough, huh?” Chase continued, his voice dropping to a low, devastating hum. “Waiting for a superstar to notice you, but you didn’t get hot until AFTER highscool. Here, he’s all yours and needs so much help. Did you enroll in all his classes, or were you worried that might freak him out? You don’t really care what he wants, Amelia. You just don’t want to share him with the world. You’re just as selfish as I am. You’re just not as good at it yet.”
The fight drained out of Amelia’s face, replaced by a raw, stinging hurt. “You’re right,” she whispered, her lip trembling. “I could never be as good as you. Probably because I actually care.”
“Profound,” Chase said, though his voice lacked its usual sting, “but technically meaningless.”
Amelia turned and ran toward the restroom, her vision blurring with tears. Chase watched her go, the silence of the hallway suddenly feeling very heavy. “And don’t bother trying that thing women do where they walk away and make the guy feel like crap,” he called out, “because it won’t happen!”
He stood there for a beat, the quiet ringing in his ears. “Damn it,” he muttered to the empty hall.
Inside the recreation room, the atmosphere was far more communal. Christina was sitting lazily on a couch looking at want ads when Amelia burst in, sobbing.
“Sharon, will you please come to the bathroom with me?” Amelia cried, as she ran to the ladies room. Sharon nodded at Christina, as if signalling to her that this is a chance to prove herself worthy of bathroom talk.
Christina entered the bathroom. Amelia sniffled and looked over, “Where’s Sharon?”
“Sharon’s not coming,” Christina said, stepping forward with a surprising softness. “But I’m here to listen, girl.”
Amelia collapsed into a hug, her tears soaking into Christina’s leather jacket. “Why do we inflict so much pain on ourselves for men?”
“I don’t know, sweetie,” Christina said, in a stuttered tone, while handing Amelia a Kleenex. “Maybe because men make the world go around?”
Amelia sniffled, wiping her eyes. “I’ve been infatuated with Tyrone. Now he’s joining football, and he’ll have his pick of the litter. I’ll never get to be with him.”
“Oh, Amelia, screw him,” Christina said firmly. “There are guys out there who would kill to be with you. If Tyrone isn’t one of them, that’s him failing your standards. You got that?”
Amelia looked at them—the “hard” girl and the “traditional” woman—standing together to hold her up. A small, watery smile touched her lips. “You’re right. I can’t control him. And if I truly cared about him, I wouldn’t want to. Thanks, Christina.”
“Seriously?” Christina asked, her eyes widening.
“Yes.”
Sharon started walking towards them beaming with joy, Amelia got prepared for a full force hug only to be bypassed with Sharon embracing Christina impressed with her successful maneuvering of bathroom politics, “Who’s my girl?”
The air outside the gymnasium hummed with the rhythmic, low-frequency thumping of a marching band that sounded suspiciously like it only had three working instruments. Amelia’s words together with the guilt of making her cry brought him here.
“Living Things! Living Things! Living Things!”
The chant drifted out from the locker rooms, more of a polite suggestion than a war cry. Chase stood by the entrance, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, watching the motley crew of athletes file past. He saw the pregnant linebacker and the diminutive kicker, and for the first time, the weight of what he’d done felt less like a clever legal maneuver and more like a low blow.
He spotted Tyrone near the back of the line, adjusting his helmet.
“Tyrone,” Chase called out. “Don’t go in there, man.”
Tyrone stopped, looking confused. “What? You told me football was the most important thing in the world.”
“Well, buckle up, Tyrone,” Chase said, his voice stripped of its usual bravado. “I was exaggerating. It’s kind of my gimmick.” He stepped closer, looking Tyrone in the eye. “You got the most you were ever going to get out of football in high school. A life of disillusionment and depression begins on the other side of that door.”
A random teammate yells out, “Hey, we can hear you guys.”
Tyrone pulled his helmet off, but he didn’t look angry. He looked… relieved. “Hey, man, let me tell you something. You know that keg flip that cost me my scholarship?”
“Yeah.”
“I hurt myself on purpose.”
Chase blinked, the wind knocked out of his sails. “What?”
“There was a scout coming to the final game at Orangeside High and I couldn’t take the pressure,” Tyrone admitted, his voice quiet. “So I took the easy way out. When you showed me that field, I saw there was nothing to worry about here. I could just play for the fun of it. I mean, have you seen these guys?” He gestured to a teammate currently struggling to put on a jersey. “There is nowhere to go but up.”
“Dude, we have feelings!” the teammate shouted over his shoulder.
Tyrone turned back to Chase, a sudden, unexpected maturity in his gaze. “I don’t know about you, but I know I ended up here because things weren’t that great out there. You should try accepting where you’re at, man. Take a pottery class or something.”
Chase watched him walk away, stunned. The student had just schooled the master, and the master didn’t have a rebuttal.
A few minutes later, Chase found Amelia standing near the bleachers. The evening chill was setting in, and the glowing lights of the gym spilled out onto the pavement.
“Hey,” Chase said.
“Hey,” Amelia replied, her voice neutral. “I’ve decided to support Tyrone. I wrote a cheer. ‘Orangeside, we’re number one / Doorhinge aside we super fun.’ I went for rhyme over clarity.”
Chase let out a short, dry laugh. He took a breath, the cold air stinging his lungs. “Look, I’m… I’m really sorry about before. I just think we were both wrong.”
Amelia turned to him, one eyebrow arched. “Really? Because I’m an nineteen-year-old girl and you made me cry in public.”
Chase winced. “Hmm. Okay, maybe I was a little more wrong. I should grow up and make peace with being here. It’s not like Orangeside is gonna kill me or anything.”
“Holy crap!” Chase screamed as a nightmare rendered in silver spandex shuffled towards them flanked by Dean Starmer and WIlson.
It was a figure draped head-to-toe in a skin-tight, featureless gray bodysuit. It had no face—only black, soulless circles for eyes and a mouth that appeared to be a series of ventilation holes poked into the fabric with a pencil. It lurched toward them, arms stiff.
“Sorry!” the Dean shouted, scurrying up behind the creature with Wilson in tow. “Say hello to our ethnically neutral mascot, the Orangeside Living Thing!”
The mascot let out a muffled, terrifying grunt.
“The costume makes it difficult for him to see,” the Dean explained cheerfully. “He can’t move his mouth either, but take it from me, that’s Thing for ‘hello.’”
Wilson beamed, looking like a proud father. “We’ve solved racism. What’s next?”
“Let’s do something for little people,” the Dean suggested, steering the silver monstrosity toward the gym doors. “Or albinos.”
“How about dwarf albinos, we can call them white dwarfs?” Wilson added.
Chase and Amelia stood side by side, watching the Dean, the millionaire, and the faceless silver demon disappear into the pep rally. The muffled sound of a “fight rap” began to play over the loudspeakers.
“Well,” Chase said, offering his arm to Amelia. “This has the potential to be a uniquely Orangeside experience.”
Amelia smiled, sliding her arm through his. “My lord?”
“My lady.”
Together, they walked toward the noise, leaving the ghosts of their old lives at the door.