Sure to Shine

Eric had never felt awkwardness like it. Despite being at the front, he had to wait until nearly last to get out of there, seems everyone from the rows behind the front always seemed to dash out a lot faster and leave no room for anyone to squeeze out. Eric kept his eyes on the floor, not looking at everyone who he knew were staring at him, whispering things.

Jeremy was standing by the door, and Eric didn’t think that he could bear to go past him. He was still watching with that haunted look on his face, and Eric felt guilty just for looking the way he did. He could feel Jeremy’s eyes on him as he dragged his feet towards the door, and for a brief, uncomfortable second as he reached the door, they were eye-to-eye.

"Will they say much?" Jeremy suddenly asked, in the same second as Eric realised it was only the two of them in the room.

"What?" Eric asked, before realising that Jeremy was asking about his classmates. "Oh, no, probably not," he added. "I mean, there might be a few snide comments, but I don’t think they’ll make a big deal out of it."

There was a pause, and then Eric got the courage to look Jeremy in the face.

"It’s freaky, isn’t it?" he asked quietly, and Jeremy gave a small smile and nodded.

"Yeah, it is, if you don’t mind me saying so myself," he admitted.

"I feel kinda bad," Eric admitted.

"Ah, don’t. It’s not your fault, is it? You hardly did it on purpose," Jeremy managed another smile, and then he chuckled slightly. "Though for a second I thought I’d seen a ghost or something."

"I wondered if you would have thought that," Eric admitted. "Listen, I think what you did today was really brave, like. I don’t think I could ever have stood up and said about something so horrible."

"I wondered what I was doing standing up there," Jeremy said. "It’s the first time I’ve properly spoken about it, and I still don’t know why I got in touch with the school. I guess I’m just fed up of kids glorifying and joking around about stuff like this. It’s life-destroying, when something like this happens."

"It must be hard when you have to see it again," Eric said.

"Yeah. Columbine was only two years afterwards, and I didn’t turn the news on for weeks. I just couldn’t bear to think about all those people going through the exact same thing."

There was a brief pause, and then Jeremy managed another small grin.

"Anyway, I don’t want to be thoroughly depressing you for the rest of the day. You’d better get yourself to class."

"Urgh," Eric said, pulling a face. "I suppose I’d better. See you, and good luck."

"You too, kid."

Eric felt Jeremy’s eyes on him until the moment the door shut behind him, and he paused at the end of the corridor, taking a deep breath. Then, he pulled himself away from the wall and made his way up to his homeroom, where they had left all their bags.

He knew they were all talking about him before he even put his hand on the door handle, and, frowning, he stopped to listen, wondering what sort of drama they could create over this. He remembered what he and Skylar had been talking about, and thought about the fact they should just tell him to his face.

"But did you see that picture?" one person was saying. "That was some freaky shit right there."

"I know, I would have said that was Eric if I hadn’t known better," someone agreed. "But did you not hear about what happened in Psychology the other day?"

"What?"

"His friend was doing his project thing on school shootings and you should see what else he’s got in common. He’s got stuff in common with both the Columbine shooters."

"You being serious?"

"Yeah, well, obviously he had the same first name as one of them -"

"He has?" someone else asked.

"Yeah," someone said, filling them in. "They were called Eric and Dylan."

"Oh. Freaky."

"That’s what I thought. But then it turns out that he has the same birthday as the other one. I’m starting to wonder what else he has in common."

Eric rolled his eyes as he pulled the door handle down and walked in. Instantly there was that silence which always followed when people had been talking about a person and they had just walked into the room.

"Oh, don’t worry," Eric said to them. "I heard everything anyway. You may as well carry on. Oh, and while you’re on the subject, I also have the same Politics textbook he was assigned when he was here."

Eric grabbed the book out of his bag and opened it to the page where everyone’s names were written.

"See? Look at that. Weird."

Eric could have laughed at how uncomfortable everyone looked. He raised an eyebrow.

"Not going to continue?" he asked. "Of course. None of you have the balls to mention it to my face, do you? It’s called coincidences, people. Now why don’t you all go and find something important to talk about?"

Eric was in a foul mood for the rest of the day. He found himself in the same state of mind as he had been the day before, and he knew that if he carried on, he was going to get into trouble for it. However, at the exact moment in time, he didn’t really care. He was fed up of people gawping at him as though he was actually Ben Murdoch back from the dead, and he had never been so glad to hear the bell ring. It was turning out to be a pretty annoying week, and he was only halfway through it.

Eric wasted no time getting home, but he was surprised to find his father was already there. He was sitting at the computer, one hand scrolling down with the mouse, the other holding the phone to his ear.

"No," he was saying, and he sounded annoyed. "I’m pretty sure I haven’t lost it. How do I know? It’s sitting right here!"

Eric decided he had better leave his father to his phone call, as it sounded as though it was an annoying one. He went into his room and chilled out there for a while, flicking through the textbook again. No matter how many times he looked through it, he always found another comment of Ben’s. It seemed that was all he had done in Politics.

Eventually, after around half an hour had passed, Eric heard his father had gotten off of the phone. He got up to go and see if everything was all right, but found his father already making his way towards him.

"Everything all right, Dad?" Eric asked. His father looked tense and worried.

"No, everything’s not all right," he sighed. "Eric, I know this is a fine cheek, but have you been messing around with my bank card?"

"What?" Eric asked, thoroughly confused. "No! Why would I have been? What’s happened?"

"I just had to make sure," Matthew groaned, running his hand through his hair much like his son did when he was worried or stressed. "Someone’s been into the account, Eric. I never thought for a minute you’d done it, but the bank company told me to check with everyone just in case, because my card was still in my wallet, it was never stolen."

"How much is gone?" Eric asked quietly.

"Nine hundred dollars," Matthew sighed. "That was all I had in there, as well. The rent hasn’t even come out yet, and I can’t afford it now. I literally have two dollars in there!"

Eric felt his heart drop. He felt desperately sorry for his father. He’d worked so hard to keep bringing money in, working two jobs just so his son could focus on his education. He had finally been getting back on track, and now this.

"Jeez, Dad," Eric said softly. "I’m real sorry. But I don’t know what could have happened. I never touched it."

"I know you haven’t," Matthew said. "I never thought for one second you’d steal off of me, and even if you had, you wouldn’t be stupid enough to take nine hundred dollars."

Eric gave a small smile.

"Perhaps someone’s got in via a computer or something?" he suggested. "Perhaps when you were on your account online someone had bugged it or whatever? People do that sometimes."

"I know," Matthew sighed. "Bloody scum of the earth, the lot of them. If these low-lives got out of the house and got a job, they wouldn’t have to steal off of people, would they? Lazy bastards."

"The bank can get the money back, though, can’t it?" Eric asked worriedly. He didn’t know what they would do if they had lost it all.

"I hope so," Matthew said. "I have to ring all sorts of people, and even then they might not get it back in time for me to pay rent on this place. That’s another point; I had better get a hold of the landlord, and tell him what’s happened. I’ve never given him trouble before, hopefully he’ll be forgiving."

"He’d better be," Eric said. "Else we’ll just steal off of him and see how he likes it."

Matthew managed a laugh.

"Two wrongs don’t make a right and all that, Eric."

"I suppose not," Eric admitted.

Eric knew his father would be spending the rest of the night chasing up people and on and off the phone to the bank, so he decided that the best place he could be would be out of his father’s way. The less stress he had, the better. Therefore, the evening was incredibly dull, and Eric resorted to going into the living room and watching TV.

He must have fallen asleep again. When he opened his eyes, he was sprawled out on the sofa, the TV still playing quietly in the corner. Eric cursed and shut it off, knowing that he couldn’t be wasting any electricity after what had happened earlier.

However, the sounds from the TV continued even after Eric had switched it off. Confused, he squinted around himself in the darkness, wondering where it was coming from.

He soon realised that there was someone gently tapping on the living room window, and it only took him another few seconds to realise that this person was Skylar Mitchell.

Eric couldn’t say he was overjoyed to see him, but curiosity got the better of him and he crept to the hallway, putting on his shoes and slipping out of the front door, into the cold night air. Skylar was already waiting on the doorstep, as though this was some already-arranged mission.

"Come on," Skylar told him simply, further adding to the illusion.

"This isn’t going to be another all-nighter, is it?" Eric asked. "Because I’ve fallen asleep in enough uncomfortable places, thanks very much."

"I don’t know how long we’ll be," Skylar shrugged. "But I have something totally awesome to show you."

As they walked out of the gate, Eric noticed that Skylar had a duffel bag thrown down on the floor by the fence.

"What’s in the bag?" Eric asked nervously. If Skylar had been running around with a gun the other night, he dreaded to think what the young man could have got his hands on this time.

"You’ll see," Skylar said mysteriously, before looking at Eric. "Come on, then. Wait until you see what I found!"