Chapter 39: Stray

It was May. It felt like the ground had been covered in snow just a moment ago and now everything was getting greener and greener. Larry Romano should have been happy that the end of his senior year was just a bit over a month away, much like his birthday, but instead his mood was taking a nose dive. It had been one hell of a year, a year full of horrible decisions, and that hardly even covered his breakup with the greasers.

See, despite his sister having reminded him about how stupid it was, he had neglected his future and now he knew he'd pay the price soon enough. He hadn't been accepted to any school, or any apprenticeship program. He had some money saved up, but really, what was he going to do once his sister got married? The truly problematic part was that Larry had no idea what he wanted from his life. He had never really known what to do with it, just what he didn't want to do with it. He hadn't bothered thinking about his options when he'd had them when and now those options were limited.

It would have helped if he had at least had a person he could talk about these things without being the one to sit, pretend to listen, and nod, which he inevitably did with Connie. But no, he had decided to avoid being around the dropouts until their skirmishes with the greasers were over. Out of spite, more dropouts had started to skulk around New Coventry more often, ambushing off-guard greasers when they were walking the streets in small numbers. The way things were going now, it was only a matter of time before these hostilities would culminate in an all-out rumble between the two cliques.

So yeah, until he'd pick a side, Larry would receive hardly anything but suspicious glares from these people he was now even more reluctant to call his friends. Though the cheap labor drones, desperate to make a buck, and lazy trailer trash had hardly any camaraderie between them, in hate they were all united. Even a lot of people at Larry's workplace who probably had no personal gripes with him were now being mysteriously uncooperative and grouchy in his presence because someone had apparently gossiped that he had gotten in through relations and now thought himself to be above giving a helping hand to Edgar Munsen and his guys.

It was sort of true, too. Although he couldn't justify it, Larry felt he was above all this. Or, that at least he had supposed to be. His part-time job in Blue Skies was only supposed to be a brief pit stop, not his last straw. Yet, he wasn't able to find another job in Bullworth that didn't require his own car, good people skills, years of work experience, or something else he didn't have. How had Jimmy Hopkins ever managed to get a bunch of different jobs without even trying? Larry had no idea.

With these thoughts churning and stirring in his mind, Larry pedaled downtown from work. He wasn't aware of it, but he was about to find out that his home was less of a safe haven than he had thought; there was a guest waiting for him there, someone he did not want to see or talk to. There was no warning until it was too late: as he stomped inside his sister's apartment and took his outdoor clothes off, Connie rushed to meet him at the door.

"Ah! Finally! Now that you're here, I can go shopping. I couldn't just leave the guest here alone", she chirped as she quickly pulled her boots on and threw her coat over her shoulders.

"Wha?" Larry asked as he was about to hang his jacket.

Around that very second, the boy caught on and fought very hard not to curse loudly. Right where his clothes usually hung, rested an overly familiar leather jacket.

"Go on! You two have a school assignment you need to work on, right?" Connie said and pushed her brother into the living room.

"I'll be back soon – tell Stanley to wait if he comes here while I'm gone!" she ordered as she left the apartment, closing the door behind her with a bang. Larry was now alone in the apartment with the bane of his existence, who was observing his sour expression with all the schadenfreude in the world.

"Hi Larry", Lola Lombardi greeted and cocked her brow as she sat comfortably on Connie's sofa. The place where Larry usually slept.

Larry looked at her quietly for a moment, feverishly trying to figure out a way to throw her out without her sending the hounds after him for trying to assault her or something.

"School assignment, huh?"

"Of course not", the girl giggled, waving her hand limp-wristedly at her old partner/servant/chew toy.

"... Whatever it is, I don't wanna hear it. So you can just, er, leave", Larry growled, immediately wincing at the awkward stutter in the middle.

"Aww, but I thought you'd wanna hear the good news", Lola bemoaned.

"I've heard it already, so you don't hafta bother", grunted the boy.

"Oh come on, Larry. Neither of us are psychics – I don't know what you mean by 'it' and you have no idea what I'm here to tell you", Lola said casually, but with an impatient edge to her words.

"So, let's start with what you've heard this far", she continued, crossing her legs. She blinked lazily and left her eyes half-lidded like a cat, a cat that's about to hug your wrist and shred your hand into ribbons.

An ice-cold feeling spread in Larry's gut – he felt sick under those scrutinizing, condescending eyes. How could Lola have come to his sister's home and start pushing him around so confidently? What did she have over him? For the life of him, he couldn't figure it out, and yet his brain violently rejected the thought that maybe Lola had no power over him. She always had something.

"Well?" she said expectantly, her foot bobbing up and down in the air.

Involuntarily, Larry clicked back into his old form. The numb, submissive state of a sheep.

"I heard you n' Johnny broke up again", he said obediently.

"That's it?"

"That's it."

Lola chuckled at how unsuspecting he was – he was certainly assuming that that's all there was, that her and Johnny's relationship had just another little hiccup.

"That's not all", she said quietly and shook her head.

Her expression mellowed down a bit as she both admired and pitied her own work: although Larry had the insolence to not be attracted to her anymore and was dangling by but a thread from the social circles she had once dominated, she had the upper hand. Then again, she had failed to breathe life into the corpse that was once Larry's and Johnny's rivalry.

"What I came to tell you is... I finally crossed the line", she revealed.

Larry blinked, confused.

"With Johnny?" he asked doubtfully.

"Him, too. But that's not so important", Lola said monotonously.

Larry was about to call shenanigans on her – who could be more important than her crown jewel? Her favorite chew toy, her insurance, her... Oh.

"Your grandma", he breathed. Lola nodded.

"Granny finally lost it. She said I'm not welcome in her house", she told, seeming inexplicably relieved.

"W-what did you do?" Larry asked somewhat nervously, almost expecting that Lola had abused her or something.

"I told her what I told Johnny, and just a bit more. I told her I was pregnant but also that I got an abortion. I told her I didn't regret it at all...", she said with a faint grin.

Larry wasn't sure what to think, except that Lola was sick. Then again, he had thought that for a long time.

"Don't you get it? I did it; I'm free", she said, seeming genuinely disappointed that Larry didn't seem to understand.

When Larry didn't yield and continued to stare at her with a harsh, cold expression, she sighed. Of course: she was expecting too much. She knew she was. But she still felt let down, somehow.

"Never mind, I suppose", she said bitterly.

"You don't know what it's like, having everyone fooled. Having made so many lies that people think your true self is the impostor", she continued with a low voice that made Larry shudder in discomfort.

"Finally, Johnny and granny are done, off my case", she mumbled and leaned against her hand.

As much as Larry hated himself for it, he understood her motive, sort of.

"So, you don't have a home anymore, and nobody to care about you. Now what?" Larry asked.

"I'm leaving this state", Lola said without hesitation.

"What?"

"Those are the good news I came to talk about. I'm leaving for good: I'm going somewhere far and I'm not gonna look back", she voiced proudly, excitedly.

Silence fell into Connie's living room as Larry tried to figure out what to say about that.

"I thought you'd be happy about that", Lola said with a blink when he didn't seem to be able to come up with a comment.

"I... I dunno", Larry blurted out, to the surprise of both him and her.

"How... How's Johnny?" he suddenly stammered.

"Ha, I knew you'd ask that, eventually. He took the breakup surprisingly well. A couple of days ago, I caught up with him again to inform I was leaving and he didn't seem too bothered", Lola assured.

"You being gay for him – he's taken that pretty well, too", she added casually.

Suddenly, Larry tensed. In an instant, his expression warped from dull to mad.

"Get outta here", he said huskily, gritting his teeth.

"But I'm 100% seri-"

"Not that", the boy snarled under his breath, "I want you to get the hell outta here before I fucking hit you!"

Lola could tell that he was exaggerating. But, she was impressed by his emotional response nevertheless, so she stood up politely and walked slowly to the door. Without turning around, she grabbed her leopard print leather jacket, put it on, and made her exit.

"Goodbye, Larry", her voice echoed affectionately from the hallway as she closed the door.

Larry was left in his sister's apartment, alone and boiling with anger, agony, and anxiety. He had been brought to the verge of tears, but he refused to cry again. This was, fortunately, the last time that Lola Lombardi had this effect on him.