In The Spotlight

Coiny- The Breakfast Club

It's been a grueling weekend. So grueling it felt more like 2 years than two days. We studied and studied into the late hours of the night and got up again to do it early next morning taking breaks only to eat and pee. Flower actually locked my phone in a box.

That lady is competitive.

And now it's Monday and it's back to the grind.

Well, that would imply that I wasn't on the grind before. Scratch that.

And now it's Monday and I am continuing the grind.

When I was young, I watched The Breakfast Club, as every teen since '85 did. My parents used to wonder why I liked the 'sad' parts better than the fun goofy ones, even when I was a too-good-for-feelings 12 year old boy. I don't really know why, I guess.

I shouldn't have liked it so much. It was raw. Exposed.

That's what it's been like between me and Pin. Not in a bad way, it's just... all out in the open.

So I'm a little bit shocked when I see her in the Live Studio Audience they always talk about. There she is in all of her brown-eyed glory.

That's something I've noticed. Since our fight she's had her natural brown eyes. In a way it makes me sad. Like she changed her style for me or something.

Maybe she's changing for herself. I don't really know. I'm not in her head.

Anyway, I walk up to her and she puts on an evil smile like a little girl who knows something you don't.

"Hey, why are you here?" I say, then quickly add, "Not in a 'why are you here' way, just, um, why?" Queue nervous laughter.

"You're good." She waves it off. "Anyway, I was gonna leave this weekend after getting in what I wanted to do in the city, but, I decided to cheer you on." Her devious smile returns.

"What are you doing that for?"

The expression intensifies. "Doing what?"

I push my hair from my face. "That!" I say, pointing at her smile. "That look on your face."

Pin swats my finger away. "Fine." Her eyes flit down to her lap, and for the first time I notice the rolled up paper tube resting on her skirt. "Look at this."

She unfurls it, and out comes the most ridiculous sign I have ever seen. It reads 'Go Coiny' with about a bazillion exclamation points, and two different kind of sparkle. One shines and one twinkles. I notice these things.

Her eyes glitter (much like her poster) with excitement. "You like it?" She asks, beaming.

"I appreciate it," I tell her truthfully.

Red paints her cheeks, which soon spreads across from ear to ear. "You hate it, don't you?"

"No!" She stares at me, unsatisfied. "Did you use two different kinds of glitter? Where'd you even get that?"

Her evil smile grows to the size of the Cheshire Cat's. "I have my ways."

"I've got to go, Flower looks impatient." She's tapping her foot across the room, scanning for me.

Pin nods. "KK. Go win yourself a game show!" I roll my eyes at this, but catch myself smiling at her antics.

She's a goofball, isn't she?

I stand next to Flower behind a podium fitted with a screen, as directed by 4. Their presence used to scare me, but now they are just annoying.