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❛ ᴏᴄᴇᴀɴ ᴇʏᴇꜱ​​​​​​​​​​. ❜ ° . ༄
- ͙۪۪˚   ▎❛ 𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍 ❜   ▎˚ ͙۪۪̥◌
»»————- ꒰ ᴛʜᴇ ғᴀᴛʜᴇʀ/sᴏɴ ɢᴀᴍᴇ ꒱


❝ I GOTTA TAKE CARE
OF MY WIFE, Y'KNOW? ❞

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"And to the republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all." The class finished their daily pledge and sat down, ready for the day.

"Miss Lawrence, I couldn't help noticing that you didn't recite the Pledge of Allegiance this morning," Mr. Feeny said as he walked to his desk.

"Yes sir. I elected not to," Topanga admitted.

"Why was that?"

"I didn't feel like it."

"This is gonna be good!" Cory said eagerly.

Juliet rolled her eyes at his insistence of making fun of Topanga. It was one of the few things she didn't join him and Shawn in— that, and baseball or sports in general.

"What was that, Mr. Matthews?" Mr. Feeny asked.

"Uh, I said 'this is gonna be cool,' Mr. Feeny."

"Why?"

"'Cause you're finally gonna nail Topanga for being weird."

"Do you think it's weird to engage in social protest?" their teacher questioned him.

"I think it's weird to pick on me when she's the one who didn't say the pledge," Cory answered.

"Well Mr. Matthews, it seems that you and Miss Lawrence are on opposing sides of this debate."

"Uh-oh," the boy complained.

"I don't know how you didn't see this coming," Juliet said easily, smirking slightly. Cory turned to glare at her briefly.

"You've been set up, bud," Minkus agreed.

"Mr. Feeny told you not to say the pledge?" Cory demanded. Topanga merely smiled at him before she turned to face the front again.

On the chalkboard, Mr. Feeny wrote: "today's Social Studies discussion: American traditions. The Pledge of Allegiance versus Social Protest."

"Mr. Matthews, defend Old Glory. Miss Lawrence, defend the right to dissent."

They both stood and Topanga spoke first: "just because it's tradition doesn't mean you have to do it."

"But it's the pledge!" Cory said. "It takes, like, ten seconds to say. Why can't you just say it and make everyone happy?"

"Because if I'm forced to do it just because it's some tradition that I don't understand, then it doesn't make me happy," Topanga answered.

"Can you spell peculiar?" Cory asked.

"Oh, and you're normal? You talk to a flag every day and you don't understand what you're saying."

"But I do it. I do it because I'm supposed to do it and that's what makes me a great American."

Shawn put his hands around his mouth and mimicked a trumpet, causing Juliet to smile. After a second's hesitation, she copied him to repeat the tune in round.

"That's what makes this country great," Cory said over his friends' encore. "That flag. Because that flag gives us the right to have this discussion and this discussion is the most important discussion we will ever have and—"

The bell rang to signal the end of class. "I'm out!" the boy called without a moment's pause.

🌎🌎🌎

"Parents don't understand how important the weekend is, you know?" Cory asked as the three of them sat down to lunch.

"Yeah. Like there's enough not enough pressure on us being in the sixth grade all week," Shawn agreed.

"I don't know how you're gonna cope when we get to high school," Juliet commented as she opened her package of Oreos.

"And then they want us to do stuff on our only days off," Cory said, rolling his eyes at the redhead's sarcasm.

"Only three days 'til Monday," Minkus said cheerfully as he set his tray down opposite Shawn.

"Minkus, I'm sure that if you check your ticket stub, you'll see that your seat is in the goon section," the dark-haired boy told him.

Juliet immediately poked her friend's side. "Be nice!"

"Don't worry, my sweet," Minkus said. "I'm just leaving my tray here for a minute while I get an apple."

"Bye, Minkus," Shawn said. His eyes narrowed at the boy as he left.

"I mean, my weekends are jam-packed. I have no spare time." Cory was still whining about his problem but neither of his friends were paying attention.

Shawn's gaze was fixed on Minkus' hamburger while Juliet was focused on separating the icing from her cookies.

"Don't do it, Shawnie. You know it's gonna backfire on you," the redhead said before the boy even spoke.

"Minkus left his hamburger here," Shawn argued, almost pleadingly. "It's very hard for me to be left alone with Minkus' hamburger."

"I get up Saturday morning and watch X-men," Cory was still saying. "My next stop is the comic book store."

"Especially when it's just sitting there, begging for more salt."

Juliet rolled her eyes as he uncapped the saltshaker and opened the hamburger to pour it on top. "You're asalting the poor thing, Shawnie. Let it be."

"Then in the afternoon, I hang out with you guys," Cory said as Juliet's pun went unacknowledged.

"I don't know if it's a personality disorder with me or what."

"I'm totally gonna say 'I told you so' on this one," the redhead told him.

"Then it's home for Saturday night pizza night."

"But I'm never happy unless I'm doing stuff like this," Shawn said as he looked for something else to put on the burger.

Deciding to prank her friend, Juliet pointed to his pudding cup, to which he shot her a pleased smile. As he slathered the stuff on the burger, Cory was finishing up his schedule: "and then it's four hours of video games and it's a good night."

The redhead passed Shawn the bare cookies from her Oreos.

"I don't just mean a little happy," he continued as he took them from her.

"Where's a spare minute?"

"I mean, I'll have this moment and know it was a good day," Shawn grinned as he replaced the top bun and popped one of the cookies into his mouth.

"I can't take the pressure of the father-son softball game." Cory finally got to his point.

"Oh, I hate those," Shawn agreed, finally paying attention to something else besides Minkus' food.

Juliet frowned at their complaining. Surely they weren't that bad, right? She'd never been to one so she wouldn't know.

"They take it so seriously."

"I know, my dad always screams and yells like it's the most important thing in the world. There's always a fight."

"And they always get injured."

"To us, it's only a game. To them it's a guest shot on Rescue 911," Shawn stated with amusement.

"The trouble with fathers," Minkus said as he returned, "is that they try to live vicariously through their children."

"Okay, Minkus. That's enough quality time for today," Shawn brushed the boy off. "Take your hamburger and go back to your table."

"Hey," Minkus began suspiciously. "Did you do anything to my hamburger?"

"Yeah, sure," Shawn said with a laugh. "Like doing stuff to his hamburger gives me my jollies."

"Look, guys! Shaquille O'Neil!" Minkus shouted suddenly.

The two boys rolled their eyes as they looked towards the indicated direction. "Who? Where?"

Juliet's gaze never moved from where she watched the blond boy lift up his and Shawn's hamburgers and place them down. She smirked slightly and some of the negative feelings from her friend's complaints disappeared.

"Gee, I guess we just missed him," Cory said as they turned back around.

Shawn pointed behind Minkus. "Hey, isn't that Stephen Hawking?"

The boy did the same dramatic turn and Shawn switched the two hamburgers.

"Oh, darn, guess I missed him too," Minkus commented in mock disappointment. "Well, see, ya. Goodbye, my Juliet."

The redhead rolled her eyes as Shawn glared at the boy. "Bye, Minkus," he said forcefully.

When he'd gone, the dark-haired boy lifted his burger to take a bite out of it. "Why do they think he's so much smarter than us?"

"Because he is, isn't he?" Cory asked as Shawn froze.

"I told you so," Juliet remarked smugly.

🌎🌎🌎

The weather that Saturday was nice so Juliet felt like spending the day outside instead of in her dark apartment. After securing her red hair in Shawn's blue baseball cap that she'd stolen from him, she grabbed a tennis ball, one of her books and her Walkman before she made her way down the narrow stairs and out to the front of the building. The beginning of the parking lot met with the sidewalk outside of the door and black, cracked pavement with faded white lines gave way to a large median of grass on the other side. Past that was Shawn's trailer park, a maze of mobile homes that Juliet had memorized— or at least, she had memorized the path to Shawn's.

Moving away from the front entrance, she walked to the far end where there weren't apartments so she wouldn't bother anyone. Standing with her back to the parking lot, she stood a few paces away from the wall and began to rhythmically bounce the tennis ball against it so she could catch it in her hands. My Girl was played through her headset and she was sang softly to the lyrics, enjoying the nice day as she tried not to think about the father-son game currently happening.

It made her feel slightly better that it wasn't the father-daughter game, so maybe she wouldn't have been able to go anyway.

The redhead startled when her ball suddenly didn't appear in her hands and her gaze quickly searched to see where it might have gone. Shawn appeared in her vision, the boy grinning slightly with the tennis ball clutched in one hand. Juliet quickly paused her song before she slid her headset off. "What're you doing here, Shawnie?"

"What, is it illegal to hang out with my wife?"

She rolled her eyes. "I'm not your wife."

"Not yet. You wanna play catch?"

She shrugged. "If you want."

Her noncommittal answer made him frown and he took a few steps closer until they were practically standing nose-to-nose (or nose-to-chest in Juliet's case.) She tilted her head up to look at him in confusion. "Shawnie?"

"You're not happy," the boy observed bluntly. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

He frowned. "Don't be like that, Julie. You can talk to me, you know. I'm your best friend and best friends don't lie to each other. We've been through this."

"It's nothing," she insisted. "I'm just-I'm just being girly and emotional is all."

"Well, I should hope so. You are a girl. You don't have to be happy all the time, you know. I just want to help."

Juliet hesitated, wanting both to tell him and keep it to herself.

"C'mere," the boy said as he pulled her down to sit with their backs against the wall.

She slid next to him and he put an arm around her shoulders to let her lean against him. "Promise you won't laugh?"

"I would never," he said firmly.

"I miss my dad."

"But you never met him?" Shawn asked, confused.

"I miss the idea of him. I just— I'd really like to go to a father-daughter softball game or something, or even the father-daughter dance that happened in third grade, but I can't."

Oh. No wonder she'd been so quiet at lunch the other day with how he and Cory had been going on about the game.

"I'm sorry, Julie."

"'S not your fault," she mumbled.

"Well, Cory and I were making a big deal out of it and I didn't realize— I didn't think about what it meant for you."

She shrugged. "There's nothing that can be done," she said softly. "I mean, I don't think about it often but sometimes it just hits me, y'know? I know I could be a lot worse off and you and Cory make it better, but it still happens."

His arm tightened around her shoulders and she leaned her head against him. "How come you've never told me this before?" Shawn asked.

"'Cause you've never been here."

"Well, I'll be here now, okay? Whenever you're feeling sad, just come find me. I don't mind."

Without thinking much of the action, Juliet reached for his spare hand and interlocked their fingers together to squeeze it. "Thanks, Shawnie."

"I gotta take care of my wife, y'know? In sickness and in health and all that."

That prompted a weak laugh from the girl. "Still not your wife." 

The boy to smiled. "Yeah, yeah. When you feel better, you wanna play catch?"

"Okay."

🌎🌎🌎

"So, how was your weekend?" Shawn asked at lunch on Monday.

"Ah, one of the all-time greats," Cory said happily. "I slept in, I watched TV, I relaxed, I played video games and Sunday, I took it easy."

Juliet frowned. "What about the game?"

Before he could answer, Topanga joined them. "Hi Cory, Juliet."

"Hi Topanga," the redhead greeted the other girl.

"Hey, look who just beamed down!" Shawn said, which was promptly followed by an "ow!" as Juliet poked his side.

He huffed as the curly-haired girl ignored him. "I missed you at the game Saturday."

"What game?" Cory asked.

"Your father's grocery store against my father's bookstore," she explained.

Despite her disagreement over the concept with her friend, Juliet couldn't help but smile. "It's almost like a new-age Romeo and Juliet," she whispered to Shawn.

The boy rolled his eyes. "It's more like a weirder version of Kimmy Gibbler meets a golden retriever puppy." This was followed by another "ouch!" and "what?"

"That's our friend you're talking about," Juliet said mildly. "Besides, you're being mean to Topanga."

"Sorry."

"You're not."

"Topanga, the game was cancelled," Cory was saying to the curly-haired girl, completely oblivious to his friends' conversation.

"You wish," Topanga laughed. "We were killing you until your father's assistant manager tried to throw the ball home from center field and sprained his elbow. The ambulance had to come and take him away!"

"There's always an ambulance," Shawn sighed.

"My father told me the game was called off," Cory said.

"Well, it wasn't. 'Bye, Juliet," the girl said to the redhead.

"'Bye Topanga."

"Hey, Cor, what's the big deal? Maybe your dad just didn't feel like playing," Shawn said, noticing his friend's expression.

"Maybe he didn't feel like playing alone." 

🌎🌎🌎

Shawn bounced the tennis ball across the pavement and Juliet caught it easily before she returned it. The two of them had been doing this for awhile after the redhead finished her homework and she'd stopped nagging Shawn about doing his. They weren't talking about anything special, just enjoying spending time together when the boy suddenly spoke: "Cory told me that they're doing a rematch."

"A rematch?" the girl echoed.

"Yeah, for the softball game. Something about tradition or whatever," he said with a roll of his eyes as he bounced the ball to her. "But anyway, they're doing another one this weekend."

Juliet caught the ball before she bounced it back. "Good for them, I guess."

He sighed, frustrated that he hadn't gotten the words out right. The ball landed in his hand. "I meant that, well, do you want to come watch it? My dad's busy that day so we could go together if you want."

The redhead nearly missed the return bounce and captured the ball in her hand, pausing to look at her best friend. "Really?"

Shawn shrugged. "Why not? We can't really play in it but we can at least be there."

She bounced the ball back to him. "I thought you hated those games."

"You don't," he answered immediately, catching the ball. "Besides, watching is different then playing."

A smile found its way to her face as she caught the ball again. "Alright, if you really don't mind."

He shook his head before he shot her a smile in return. "It's a date, then!"

The statement got his desired response, which was a laugh and a roll of the girl's blue eyes. "Yes, Saturday is a date, Shawnie." 

[edited may 2022]