1×10 Drive, He Said

….. by TeeJay

Joan is all about the driving test she has to take to get her license. And she doesn’t really want to. Not that that has anything to do with her messed up relationship with Adam. I guess you can’t even call it a relationship. He still refuses to talk to her, even really acknowledge her. In the school hallway, she sees him walk up and calls out his name. And his look at her is just so agonizingly, torturously sad and just… makes you wanna hug him, right there on the spot. Talk about puppy dog eyes.

He turns around on his heels and walks the other direction. And Joan is sure he’s never gonna forgive her. Grace tries to explain his motives to Joan: “The dude has a photographic memory. Every time he thinks he might forgive you, the image of your smashing his art pops into his head. Not that I’ve discussed it with him…” Thank you, Grace, for your reassurance.

Meanwhile, Luke has something on his mind. He found a positive pregnancy test in their bathroom trash at home. And of course he assumes it belongs to Joan, because from who else could it be? (It’s actually from Helen, and it’s false alarm, but Luke doesn’t know that.) So logic tells him his sister and Adam did the deed and now she’s knocked up. And Adam, the cad, won’t even speak to her? Luke decides he  can’t just let that rest.

So he approaches Adam at school, stopping him on the stairs. “Adam. You know who I am?” Adam looks at him, narrowing his eyes in confusion. “Luke Girardi?” he asks tentatively. Luke tries again. “Do you know what we have in common?” Adam is still none the wiser. “Uh, we’re in AP Chem together and… we’re both guys.” Luke stammers something about not being able to figure out girls and Adam still stares at him questioningly. Then Luke concedes, “I’m Joan’s brother.” Adam nods. “I know.” Luke tells him that he knows things and that he thinks he needs to help. Luke is talking about the pregnancy test. Adam thinks it’s about Joan destroying Ascension. Fed up, he tells Luke, “She smashed my art, man.” “Joan is really sorry about that, Adam, but you gotta get past it.” Adam asks, “Why?” Luke explains, “Because one smashed sculpture looks pretty small, given other upcoming issues you guys have to face together.” Of course Adam is still thinking about his sculpture. “What happened, happened. There’s no taking it back, she has to deal with the fallout. I’m out of her life, man.” And he walks away. And Luke has that ‘shit-we-can’t-fix-this’ look on his face. Oh boy. Doesn’t sound like he’s ever gonna forgive her, is he?