It all started one day when a guy named Todd went to school one day. Todd was an average looking, sort of naive kind of seventh grader boy. As with all the things that he would do in his life, he would constantly show up to be the smartest person in what would be in his grade level. Not exactly the easiest to pick up when a person likes him or something like that, but in terms of figuring out numbers and equations of operations and all that stuff, he was usually the one who knew what he was talking about.

Todd was an only child. Nothing too surprising there, but he wasn't one of those people that really wanted that. Most of his friends he never really kept for more than six months at a time or anything like that. Which was really starting to grow a toll on him after all of the times he would try to open up to a person but then they would just sort of leave him away from their life forever after that because they just sort of decide that they don't really think he is all that lit anymore. Yes, lit is the term that a lot of people would use to try and compare Todd to how they want him to be. If you don't like that, then you can blame society more than anything else at that rate than the people in the society. In this case, you should blame the system, not the people who are just working in the system.

One of the most just scary memories of Todd was when he was about eight or so years old. There was no real way to sort of explain the whole context of this event, but he still thinks about it quite a bit of times. Not that there is anything else that a thirteen year old has to fall back on in terms of big and grand stories, to be honest.

So what had happened when he was eight years old has started like any other normal day. He was outside trying to just have a normal play day. He was trying to make some friends along the line as he was doing so as well. So that way maybe there would be some sort of connection that he could make with somebody. It seemed to go well for a few minutes at first.

He was watching while he was in the yard and what he was watching was a girl who seemed to be around his age playing in her yard as well. He looked over and saw that neither of his parents were watching and that he had a perfect chance to go on and do this, so with that he started walking down the street to reach her. It took him about twenty seconds or so for him to cross the street since he had to wait for a car to pass by and when the car passed by, he would then take the chance to just talk to her.

Once on her yard, tried to call out to her. Or make some form of introduction. Just anything really, to get her attention. Since that was all he was really shooting for with this. "Hey, how are you?" He gave off a simple greeting and with that greeting, he was wondering how well that was actually going to like win her over or anything. The girl looked up and them took a moment to smile since she thought that he was kind of cute. But not really to the point where she would want to date him or anything like that.

"I'm okay. What are you doing here?" She responded and Todd had admitted that he was just wanting to talk with her and see if she wanted to talk with him or something. "I don't really know you, so I don't really know if I should play with you." The girl said and as she said that she started to try to indicate that she wasn't really interested in this anymore and that she kind of wished that he would drop this and move on so that way he could let her play alone in peace again. But Todd, before he was the smart guy in the class and sort of was a little bit clueless to all of this stuff decided that this was great way to continue moving onto her for a intents and purposes.

"Well, then if you don't know me too well, I can change that and tell you all about me." Todd said and he started with his simple name and then went from there. "My name is Todd, I hate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and I think that fall is the best season." At least it was pretty innocent stuff at the start of it all.

"Look here kid," the girl said even though she was just a kid on herself "I don't really care all that much about what type of stuff that you like or the type of stuff that you don't like. I was just having a nice and fun day playing outside until you decided to show up and think that we should just out of nowhere be like best friends and everything." The girl finished and Todd was trying to figure put a way to make this pretty much dead conversation come back to life. Then he started to think about it and then came up with a way to try and have a little bit of compromise.

"Well, how about you just tell me your name? Then after that, I will leave you alone and you can go back to playing by yourself. After all, i already told you my name. So it only seems fair that you tell me your name." Todd said and then rubbed his red hair in a way that he was trying to see if she would answer that idea in a way that could benefit both of them. It was as if a deal was being made and he was the one trying to make the deal there.

"Fine, I guess that is fair enough. My name is Lauren. I won't tell you anything else about me. But I want you to leave me alone now. Part of our deal." Lauren said and the Todd nodded sadly. He knew that in the end, he was probably the one that lost in this whole deal. But he wasn't going to show that right to her. Or at the very least try to not show it in front of her since he didn't want to really indicate that she had won this whole thing.

"Bye." Todd was able to only say that as he started to head off and away from Lauren. Maybe one day she would be a little bit more willing to go on and talk with him. But it seems that as of then, that was all he was really going to be able to get. He was starting to just walk down the street and as he was walking down the street, he was starting to wonder if he should just go back to his house and just start to play like a normal kid or if maybe he should start going around a little bit more and maybe see if he could be able to find something of his own that was maybe not related to that traitor Lauren.

About twenty minutes or so had passed before Todd had found a place that looked a lot like the entrance to a forest. He had heard about a forest before, but he had never actually like gone inside of one before. He seemed to consider it a little bit since there would probably be a lot of thrills or something that he could get out of it. After a little bit of thinking about it and wondering what possible negatives could really come out of it, he decided that this wouldn't really be a negative thing and if something bad happened, then he would find a way to blame Lauren. Liking that last little bit inside of his head, he decided that he would actually go for it as he walked inside the start of the forest.

At first, there seemed to be nothing of any real interest. Just gross grass and a bunch of twigs and roots all over the place. Almost as if it were like a real life fantasy book sort of happening. That part was a little exciting as Todd kept going more into it and was imagining what type of monsters he could find in there. Like maybe a dragon or a tree monster like he heard about being in Lord of the Rings. After all, that was like one of the biggest things on the planet and he was still young enough to where he could think that something like this could happen but also old enough to kind of get the realism that it would be a very out of there event that would really require a big suspension of disbelief.

Believe it or not, the little adventure in the forest really was not all that big of an adventure to begin with. All that had really happened was that Todd just sort of fucked around and fell down once or twice and then ran across a log to make it seem like he was having some big grand adventure. But then after about twenty minutes or so of just doing all of that, he sort of just gave up and started to go on and head home. It was his way of trying to head home that was the real story that would be worth telling.

When he was heading home and had sort of left the forest (although he will end up coming back to it a few times before he left this town for good), he found himself leaving in a different way than when he had come into the forest. Which all seemed to be very confusing since he could have sworn that he came in through a way that was like going down a large hill that was near the house of his next door neighbor. He even remembered when he had gone down the hill and was running very excited and then snuck his way around the broken little fence bit so that way there would be not enough time or effort for somebody to catch him and then he would be off to do his own thing.

The way that he came out of seemed like it was to a different yard. The house that he had seen was now white, as opposed to the dark ish brown that had a green roof of the house that he had seen twenty minutes earlier. Not only that, but he saw what also seemed to be a sort of wooden staircase and he was then thinking that this was sort of the new house on the block. Which he had seen a couple of times when he was getting a bus ride to school every morning for the last couple of months. Since it was still a new building by the simple sense of the word.

Todd knew that whatever he did or whichever way that he came out of, he had messed up and probably needed a lot of memory power if he had wanted to really help find his way back to his house and not get in trouble for leaving as out of nowhere as he had. So he was starting to then run as fast as he possibly could since he was trying to pretty much just beat the clock at that point in time. After all, he had no idea how nice or mean his neighbors were and that was a good way to sort of give himself a little bit of extra motivation to run as fast as he could.

Soon as he got off the yard he saw that there was a car driving by. Todd was wondering if maybe he could reach the other side of the street as soon as he could before the car that seemed to be about half a block away would drive by. Since he was curious about this, he had the crazy idea of trying to beat this car in a game of speed.

Todd kept running faster and faster and as he was running the car was zooming in closer on him, and this was giving him a feeling of fear and excitement. There really was a thrill to the whole idea of risking your life just for the sake of seeing if you were faster than a car or not. It seemed like he was actually going to make it and the driver of the car seemed to finally notice what was going on since they were starting to drive with a curve and then Todd made a jump, and it was within this jump where the thing that gave him these constant memories sort of unfold.

When he jumped out of the way of the car and seemed like he had beaten it to the other side of the street, he saw that the turned around and then when it had turned around the car started to drive out of control. With it driving out of control, Todd ended up seeing the car go right into a tree. Todd didn't even really want to wait and see what would happen after that, so he got himself up and was running away in terror. He didn't even really care all that much about getting back home, he didn't want to witness what could be the most gruesome sight of his whole life and certainly the most of that point. Besides, he didn't want to get caught and have people be questioning him for his involvement with the whole thing. If he really could even be blamed for it all. Which in hindsight, Todd sees that he could.

As he was running away, Todd was imagining all of the trouble that he could get into and as he was imagining the trouble that he could get himself into, he was starting to cry which was something that he had never really liked to do or if he really thought about it, was something that he might have actually not really done in the last several years since he had stubbed his toe when he stepped on a large piece of bark when he was about four to five years old, but there was no real reason for him to really even be thinking of that at the moment since there was a car on fire and he was just trying to get away from the sight. The whole sight kept growing and the flames kept getting brighter and brighter and as it was getting brighter the more that it was getting sucked into his permanent memory. After a while of just running he was far enough away from the car crash sight to where it would seem realistic enough for him to not get caught for doing what he had done.

Afterwards, when he was in the middle of a beaten up yard that looked like it had not been visited in like ten years, he fell on his knees. As he fell on his knees he started to relive all of the stuff that had happened that day in his head and then he put his hands up to his head. Once he had done that, he started to move his hair back and forth and the tears were starting to go down. "What have I done?" He asked and he wasn't even sure if the question that he asked made that much sense since he was thinking that his tears were getting in his mouth and messing up the speech ability that he was having.

As he cried and was wondering what he could be doing in his life now, he looked up and then looked at the window of the house that seemed like it was not been entered in for like several years. As he was looking up, Todd saw that there was a light up there. Which had seemed to be very confusing to him since he had never seen anything like that.

Todd started to look around the yard since he was really curious to see if he could get in the house to possibly see why it was having glowing lights. There must have been something behind this whole thing and he was now able to sort of get his mind off of what happened at the car crash about five minutes ago or something like that. As he was looking around the yard, he was just trying to also not touch any of the ivy vines or step on any of the dogshit as well. Which all of those things put together made this a little bit of an expedition to a young kid like him.

Todd saw a small open way with a hole that looked like it was big enough for a rat sneak in if it was wanting to. He was able to look through somehow and tell that this was where the basement was, although it sort of surprised him that he was able to see fully with such a small range of sight to work with. Todd started to move some of the dirt aside and by moving some of the dirt aside he was creating more and more of a opening for him to go on through. After a minute or so of him moving the dirt around, he got to his chest and was attempting to at the very least crawl on through the hole.

It took quite a while, but Todd was able to squeeze himself through the hole just enough for him to crawl on through fully. As he had done so, he got inside the house at least in body and when he was inside of the house, he laid down on top of what was probably a bunch of boxes of storage that the owner of the house, if there was one and if there wasn't one, then maybe the owner of the house a long time ago, had put up there and never seen again. But he started to feel that it was starting to come down a little bit. That was when he had gotten the message that maybe he should move down a little bit. So he edged himself slightly and started to get his feet in the air and as he got his feet in the air he moved himself down and then jumped himself on the ground. He was glad that he probably did it when he did since had he not, it looked like eight boxes or so would have crashed on each other and Todd would be good as dead.

Todd begins to move around a little bit as he brushes the dust off of his pants and sees that the basement is just a bunch of strange assortments of things that were considered to be very old and out dated. Such as just a ton of newspapers, a ton of books that seemed like they were from the eighteen hundreds, and a bunch of boxes that looked like they were carrying things that contained materials from a bunch of foreign countries. Todd was really wanting to look through all of these, but he just knew that there was no real way that he would be able to not get bored by this stuff or not really understand any of it. So with that, he just starts to walk towards what seemed like the entrance towards the basement from a normal person in the house. Once he was done being down there, he had no real idea on what he was actually going to be doing besides just seeing if there really was a light and if there was, just what had made it turn on.

He started to go up the stairs and when he was going up the stairs, he was starting to think about all of the things that he was possibly going to see when there. It was starting to scare him a little bit. Like what if somebody had been living there and was doing it in secret or something like that? What if there was a person who had gotten like house arrest and had just never taken care of their home since they were sort of building the days up. Obviously, Todd was not really old enough to know what house arrest was so that second one wasn't really popping in his head too much, but the general picture was still there as a general whole.

Todd had reached the door and as he looked at the door, he was wondering if he should actually open it or not. When he thought of it, he was trying to really comprehend if he was actually really needing to go inside or not. But then again, he knew that he was already inside and that he had done the first eighty percent of the job, so why go through with it and do the last twenty percent of the job. So with that thought in head, Todd opened the door and when he had opened the door, he started to really regret it and he was also starting to think that there was a really bad smell in this house.

As he was walking more and more inside, he was seeing that there were just a bunch of things laying all over the place and it was obvious that even to a eight year old like Todd that the owner of the house just did not give a shit on what the condition was. Again, if there even was an actual owner to the house. He actually noticed the mound of beer bottles and cans all over the place and the area in where tobacco was being made. He wasn't really knowing what the actual substance was itself, but he could tell just by the smell that it was a little strange to say at the least. He also could tell that there must have been somebody smoking as he was in the house itself, which confirmed that somebody was there.

Todd noticed that there were even more steps to go to an even higher floor. So with that he decided that maybe he would actually want to check that out. After all, it had seemed like that there were a bunch of lights that he had assumed he had seen earlier to be up there. When Todd had considered that, he started to go up the stairs. Hearing all the creaks and groans of the stairs he had figured that maybe this was just not really the smartest idea anymore.

When Todd had reached the top of the staircase, he looked down and was watching a person slowly coming up from the kitchen. This was starting to scare the shit out of him even more than it already was. Like what the fuck did he get himself into at this place? Todd came to the conclusion in his head that the moment he was done looking around in the top floor, he would just boot out and leave the place entirely so that way he would never have to deal with it again and then maybe even just sort of forget it. At this point, he was already kinding of forgetting about the whole car crash since he was just so scared at that moment. This was easily the scariest thing that he ever dealt with at the time even compared to the crash.

Todd was not at the front of the door. He opened it right away and then went right inside the room as he was done opening it. He was just wanting to see what it was since he had already gone so far just to see what it was like, that it would be wrong for him to not do it in a general sense of the idea. So once he had opened the door and he was inside the room, he saw a older person of probably early twenties smoking a lot and as he was smoking he was doing something with a young woman. She was probably a teenager, but was still obviously a deal younger than this man. Todd looked over and saw that the guy was putting the hot cigarette on the woman and letting it burn her skin as he would then throw the drink at her face and then smash the glass right into her face. Todd had walked right into a direct abuse scene, possibly even a murder scene. Todd then started to run away from the house and room he was in but saw that the person who was coming up the stairs was pretty much already there. So Todd knew that the only way to get out and have a chance of not getting caught was to jump out the window.

Todd started to run as fast as he could. Breaking all possible imaginations of his top speed just to make sure that he would be out of that house in time for them to not go on and attack him or something even worse than just that. As he was running, he was feeling like his shoe was starting to come off since the laces were getting loose. All he did was stop for just a brief second to throw the show off and then throw it at the face of the guy who was attacking that girl and then once that was done, Todd started to run again. His running was quite a impressive feat on his part and he was able to escape both the people who were in that house and wanting to hurt him or something like that. As he got out of the window, and therefore the house, he actually felt the rush of air flowing through him as well as the holy terror of escaping a situation of near death like that. About ten seconds later he landed on the ground with his right ankle twisting and then he was having to deal with that the whole time he was just trying to get out of the yard, away from them in general, and then make it all the way back to his own house. It was quite the load of work for him.

It was quite miserable for him to actually do any of this going home business since it felt like he was bleeding five hundred ounces of blood. Not quite literally, but it sure as hell felt like it. Todd had decided that he should have just gone home after Lauren told him to go since he can see now that if he had just done that, then he wouldn't have gone in the forest, he wouldn't have tried to outspeed that car and he wouldn't have gone to that house. All of these feelings were just sort of passing through his mind as he was starting to really get it in his head that this was all just his fault and literally nobody elses. But soon enough, Todd reached what he could tell from living there for so long was the back porch to his house. Once he opened the door, which was a pain and a horrible task with his fucked up ankle, he just went to his bedroom and pretended like he had never seen or dealt with any of that. He would lie to his parents if they asked him what he did or what was going on with his shoe or ankle. Besides, the news would probably be covering a news report on this whole event. He really didn't feel the need to go on and talk to them about it. Since if he had done that, they would then be able to figure out that this was all their fault. Besides, Todd just needed some time to rest.

As Todd had closed his eyes, he was trying really hard to just forget about everything that had happened. That was the only real thing that could help keep him off of this whole shitshow. When he was sleeping, or at the very least trying to, his mother had walked up to the door and opened it to see that Todd was asleep but also in the condition that he was in. She wants to help him out and everything, but she also doesn't want to wake him up. So she decides that she would wait until he had fully awoken before she would confront him about this.

Todd tried to not really remember anything else in that day. It was just a day that was too much in his memory and too little of wanting to be in his memory to be in his liking. But he did remember how when he woke up for a brief moment, he walked outside of his bedroom to see what the noise was and he heard a news report talking about how a sixteen year old girl was killed in a house earlier that day and how probably just half an hour before, there was somebody who drove their car into the tree and was killed and he was identified as a thirty six year old man named Shane Turner or something like that. Todd went back to the room since he knew he was involved in both of those.

With all of that and the entire context around it, this makes sense on why Todd considered that to be the worst day of his life, at least until then, and just why Todd always seemed to remember that day more than any other. As Todd was in his bus going to school and starting the first day of his seventh grade year, he was really still just thinking about all that since a lot of the stuff that was related to this whole story ended up ending some of his friendships that he would form with a person. Not him being socially stupid, but him being a horrible person who might have been responsible for a lot of deaths.

As the bus was starting to get near the school, Todd was just trying to think of which class that he had first. He couldn't even remember a lot of the stuff that was on his class schedule and he wasn't really even sure if had wanted to remember that or not. But it didn't really matter since after the bus ride was all over, the bus parked at the entrance of the school and with that, Todd stood up and started to walk to the front of the bus. As he reached the steps of the bus he looked back at the people in there and he was wondering how many of them were going to hate his guts during the school year as he started to walk down.

When Todd was walking to the actual entrance of the school, he was thinking that this school year was probably going to end up with him getting expelled. He never really got expelled before, but given his previous record, he might as well have. At least then, it would seem like they are just sort of pulling the trigger early. Which was something that the school would never do. But no matter what was going through his mind, none of that really mattered once somebody called out to him. Which was a little more shocking than anything else for the kid.

Todd turned around and saw a guy who looked to be around his same age walking up towards him. He had black hair and he also had a red shirt and black pants. Todd was able to tell that this guy was trying to be in that sort of dark crowd but just had no real idea on how to actually do it. But he didn't want to burst his bubble or anything. "Are you the new student here?" The guy asked and Todd thought that this guy was nice enough. He decided that he would go along with this conversation, at least for the time being to mainly be nice more than anything else to him, since he knew that it would just be really rude of him to just not at least give him a answer. Although he planned to just keep it at that.

"Yes, I am." Todd said and put his hand behind his head. It was one of his main ways of showing that he was a little more shy than people have given him credit for. "My name's Todd. What about you?" The other guy seemed to be very excited that Todd had answered him since they felt like this was going to be the start to a great friendship, even though Todd only did it just to be nice to the guy.

"My name is Kevin. This is my second year here. So last year I was the new kid. I'm not really an expert on this school yet, but I will be able to help you with the basics of the school. If you want the help, that is. I won't force it on you if you think that you will be find on your own." Kevin said and then Todd decided that he needed to just get to class so that way he wouldn't be late on his first day of school. That really would not be a great way to start off the school year after all. Kevin saw that look on his face and decided to let Todd be alone and he started to head to class himself.

Once Todd was actually inside the school, he found a person who looked to be really interesting. He was working at the student store section. It had seemed like he was probably mid twenties and most likely just working there for the sake of earning some extra money while he was doing a different job. Todd looked at the time and decided that there was still about ten minutes or so before he really needed to head to class, so he figured that this was an alright distraction. So he went up to the guy to ask how he was doing.

"Hey, what is going on at this school? I don't what about it seemes like this to me, but the whole setting is just strange. I don't really know how to really put it." Todd said and then the guy who was working there didn't really know what to say to what Todd was telling him. In fact he thought that Todd was being a little strange himself by saying something like that. As if there was no real reason for Todd to actually say what he was saying. But as a attempt to be nice, he did answer as best that he could.

"Well, I don't really know the exact context that you are using when you describe it being off. I admit that a lot of the students are a little strange and may throw you off a little bit if you don't know them a lot. But I would say that once you get to know them enough, then it won't be too much of a problem. Just go on and give them a chance. Once you do that, you will see that it's not too bad." The guy who was working at the store said and Todd shook his head. Not that he was agreeing with them on that statement, since it was probably true there, but it just was beyond that. Like there was something wrong about the actual school itself.

"Look dude, I wouldn't really worry about it if I were you. Just try to get into the swing of things and soon enough you will forget that you ever felt this way. Trust me. Things were a little bit strange when I had first come here as well. But now, I am just very much used to this place and I would not be able to imagine what it would be like if this were not in my life." The dude described and Todd was starting to think that maybe this guy had a little bit of a point towards what he was saying. After all, he had only been here for a grand total of about five minutes or so. Maybe he just needed some more time to really get used to the setting of the place. So with that, Todd decided that it was time to go to class.

He started to head up the stairs that would bring him up to where he was going to be having class. Since he figured that if he had taken too long of a time just sort of dicking around for a lack of a better description, then he really would be late on his first day. And he still can not get it through enough that he didn't want to be late on the first class of the first day of school. But even then, when he was about three fourths of the way up the stairs and was walking down the hall to reach the class, which was less than thirty feet away at that point, once again somebody called out to him to pretty much distract him. "Hey, who's class are you heading towards right now?" The person asked and Todd looked behind to see that this was the first female he would have talked with the entire time that he was here.

"I am heading to Mrs. Marchs class. I think that this is the floor where she is at. If that is the case, then I know for a fact that I will be late here on my first day. And I just have a feeling that if that happens, then I will already be putting the year off to a bad spin and then things will just keep going down from there and I don't want to start the year off on a bad note." Todd responded as he was moving his left foot back and forth over and over again so that way he was going to be able to show that he was just wanting to go on and get to class and not really deal with any of these constant interruptions anymore that were pretty much assuring that he was going to be late as fuck.

"Yeah, this is the class close by. No need to worry about being late, unless if you walk at a snail's pace or something like that. Even then, I will believe that you will still just be fine right now." The girl said and then popped her fingers a little bit and then Todd knew right away that she was one of those type of girls. The girls who pretended like they were guys and had even some sort of tomboy desires to them, but had no idea how to carry themselves like a male. But he was just assuming that, and maybe he was wrong on what he was thinking there. "My name is Diana. What made you come to this school? Did you break any sort of rules? Did you kill anybody?"

When Todd heard these two questions he was trying really hard how to not freak out a bit. Those were two of the most sensitive topics in his life and she got them both right on the first try. Todd was just not wanting to show that side of them though. He was determined to stay in the school for the whole year and not be pulled out for some stupid reason or another at the middle of it. So he started to shake his head and hoped that this would have been enough to let her leave the subject alone as it was. "No, I didn't do it. I just was sent here because my parents thought that this would have been a better school for me." Todd decided to just say that and he had hoped that she would find that believable enough.

"That really sucks. I thought it would been cool to see and hear of a person who had broken the rules so that way I can give them a lecture on what the rules are of the school. But with your claims that you are not that way, I guess that I have to go on and find somebody else that I have to harass about this." Diana said and then she went on and took the last bit to Mrs. Marchs class. Todd decided to just sort of bolt it across. When he did so, he was running to the room and then he opened the door and sat down on the back table panting and he sat down right as the bell rang. Meaning that he had no time to spare and that the running had probably saved him from being tardy on his first day. Which was something that he was still very much focused on no matter what else was going on.

Todd was looking to see who the teacher was exactly. He was having a bit of a hard time figuring out who they were. Maybe it was because everybody had sort of looked like they were close to the same age. And nobody was standing at the front of the room, which made him wonder if perhaps all of the people in the room were just students and that the teacher was just not there at the moment. But those thoughts were pretty much over when a person that looked like she was probably in her mid to later twenties walked into the room and she sat down. Todd couldn't help but think that she looked rater off, considering the fact that her hair looked like it was pink or something like that. Which just simply made no fucking sense to him.

"Hello class, I am Mrs. March. I hope that you are having a great time in the school so far. I can tell that this is going to be a great school year, like it always is. Let's get some introductions out of the way. Why don't we get to know each other at least a little bit more?" Mrs. March started and Todd knew that this was going to not be fun at all. He hated it when the teachers would force really long introductions with each other since it felt like it was just sort of being forced down all of the students who honestly probably couldn't care less about most of the students in like three days time anyways.

"How about you go first?" Mrs. March asked and she looked over at the girl at the front row of the class who looked like she was wearing a white shirt. Her hair was a little bit blonde for the most part, but it was mostly brown as Todd could see. And the hair went to her elbows, which wasn't the longest hair in the class but it was still much longer than Todd would ever really want on himself or with a girlfriend for that matter. And the voice that she had seemed like it was a accent from like Georgia, which made Todd just sort of assume that she was from Georgia.

"My name is jenni. I really like to hang out with my friends at the skate park after school every day." She said and Todd was really shocked by that. He was just not used to girls hanging at the skate park. Then again, Todd never went to the skate park so he wasn't really sure on what the norm of that place was. For all he knew, aliens could be down there and there could be like total fights going on every day or something like that. Which Todd was probably not really ever wanting to deal with. Since fights were the one thing that Todd actually did manage to keep himself relatively out of during his time that he was in a lot of schools.

"Alright, if that is all that you want to talk about, then we will move onto our nest student. How about you over there?" Mrs. March pointed at Todd and then when she did that, Todd felt like he was going to fucking explode. He didn't think that he was going to be the second person to get called to do stupid presentations like this that he doesn't give a shit about. But Todd decided that he would keep himself calm and collected while he was presenting mainly because he didn't want to get in trouble or get framed for having a so called 'shitty attitude' so early on.

"Well, my name is Todd. I'm new here. First year student. I don't really know what to think of this school exactly. It makes feel a little odd to be honest with you all." Todd said and then once he was done talking, he felt glad that it was just all over with so that way he could just start to enjoy things again and pretend like he wasn't important and wait for time to pass on the clock like he always did when he was in school classes like this. Mrs. March just took a moment to look at Todd as if she was very saddened by this answer, and Todd admitted in his head that he wasn't really sure why. After all, he did introduce himself and he did give his honest opinion. Which is more important and better than just being an asshole who lied just to get out of trouble or something like that, which he would do later on, but not then.

"Well, I guess that it is no longer your turn here." Mrs. March said and then as she said that, she shook her head as if she was very angry over what Todd had said. She was a very large fan of this school and she didn't like it when people would talk shit about it and all of that. Afterwards, anyways, she looked over at another student and then was getting ready to laugh right at her face when she saw what she had actually looked like. But she was just pretending to not find it silly or anything. "Well, I guess that it is your turn now."

The girl that its turn was knew who the teacher had been talking to. She didn't really take any sort of offense to it since she thought that she was just paying attention to what she was wearing. "My name is Marcia, and I really like to rollerskate." She said and then Todd took a moment to examine her a little bit more. Well, it was quite true that she was wearing rollerskates. She also had a red shirt and blue skirt and her hair seemed to be a combination of blue, red and purple all at once. Todd was just not really sure how he should be able to fully comprehend it.

"Well, just make sure that you don't mess anything else up." Mrs. March had said and then she turned around to the sort of fat kid in the class. "Well, it is your turn by now." Mrs. March said and she was kind of wondering how many more seemingly insane people there were in this classroom. It had seemed like that Todd might actually be the sane one in the class, which she had hated to admit in the end of the day. This was the last student Todd really paid attention to, considering the fact that the others he didn't really care all that much about in the end of the day, and there was always Diana who he already heard quite enough about.

When all of these introductions were done with, the teacher seemed like she was very glad that all of these were done and over with. So with all of that, Mrs. March just turned around and then took a deep breath. Todd seemed like she was sort of on her side now since both he and her were just tired of all the introductions. However, since Todd did not suggest them, Todd was not the one who would end up regretting forcing these along. It was her who would regret it by a long shot by the end. "So with everything out of the way, let's get started on our class work."

Todd laughed a little bit at that statement. Since he was able to tell that there truly was a sense of annoyance there and everything. "So for things that we can do for our next class, or the rest of this class, how about we discuss what our school year expectations are." Mrs. March started and then picked up a bunch of papers and started to hand them all around the classroom to get the students what they needed. Afterwards, Mrs. March walked back to the front of the class and started to read the paper. This was the class syllabus.

"Alright, let's get started with all of this." Mrs. March had said and then Todd looked at the syllabus that was given to him. The first words on it were the teacher just saying that this was a year around class and that with all the stuff that had been going on in the school, that the class would have to be passed if there was a real hope of being able to graduation. The way Mrs. March had put it was just "passing this class is required if you wish to graduate into the eighth grade. If this class is not passed, you will not be allowed to advance to the eighth grade." As Todd read that, he was a little scared shitless that something would happen and then he would not be able to graduate or something like that. Which in his opinion was just fucking retarded.

"In order to fully understand what is being taught to you guys, you need to learn that there are things that are needed to be comprehended for class to be passed. Such as basic comprehension of reading, writing, math, science, and the history that is being presented to you all." Mrs. March told the class and Todd rolled his eyes since he knew that this was just the obvious thing to go by since there was no need to really state something like that.

"What if we are really good at math but we also suck at science?" One of the kids asked and he looked like he was a little bit of a Tinkerbell or Peter Pan supporter or something like that. When Todd heard that question, he looked over at the kid and was super fucking confused. Why was this guy dressing up like it was fucking halloween when that wouldn't be coming up for another seven weeks. So maybe this guy was just a little bit crazy, Todd was saying to himself inside of his head. Mrs. March decided to actually go on with the question and then answer him as if the question was actually good. Which Todd supposed that maybe it was.

"Well, if you are not good at that then you need the help of other students and then get some after school time to talk with me in order to have some idea on how to deal with your lacking of science." Mrs. March had said and then when she had said that the class seemed like it was just about to have its mind blow up as if it was just impossible. Todd had felt like they couldn't care less in reality. Then suddenly the bell rang and class had been over by that point. "Well, sorry everybody. Time to see you for class next time." By the next time she had obviously meant tomorrow, as Todd stood up and grabbed his backpack and then just left the classroom so that way he could then go to his second period.

As far as Todd was able to fully tell, the second period class period for that day was going to be outside. And when Todd had figured out that it was outside, he figured out in his head or at the very least he was hoping that it was just going to be Gym class. He had actually not minded gym class and everything. Since he was at the very least able to play the games that were given to the when it was given to them. And besides, Todd was able to finally get out and be a bit athletic and actually enjoying exercising without actually doing stuff after school or something like that. So it really was like two wins at once. And two wins at once something that Todd always liked.

Todd started to run as fast as he could down the stairs so that way he could be at the outside as soon as possible. He was just too excited for this whole thing so that way he could go on and win at the gym event. It took him only about four minutes for him to reach the gym yard and as he reached the gym yard, he saw a man who looked like he was much taller than Todd just sitting down at a chair. He was reading some sort of magazine since he was just waiting for the students to arrive. Which is why once Todd was there, he decided that he would make a discussion point with the guy, which he was convinced was the teacher of the class, before the other students arrived. "So hey, who are you? Are you the teacher of this class?" Todd asked and he was just wanting to make small talk. There was nothing that there was to it besides that, and all that he had to do was just wait for the man to actually answer the question.

"Yes, I am the teacher of this class. Why do you care so much about that?" The teacher asked and then Todd just sort of shrugged. As he had shrugged, he was wondering if maybe this teacher was just one of those teachers that was just not really caring about what the student thoughts and only cared about what the money would give him and pretend to be interested in conversations between him and then if these conversations do interest him, then he would try way too hard to get all the deals and then eventually start to try and get all the pieces together and all that. Todd sort of knew a story about a teacher like that, but that was much later in Todd's education career, such as junior year or so.

"I was just curious. So how are you doing right now?" Todd asked and then when he asked that the teacher gave a very bored answer and just told him that he was okay for the most part. Then with that, there were a bunch of students that came along and started to get into class and wanted to see what activities there would be in this second period class. But then with all that, the teacher stood up and was pretending to be interested in the students as he started to explain what was going on in the school year as well as this first period.

"Okay, so this class is going to be nothing besides just doing a strong amount of physical activity. There will be no writing about what you are doing or anything like that. I trust you enough that you are not going to lie to us about what you are doing, and that you are going to actually take your physical activity seriously. However, at the start of each class period, I will give you all a list of things that you need to do and how you should be able to go on and do it." The teacher said and then Todd looked over at the other classmates that were going to have the same period as him. Some that he saw in his earlier class and some people who had never even heard of us at all.

"Like what type of physical activity are you going to be going through?" One of the class mates, a person who looked a bit older than Todd by maybe a year or so asked. He moved his neck back and forth as if he was just getting ready to start doing something awesome. Todd was wondering if maybe he was the sports guy and was always going to win the race no matter what had happened. Todd was not excited to be having a class with one of these people. That is, if Todd was actually correct on who he was.

"Dodgeball, volleyball, basketball, running, and other sporting events that you guys could have gone on and participate in. After all, if you guys play in these sports, you need to get some other training other than generic out of school practice. Trust me. I know what I am talking about since I have done these sports before." The teacher admitted and then when he said that he looked at each of the students as if he were just examining what they were thinking. Then after all that, he nodded and then was sort of thinking in his head on what maybe their first days activity should be after all. Since there seemed to be no way to make everybody happy.

There seemed to be a moment of silence. When out the fuck of nowhere, there was a annoying kid who clearly did not know how to speak proper english started to speak. "The but the stuff that the we the will do the will the be the very the hard." After the guy said that, the teacher looked over at them and was trying to decide if they were going to pretend as if that comment never existed or not.

"Yes, I suppose that some of this stuff may be hard. But then again, most activities as a whole are very hard when you first start to get into them. So don't worry about it so much at first. Just try and see if it works for you. If it doesn't work, then maybe you can at the very least feel comfort in the fact that you had given it a try." There was not too much more that the teacher had wanted to say besides just what has already been said. After all, the first like five to ten minutes of the class period had already been wasted with all of this fucking retarded talking.

Todd had wanted to just get started on the activities so he raised his hand. "When are we actually going to do something here instead of just talking?" Todd asked and then the teacher took a long sigh of relief. He was glad that there was at least one student that had beaten him to it before he was sort of forced to go on and say it for himself. "I mean, there is not that much that we can even talk about anymore here. You gave us our expectations, and then we talked for a bit on that and now we need to drop the subject and do something that actually matters for the sake of us learning what you are wanting to teach us." It was obvious to everybody that Todd was tired of this and that he just wanted to get to the point. The teacher had respected that.

The teacher started to speak more about the first days activities of the school year. He said that they would go into different teams for a dodgeball game. There would be four teams since there was about thirty or so students in the class, so there would be about seven members per team. Todd ended up being placed in the team that was on the upper left. The teacher explained that the game would go until on until there was only one person standing and that if one person was put out, there would be no way back in and not only that, but the teacher would keep track to see which team had all their members go out first, second and third. The last person standing rule didn't apply if there was more than one member on one team left but the other three teams fully taken out.

The game of dodgeball was not all that eventful at least compared to some others that would follow later in the school year. What had happened was that Todd started to run around and he picked up a ball. He threw it at a person and got them out and after he did so, he was running around dodging and trying to get people out for the sake of playing but not really having any sort of success. Afterwards, the ball hit him after he played for about ten minutes. In the end of the game, the team on the bottom right had won and the person that won the game was a girl who looked like she was a french painter wannabe. When asked what she thought on it, she refused to give a answer.

"Hey Todd, do you like to play dodgeball?" A voice asked in his direction when Todd was starting to get back in the school. He was really wanting to just get to the next class period or something like that. When Todd turned around to see who it was, he saw that it was Kevin. Todd was surprised to see him there since just a moment ago he could have sworn that he had never seen him there. But Todd decided to just be nice and then answer Kevin's question.

"I guess that it is alright. I never really care to win though. I care more about Basketball honestly." Todd answered and when he had answered that he decided that it was time for him to head on to the next class period. And then Kevin nodded and said that he had not really care all that much for any real sport but that when they were being played at school, then he would go on and play them. To which Todd seemed that he was able to understand. But then the two went their own separate ways. As Todd went to third period, the Marcia girl went right up to him and was trying to go on and get Todd to love her.

"Hey Todd, want to go on a date with me?" Marcia asked Todd and then he sighed in annoyance since he was going to have to deal with this a lot throughout the course of the next school year. Todd knew exactly what was going on in her head and that Todd was just wanting to not deal with this. But then again, Marcia seemed to just not care. She was just really thinking that Todd was good looking as of yet. The red hair, his blue shirt, the brown pants, and everything else about him so far.

"Well, here's the thing. I'm sorry. But I am more worried about getting to class right now. And besides, I can never keep up in the same school for more than one year anyways. So just take that in mind when you try to ask me out mainly because I will probably never see you again in a year from this point in time." Todd was trying to tell Marcia and he was hoping to god that she would actually just leave him alone. But she just smiled more and was trying to think of ways that she could get him to go out with her. Maybe if she tried to show him that she was more mature than he ever thought she was and then afterwards, Todd would finally just say yes to her. As Todd was able to see that she was making a crazy idea, he decided to just leave as soon as possible and then get to his next class.

The rest of the day pretty incident free. Not too terribly much had went down during the class periods that Todd had to deal with in the later bits of the day. Most of the other teachers just were not in the level as the first couple were in terms of just out there ness. However, as the school year progressed, there was more and more that had went on in those class periods that changed the course of the rest of the school year for his life and the life of his fellow students.

One thing that was strange to Todd though was the way a lot of the ways that the classes were made. Such as one in which the ceiling was right above the desks pretty much so when the students tried to raise their hands, their hand would hit the ceiling and in general the entire class would feel a little bit of pain from it and then Todd would move his hand around just to feel like he would have been better knowing that this wasn't a class that he was dealing with.

When Todd was over with the entire school day, Todd decided that he needed to just go home as soon as possible so that way he would not have to deal with this anymore. There would be at least one day down out of like over a hundred and sixty. When he reached the front door of the school, Diana had come out towards him. She was really glad to have known him just in this bit and day that she had met him. "Hey Todd, what are you going to be doing?" After she asked that, Todd was just a little confused. He thought that it was just supposed to be really easy to tell her that he was going home, but on the other end it just felt like he could not get the balls to do it.

"Want to hang out a little bit maybe?" Todd asked since he was just wanting to make sure that this was in fact what she was trying to indicate to him. She nodded and then laughed really hard when when he had asked her that. Todd took a annoyed sigh that was just quiet enough for himself to hear and not her, so he pointed to the door and then told her to follow him out there. And with that, she started to walk next to him.

"You're a pretty interesting guy." Diana told Todd and then when Todd heard that, he was feeling bad since she was starting to think more of Todd than what Todd was giving himself. He was just wanting to get through his school life and not have people try and tell him that he was the best person in the world. But then again, Todd did think that this was his favorite of the students that he had met at the start of the school day.

"Well, I wonder if you will feel that way about me in the future when you get to know more about me." Todd told Diana and then Diana laughed a little bit at that. It seemed like she was just really interested in what Todd was talking about there. She was trying to get him to tell her as much as possible. The two of them kept on walking and when they kept on walking, Todd was considering how much he should tell her. "I just want you to become a good friend of mine."

"Don't worry, you are going off to a good start. I just hope that you are going to tell me what you had gone through when we get to know each other better." Diana told Todd and then when Diana had told Todd that there was a person who had called out to them. Todd and then Diana went around and looked to see that the person who was calling on to them was Marcia. Todd felt like this was just something that he wanted to be over with already. But Diana didn't look to mind and when Todd felt that she was fine, Todd decided that he would play nice for the time being.

"Hey Todd, want to go and hang out?" Marcia asked and then Todd looked at Diana as if he were trying to get her to see the look on his face that was suggesting that if this didn't end at that very moment, he would just leave them both. But then he was thinking that maybe there really was more to her than he had originally imagined, and that maybe he really did just have to give her a chance. Although not one that he had wanted to really give her.

"Fine, I guess we can hang out." Todd gave in and then Marcia started to run towards him and then she hugged him as fast as she could before he could possibly pull back. When she did fully hug him, he realized that he didn't completely hate it. After a couple of seconds, he seemed to start and embrace it a little bit. Not really enjoying it, but accepting it for what it was.

And that was the main story of Todd's first day of his seventh grade school year. After the school day was all over Todd, Marcia and Diana just hung out at the park and started to talk a lot about what the had wanted to be when they grew up. In case anybody was curious, none of these had ever come true and all of them were false.

Todd had been thinking a lot about this throughout some of the days when he was a bit older. Like when he was in college, and he was just trying to figure out how the hell he had even gotten there. He was talking with his room mate about all of this since he thought that maybe his room mate might have been at least a little bit interested in what Todd was talking about. "So, is that all that happened at the start of the school year?"

"Well, yeah I guess. There are other things in that school year that happened. How do you feel about the stuff that I have told you already? Do you even want to listen to more of this anymore?" Todd asked and then when Todd was saying that he was hoping that this room mate of his would be more interested in what Todd was saying and that the story could continue.

"Yeah, I am a little bit curious on what is going on. I don't really know how else I can really respond to this aside from just that. I want to admit though, that I am a little bit interested on if you decided to tell Diana about any of your past experiences." The room mate said and then Todd nodded. Saying that he did in fact tell Diana and that there was another story to tell on that by itself.

"I did actually tell Diana about all that and there were some results from it as you may have expected." Todd answered and then when Todd answered it that way, he started to continue the story that he had been telling his room mate for the last forty minutes or so. "So the next three or four days of school were pretty normal for school standards." And from that point forward, the story had continued as it was normally told.

So the next three to four days of school mainly consisted of Todd going around to all of his different classes and just having varying degrees of success as well as degrees of failures throughout the course of the last few days. Diana and Todd would hang out for about an hour or so each day after school and after a while, Todd was actually started to get attracted towards Diana and as he was getting attracted to her, he was wanting to tell her but felt like he just could not. Marcia would try to seduce Todd more and more and as time went on Todd was becoming more and more solid on the fact that he had not wanted to date her or anything. Which was sort of pissing her off, but she was still not giving up on anything. Byron would still mention getting voted for in each election and then Jenni seemed like she was wanting to become a leader of her own but not class president or anything like that. Kevin and Todd had decided that they would go on and have a sleep over at the end of the first week of the school year since that is where the storyline is by this point. Kevin asked Todd and after a moment of pondering it, Todd had decided that he would accept and after telling his parents on it, he went on over to Kevin's house and then the two would start their sleep over.

"I'm not used to staying the night at somebodys house." Todd had admitted once he was inside of Kevin's house. He looked around it a little bit to see how exactly it looked like. Since he thought that any sort of house was better than the house that he was in, and he was not really ashamed to go on and admit his feeling on that. But then again, nobody would really go on and know what the house that Todd lived in really looked like. Mainly due to the fact that it was just something that he will admit, he was embarrassed of.

"Well, it is something that I hope you will get used to over the course of the school year." Kevin had said and when Kevin had said that, Todd was wondering what exactly Kevin had meant by that. Maybe he was just talking about how Todd was in Kevin's eyes going to be staying there a lot. Todd was not planning on that, but he was unaware of that being Kevin's idea.

"So, what are you planning on doing right now?" Todd asked and when Todd asked that he was looking around to see if there was a obvious place where he could place his shoes or something like that. Which was kind of weird that he could not find a place for that and Kevin seemed to notice what Todd was thinking there.

"Oh don't worry Todd. You can just take your shoes off in my room." Kevin told him and then Todd didn't seem like fighting Kevin or anything like that over his offer. So the two of them started walking as Todd was just following Kevin to make sure that he was heading in the right direction and about twenty seconds later or so, the two just went inside Kevin's room and then Kevin held his hands out as if to show that this was all of the glory that he will ever have with his life or something like that.

"At least it's cleaner than some of the other rooms that I have seen when I hung out with other people." Todd admitted and there wasn't all that much that Todd could say on it besides just that. After all, there really was not all that much he could say about a room that he was barely even familiar with. Only familiar with for the course of about thirty seconds.

"Well, that is because my brother is very picky about making sure the room is not a mess. He does not want any of his study space as he likes to call it messed around with. He felt that if it was messed with in any way, then there would be no way that he could be able to figure out any of the differences." Kevin said and opened up the window a little bit and was able to take in a nice breath and moment. Then he looked at Todd and asked him if he was going to sit down and settle down at all.

"Well, I guess I will." Todd answered and then started to walk to the chair that was closest to him. He sat down on the chair and then looked at Kevin. He asked what their next plans were and Kevin just shrugged and felt like there was no real plan or anything. Just them talking and messing around and in general having a good time.

"How about you give me an idea on what you like in school or not?" Kevin started a small talk conversation and Todd felt like that was one of the lowest denominators of a conversation that could really be put up. But Todd didn't really want to sound like a dick or anything, so he tried to figure out an answer that he could give to Kevin and hope that it was good.

"I really like the general setting of the school. I used to be really unsure about it at first, but over time I have grown to like the place a lot. The classes are not the best though, I will admit. I miss going to class at my former school." Todd answered and then he asked Kevin for his answer on the question since there was some need to continue the talk.

"Well I like the science classes. I really enjoy learning about the history of scientific compounds and such. I really want to do a lot of experiments when I grow up. My second favorite subject is just history itself. Just all the facts about it and everything is so interesting to me. The other subjects I am not too much of a fan off to be honest." Kevin had responded as well and then Todd wondered what Kevin's home life was really like.

"So what do you do normally when you come home from school?" Todd asked and by this point, he was wondering if Ken was going to have an attractive answer or anything like that. Kevin was wondering if he was wanting to tell him the truth or not, since he was not wanting to have Todd pity him or anything like that. But he was just wanting to have somebody to talk to, so he just grew a pair of balls and just told him the truth.

"I hate my house life. There is nothing about it that is working out well. I feel like my parents care more about my brother Sam than they ever cared about me. When I come home and try to talk to my parents about my school, they seem interested for all of five to ten minutes before they go to my brother and start asking about his day. I would not say they are abusive, but distant is a good word. My brother on the other hand I swear hates me." Kevin said and then he looked outside his bedroom window and was wondering how much longer he had to deal with being in this house. He knew it was at least another five to six years, but those felt like forever away.

"Why not just be more open about talking with them? It seems easy enough to do." Todd said and was kind of thinking that this was really simple logic. "How would you feel if your parents decided to have another child or something like that?" Upon that question, Kevin looked at Todd as if he were insane.

"I would not be excited for that at all. Then all of my personal life would be put to a end because I would be forced to take care of an annoying child." Kevin told Todd and then Todd decided to just leave the conversation there since he felt that this could get pretty bad had he not dropped it there.

"I wonder if I will be accepted here. Here at this school I mean. I wish that this school and the people at the school will be excited to have me around and not look at me as a burden or anything like that." Todd said since he had a bad feeling that soon enough, people would just start to think that Todd was not really deserving to be at the school and that he needed to just move away. He made some he would call friends, but he wasn't too sure yet.

"You will be accepted perfectly fine. It seems like people are already accepting you at this place. I don't think there is anybody at this school who feels like your presence is unearned. You should be happy that people are already this excited to have you in it. Shows that people do care and that you are also just a interesting man to begin with. You seem like you have a past to you." Kevin said and Todd knew that Kevin was right, but he still wasn't sure if he had wanted to reveal yet. But with that, the rest of the next four to five hours was just generic conversation and it seemed as if no progress being made. That was until Sam came along.

"Hey, what is this guy doing here? Is he here to give you a bee-jay?" Sam asked the moment that he had gotten inside of the room and had seen Todd. Then he turned around to Todd as if Kevin had not even existed and then said to Todd in a voice that made it seem like he was pretending to know what he was talking about but in the end really did not "Kevin loves those bee-jays. He's totally homo."

When Sam had said that Kevin started to get really annoyed since he always hated it when Sam accused him of being a homo since it would imply that he was thinking that Todd was a stud or something gross like that. "Sam, how many times do I have to say it? I don't like guys in that sense?"

"Okay guys, I would really like it if you guys did not talk about Kevin sucking my cock. I am here to stay the night and hang out. I am not here to give him any sort of sensual pleasure or anything like that okay." Todd said and once he said that he was waving his hands around since he was trying to get the point across. Instead it only made things even worse to him and Kevin when Sam decided that this would be a good joke for them trying to cover it up.

"Oh yeah guys, you have been here for like five hours now and you are trying to tell me that not once you guys went at it. Yeah sure, like I am supposed to actually believe that. Good joke guys. Go back to your gross exercises." Sam said and then left the bedroom as Todd looked at Kevin really confused. He was trying to really understand the whole context of that since it was just so out of nowhere. Kevin was waving his hand in a way that was telling Todd that he no longer wanted to talk or even think about it anymore.

"Can we please not ever talk like that again?" Todd asked and Kevin seemed perfectly content with that idea. But he just knew that there was no way that Sam would let them go on this since he felt the need to be a asshole on virtually everything on the planet. "Besides, why do you even put up with that guy anyways? He's really fucking annoying." After todd said that, Kevin seemed to think about that and then nodded. He had agreed with Todd, he just felt like there was no way to end the interaction between the two unless if Sam died suddenly or something like that.

"At least he is leaving us alone now. That is a positive if for nothing else." Kevin had said and then when Kevin said that, he was thinking more on what was even going on at that rate. He was thinking of things that the two could do to pass some time before the end of the time that they would be in the same house and all that. After about half a minute or so, he had come up with a decent in his mind solution.

"How about we go outside? We can just hang out outside and maybe go out to the park or something like that." Kevin said and then when Kevin had said that Todd had seemed to consider it for a moment. When he had considered it, he decided that maybe this was a good idea and then after making that choice in his mind he told Kevin so. Once Todd had given Kevin his approval, the two started to stand up.

The two started to walk around and as they had walked around, the two of them seemed excited to be getting out of this house. They didn't even want to deal with the risk of having to deal with Sam, since Sam was just so annoying that they had not wanted to deal with him at all. "How are you enjoying the time at this house?" Kevin asked Todd and Todd had told him that he was over all enjoying his time there but he was just not happy over the fact that Sam had been there and had that moment with them. Had it not been for Sam's moment there, he would have been able to enjoy this night even more by this point in time.

It took about seven minutes or so for them to be fully ready to be out of the house, but once the where out of the house, Todd took a nice deep breath. This was one of the things he liked to do the most when he had gotten out of the house, which was just take a nice whiff of fresh air and then the two started to head off. Todd was talking to Kevin about how much he liked the out doors when the two were starting to head down the stairs and then the porce and then the street that was close to the park. Which was about six or so minutes away from the house.

As Kevin and Todd reached the park, the two of them seemed to ponder what would really happen in the future. "Have you ever heard of Byron and how much he wants to run for class president? He has been talking about it ever since the first day of school?" Kevin asked and then Todd nodded right away. He knew very much about Byron wanting to be class president. It was so much shoved down his throat that he was pretty pissed when it was brought up honestly.

"Do you think that if he does run, he would actually win?" Todd asked since he thought that it would be a bit of a interesting talk point, but at the same time he just was not really sure if Kevin would try to play nice or something and say that he could win. Todd felt like he stood no chance.

"I know that I may sound like a dick when I say this, but I seriously doubt in any form of reality that Byron would be able to win if he had run for class president. He just is not ready for that type of role." Todd decided to just say it the way that it was and not try and say it the way that people would have liked him to say it. Since he had felt that was the most important part of having a friendship with a person. Just saying things the way that they were. But Todd was still waiting for that right moment to tell Diana or anybody else about his past.

"Well, maybe if he worked really hard on it and stopped just sort of messing around all of the time, then maybe he could pull off a win." Kevin said and even then Todd just could not get himself to buy it. He just felt like this was a virtual impossibility for Byron to win that thing. No matter what was said around it or how it was said, he just could not get himself to believe it at all. After all, this was a guy who didn't even know how to turn on some fucking lights. Like how stupid and careless do you have to be to not know how to turn on fucking lights.

"I just don't really buy it at all. No matter how much I try or how much I want to try, it's not possible for me. That's all that there is to it." Todd had told Kevin and then once he had said that, he had started to think more and more about how even he had a better chance of winning had he run. Not that he wanted to run. He didn't want to be a person who got way too much novelty for doing fucking nothing.

If he ever got himself into something, he wanted to make sure that he would be able to do the job. That was what had made sense after all. Not trying to do something and then figuring out later on that you just can't fucking do it.

"I feel like if Byron wants to be able to find somebody who can be a rolemodel to him that could actually give him the energy and excitement needed to be class president, then he should look after that new senator. I think her name is Sadie Woolridge. She has done a pretty good job far in her term. Although I believe that she will probably not get re elected since people probably don't want multiple terms with a female senator." Kevin was saying and then Todd seemed to think that this was a valid point. She was after all, the first female senator of that state and the fact that there was one at all was probably something that did not really make anybody proud. Well, anybody who was in the state that they lived in that is.

"Do you have any crushes on any girls that we go to school with?" Todd asked Kevin and then Kevin was trying to think if he should actually answer that question or not. there were a couple of answers that he could have been able to come up with, but none that he really wanted to admit about. At least not to Todd, since Kevin had only known Todd for about for a week or two.

"I think Jenni is pretty good looking I have to admit." Kevin decided to fess up to the truth and then Todd seemed to ponder the idea of Kevin and Jenni. Not that it was the worst thing in the world that he could imagine, it was just not really something that he was expecting to be his answer. He was honestly expecting Kevin to answer like maybe Diana or something like that. Since Kevin and her just seemed so far apart and distant that it was just something that seemed like it would be able to work in a weird way.

"I don't really like anybody as of yet. I find Marcia kind of strange. She always tries to hit me and flirt with me. It is not what I want to really deal with all the fucking time." Todd told Kevin and then he was staring at the night sky as much as he can. taking advantage of every single moment that he can get before he would have to go inside once more.

"Do you think that we should be staying out here for too much longer?" Kevin asked Todd and Todd was really hoping that they could stay out for a bit longer. Not just enjoy the outside but also enjoy the conversation that they were both having and not have to worry if Sam or somebody else really annoying coming on over and just ruining the conversation by just saying something.

"Maybe ten more minutes?" Todd asked and then Kevin seemed to be okay with that idea. After all, they could both probably use ten minutes of being outside to enjoy the night air before they would go back inside the house. And besides, there were a couple more points that Kevin wanted to bring up while the two were still in relative privacy.

"So Todd, how much do you like being in the town? Like outside of the school, where do you like to go hang out the most in your sort of free time?" Kevin asked and Todd knew right away what he would say to that. After all, it was like one of the only places that he really has been able to go to since he had came to this town. So it was sort of his default answer to an extent.

"Well I really like the skate park. I don't really do any sort of skating or anything, I just like being there and seeing everybody else do it. So cool to see their moves and the way that they can just ride easily." Todd answered and when he was answering in his head he was imagining himself riding a skateboard all the way down the park and becoming really famous as a result of it.

"I never been to the skate park for my own benefit. I have gone down there a couple of times since Sam wanted to and I just sort of would tag along with him, but I wouldn't really want to do it. And I would always get bored after about half an hour so I would just go back to our home. I know that I probably spend way too much time at our house, but I can't really help it when there is almost nothing fucking else to do besides just sort of stay home and be bored all day." Kevin said and then Todd shrugged. This guy really needed to come up with at least some sort of hobby so that way he would not be bored shitless all the fucking time. Even something as simple as trying to get into music or writing would be better than doing nothing at all.

"Seriously Kevin, you need to find something. I don't care what it is. You just need to at least try and find something to do. I get it, it is very hard to find some form of hobby at first, but I feel like once you find one, you will be very set on it. Just trust me." Todd told Kevin and then he was thinking of a hobby that could get Kevin's interest. "Do you read a lot? What type of subject is of interest to you?"

"There are a couple of things that I like to do. I like to read about history and what is all about it and everything. It is just all so interesting to me honestly. Another thing I also like is that there are just so many layers to it. I'm not much of a music guy. Tried to write a couple of songs and hated it every single fucking time. Tried writing a couple of stories but always quit after about ten pages or so since I just was not able to really get into it at all." Kevin started to just sort of rattle off ideas and then Todd was trying to figure out a way to get Kevin a bit interested in at least some of those ideas.

"Well, to be honest I haven't really done any of those myself. But I do like to sort of walk around town after school for about an hour or two as a sort of exercise and hobby at the same time. I feel like this a good way for me to do something that would be considered good for my general health but also be able to get my mind off of some things that always seem to cloud my mind." Todd started to move his hand around as if he were trying to get the general idea of things moving around in his head well.

"Well maybe when I get home, we should try and get into some of these things together. Maybe we will be able to find something of interest. But I don't think it will really matter tonight. Not like anything will really stick if we actually do something tonight. It will just be one night when there would be hundreds of nights that you have to be in something if you really want to make it a full hobby I suppose." Kevin was saying to Todd as the two of them were feeling like there wasn't all that much to talk about anymore. Which made Todd feel like he should try to find something, anything to bring up. Since he didn't want to go back to the house so soon when there was still probably about five or so minutes left before they would go home in their agreement.

"I like staying out here in the night time." Todd admitted as he started to point at some of the stars in the sky. He was just taking his best chance to go on and appreciate the stars and everything since they really were something else of their own. And he knew that he was probably just feeling that way and that it probably wasn't really the truth, but that was how it felt to him at least.

"I like to stay out here every once in a while to just sort of enjoy the fresh air. But I don't like to stay out for multiple minutes or hours. Just to sort of get the breath and then maybe stay out for another five to ten minutes and then I go back inside and then just live out the rest of my night in my bedroom. Being bored and having no clue where I want to go." Kevin was telling Todd and he was feeling like there was no other way that he was going to be nice about the way that he said it besides just that.

"What does your brother really have against you anyways? It just seems so strange that he hates you the way that he does. Have you ever really done anything that would really be deserving of it? I don't want to tell anybody. I am just curious to really know the truth." Todd wanted to just sort of cut to the chase on that whole issue since it had been in his head a whole lot and he just felt like he needed to sort of ask about it before he would forget to ask about it and all that.

"He thinks that he is better than me because I never really had all that great of grades and he uses that as a chance to get at me all the time and is telling me that I should always try to get better grades even though I have tried and have failed almost every single time I have put a real effort in. And that's just one of the things that he hates about me." Kevin sighed as he said that since he was sort of wishing that the two would be able to start getting along and not hate each other all the time anymore. There needs to be a bond made.

"Do you ever think that you two will ever be able to grow any sort of bond ever again or do you think that it is all lost forever? I feel like that if you guys really try, you might be able to find it. But at the same time, you guys don't have forever to do it. If you guys really want to re connect or anything, you guys are going to have to do it sooner rather than later." Todd was trying to give Kevin some advice and while he was aware that this advice wasn't really advice, he was just wanting to just say what was on his mind over the whole Kevin and Sam debate.

"I have given him a lot of chances. I really have. I just don't think that we will ever be able to get along ever again. I think that both of us have been willing to give it a chance but it is just not happening. Thanks for suggesting the idea of it I suppose, but seriously don't root for it at all. It's just going to be impossible." Kevin told Todd and then Todd felt like there was no need to argue with the guy on this so he just decided that he was going to try and switch the topics before it had gotten into a large fight. But before he could, Todd started to feel that he was now the one who wanted home.

"I think we are getting close to the ten minutes that we sort of agreed on before we went on to your house. I think we should start to head back now." Todd decided and it had seemed so out of nowhere for him that even Kevin was a bit confused. But he was wanting to have left about ten minutes earlier anyways, so he decided to just sort of shrug it off and then the two started to go on back to the house while having a little bit more of a discussion.

"Do you regret ever talking to me at all?" Todd asked a little suddenly and Kevin was really taken back by that one. The first comment and question he didn't mind, but this was too much for him. There must be something going on with Todd for him to be asking this question. Kevin wasn't the biggest expert on Todd obviously, but he was able to figure out that much.

"I don't really regret ever bringing you into my conversation life at all. I just maybe would not want you to try and force me to pick up a hobby that I know I will never really enjoy." Kevin answered and Todd shook his head. He was really wanting to have the guy realize that there was more to having a hobby than just trying it. But he also wanted Kevin to be able to do something: anything instead of wasting his whole life away.

"Well, fine. You can just do whatever you want and whenever you want. I guess that this is reasonable for me to say to you. But no matter what happens, I still don't think that you are going to throw me out of your life entirely just because of some things that I say or do." As Todd told Kevin that, he knew that this was not entirely true, but he was just trying to make the point that they would still be able to get along regardless of if Kevin didn't like some things Todd did or the other way around.

After that, the two remained in relative silence until they went home to Kevin's house. Once they were in Kevin's house, the two of them sort of went back to their room without having too much discussion with anybody else in the house. Since they didn't want to deal with the reactions of Sam or Kevin's parents.

"I wonder what the time even is right now?" Todd asked as he went to the living room for a moment and saw that the time was about a quarter past ten. He rolled his eyes. He had thought and wished at the same time that it would have been much later since he is tired of all the slowness of time and it passing. He then looked over at Kevin who was on his bed and staring at his visitor.

"How much longer do you plan on staying up realistically?" Kevin asked Todd and then the guy didn't really know how to best answer that. He was not really good with figuring out time and all of the different pieces of it. He had just sort of went along with it as it passed by. But Ken decided that he should come up with a reachable answer that Kevin could actually be able to believe him on.

"Maybe another hour or so. Not too terribly long. I am getting pretty tired. I don't know about you, but I am not really one who stays up super duper late every night or anything. I usually clock in at like eleven or so." Todd answered and then Kevin looked as if he actually had no real problem with that answer, even if he would have done it at a slightly different time had he been able to make the choice.

"I will see you when we wake up I guess. Well, before you go off and go to sleep, can you tell me what you thought of this?" Kevin was saying and Todd was really confused by this since Todd had said he would wait another hour or so. He didn't say that he was going to go to bed at that moment. Which seemed to be something that Kevin had not understood. So Todd decided not to answer at all.

"I really think that the teacher needs to get her act together since the way that she is teaching the classes are just not any way that I feel like would be proper teaching." Todd told Kevin by purposely changing the subject. He was telling the truth in his point of view though. He had thought that their teacher was not a good teacher at all. She would just do the most random shit and not actually really teach them anything. Todd can safely say that he had not learned a single thing ever since he had gotten to this school.

Soon after that, the two decided to just go to sleep and when they decided to go to sleep, Todd was starting to think that he was enjoying his time at Wayside, even if the teacher was a bit bad but he was able to over look that. And he had been making some good friends as well, which was also very much worth it.

Kevin had grown to think that Todd would be a good companion in a way throughout the school year and that he was glad that for whatever reason, he was sent to Wayside and that he was able to help the place sort of come back to the shape that it deserved to be in. Todd was the type of person that Wayside needed to be class president if he ever so choose to run for class president, not Byron.

Todd woke up in the morning, and when he had woken up, Todd was looking at Kevin and he was sort of thinking of the conversations that they had during the course of the day. He was thinking of what they were going to be doing before Todd was going to have to go home for the day.

He stood up and sighed a little it and then messed with his hair a little bit since his hair was quite the giant mess like how it normally was when he would wake up in the early morning. Then he cracked his knuckles and then he started to walk out of the room and as he would find out in a couple of seconds, he was not being all that quiet and Kevin woke up almost right away since the steps of Todd were a little bit louder than he had originally wanted them to be.

"Todd, could you be at least a little bit more quiet about your walking around? I don't mind that you woke up earlier than me or anything, but please come on, that is just a little insane." Kevin was saying and then when Kevin said that, Todd rolled his eyes since he was not wanting to argue with Kevin but he didn't also think that he was being all that loud. But if Kevin had said so, he supposed that it was the truth.

"Sorry, I didn't realize that I was being as loud as I was." Todd said and then he rubbed his eyes a little bit. Todd had sort of guess that Kevin was going to be going back to sleep, but to his shock he was not going back to sleep and he had gotten up. Then he started to walk to Todd and then he put his hand out. Confused, Todd slowly shook his hand and then the longer that he was shaking his hand, the more comfortable and easy that he had felt with it.

"I don't really care if you are too lour or anything like that, but I am more worried about the fact that Sam might find you doing this and get really angry over the fact that you are doing this. So I am doing this in more of a way to watch out for you." Kevin explained to Todd and Todd felt like he didn't really need any sort of explanation, but since it was given to him, he supposed that he should not really argue all that much with it.

The two just sort of hung around and din't really do all that much for the rest of the time that Todd was at the house. They just talked more about the incoming school work that they were having as well as how they had expected to make the school work turn out well since they both had about four or five things that they would need to do before they would be all caught up with what was going on in class.

Soon enough, Todd had to go home and that was around four in the afternoon. When Todd was heading on his way home, Kevin seemed to think more and more on what they had talked about and if he could be able to fully utilize what they had been talking about earlier. Or better yet, if Kevin really even wanted to. Sam sort of stood next to him at the room to see what Kevin was going to be doing next. Once Kevin sat down at a chair near his work bench, Sam seemed to get the message that he needed to leave Kevin alone and then stood up and then he started to just walk away.

When Kevin was looking around his work desk, he started to just look through the drawers and see if he could find really anything in those drawers or if he couldn't. Once he got down to the third drawer, he saw something that he had not seen in a very long time and to be honest, had sort of forgotten about the very existence of. He pulled it out and saw that it was a black leather bound notebook that his parents had bought him. Kevin thought that he had gotten it when he was around nine or so, which would have been about three to four years ago. He opened it up and saw that he had not filled up even a single page of it. Which was not that shocking in reality, but he thought that there may have been a page or two. Kevin started to look around and saw a blue pen that looked like it had been used before. He grabbed it and took the cap off and then after he took the cap off put the pen tip on the paper and drew a couple of lines. Once he did so and saw that there was still indeed ink left, Kevin took a deep breath and started to write something down. This was how it started:

"My friend Todd had wanted me to start some sort of hobby. I don't know if I will ever continue this or if I even want to go into this at all, but I promised him that I would at the very least try to find something that I would do. So here I am, just writing down something and going to see where it would go. I don't really think that I will continue this since I have a older brother who would probably read this and think that it would be a great way to make fun of me, and I am so fucking tired of him making fun of me that I just don't want to even give him the chance to do so. But maybe if I put this in my back pack or something, then he won't really get the chance to find it and then I will be fine. I don't know, and I don't really care. I just will go and see how far this goes. If it goes anywhere beyond this." Kevin started and then put the pen down and as he started Sam was watching at the entrance of the room. Seeing Kevin finally do something, anything, made him smile since Kevin was no longer being wasteful. He walked away and Kevin was thinking and the more that he thought of it, the more that he continued to write and just let it see where it was going to go.

Todd decided to not really tell too much of the story of the next couple of weeks of his seventh grade life. The next real big part of his seventh grade year was his thirteenth birthday party that he was having. Well, there was still a little bit of thinks that he would talk about in the next couple of weeks.

One thing was the fact that there was one day at school when there was a pet fish for the class that had been there for about a week or so. The teacher fed them every morning at the start of the day and then they would just sort of let the fish do their own thing for the rest of the day. At one point the fish died after about two weeks of having it in class and Todd was the one who was chosen to flush it down the toilet which was something that Todd was not enjoying at all. Another thing that happened was Marcia trying to get Todd's attention and trying to get him to go on a date with her. Every time that Todd would show annoyance at her, she would call out at the teacher and claim that he was pulling her hair, which would then get Todd in some trouble. Then at one point to get her to stop, Todd actually did pull her hair which then led to him being sent home early on the Kindergarten bus.

When it was getting near the start of October, at the parent teacher conference Todd was only having average grades and when he was told by his parents that he needed to get better grades, all he said as a response was that if he didn't get sent home so often, he would be able to be fine but he keeps getting sent home early which just messes with his grades more than anything else.

The group had all met up at one point to just sort of have a hang out and not really take anything too seriously when Byron decided that he wanted to dress up as JFK and he claimed that he was going to do this for Halloween since JFK was going to be one of his role models in the last couple of years due to being the president and everything. Todd uttered to Jenni that this was probably how he got the great idea that he should run for class president, although that still didn't explain to Todd why that was all he was ever able to talk about. Kevin told Todd that he wanted to get the courage to ask Jenni out on a date, but he just was not really sure on how he was going to be doing it. Todd just said that it would probably be wise to get some sort of like flowers for her since that would be able to show her that he really did mean business and the he was really wanting to actually go on a date with her and everything. Diana and Todd had started to come up with more things that they could do after school and Todd was coming up with idea of the two of them going down to the skate park and everything since the skate park was something that Todd was trying to get Diana into for the last week or two. Marcia was thinking of a way to finally get Todd's love since that was something that she was still very focused on with how much she had liked him and everything.

Eventually, something even bigger would start to come up. This was the Cuban Missile Crisis. Which was at the time, the closest that the United States and Soviet Union would get to a all out Nuclear war and everything. JFK worked very hard on his negotiations with other world leaders to make sure that nothing too terrible would happen. In October 28th, there was a compromise that was made in order to end this terrible crisis and this was for the Americans to withdraw their missiles from Turkey and by doing so, the Russians would withdraw their missiles.

October 28th, the day that this thirteen day nightmare had ended, also happened to be Todd's birthday. Thirteen years old to be exact at that day. He felt like he had deflected a real bullet by surviving this nuclear threat and making it to the official age of a teenager. He was just hoping that this next year of his life would be really good and that it wouldn't feel like it was just something that was not even worth living to or something horrible like that.

During his thirteenth birthday party, Todd was inviting a lot of his new friends that he had made at Wayside over to the party since he wanted to make sure that they all got a moment to share with the greatness of the celebration. Todd was just glad that he had made these friends while he was at Wayside and that his parents were also proud of him making these friends as well. That was the best part.

Byron was the first one to come on over during the birthday celebration. When Byron was there, it had looked like he was all dressed up as JFK or something like that. This had really confused Todd for a moment but then Todd realized that this was Byron's way of him paying tribute to the man who in many ways had just saved the world from certain death. Which Todd can confirm all of these years later was the truth of the matter since had the missile crisis not been resolved, there would have been hell to pay.

"Is that what you are going to dress up as for Halloween?" Todd asked and then Byron nodded and Todd gave that look as if he had totally expected that response. Then the two just sort of talked a little bit. Todd still didn't think Byron could ever be class president for even a second of his life, but he still was warming up the guy as a general whole even outside of that.

"I wonder when the others are going to finally show up." Todd said and he started to think more about hanging out with Diana, Kevin, Jenni, or hell even Marcia. Since even if he was warming up to Byron, there was no way in hell he could imagine an entire party with only him being around. That would just be impossible for him to handle. But that didn't really seem to be too much of a problem since once Todd was done thinking this somewhat mean thing, there was another knock on the door and Todd went to answer it pretty much right away.

Todd was very happy when he saw that the person who had knocked on the door was Diana. He was so happy when he saw her lately, he really was starting to think that they had a real chance of being a good couple. And after about two months of them knowing each other, Todd felt like they were slowing into it decently enough. But he kept that to himself as he just let her inside.

"You are looking nice today." Todd told Diana and then he decided that he would just leave it at that and that he wouldn't try too much harder to get her to like him or anything like that. Diana considered the comment and then smiled a little bit as she walked up the stairs and into the living room.

"You look older today." Diana told Todd and then Todd laughed at that since it was true. He just never really considered it from that view point since he was just not really thinking about being older. He was just more thinking about having a really nice birthday party with some great friends who would be there with him for it since that was what a good friend does. Diana sat down on the couch and started to make herself comfortable.

"I wonder if you have any great plans for this or if we are going to just hang out." Diana said and she was patting her legs because she was very excited to have a super duper awesome birthday party with some of her friends. Todd looked out the window and saw that there was somebody coming up to the door. Todd started to get up and then once he walked up to the door. He opened the door fast and once he opened it, he saw that Marcia was there.

"Hey Todd, are you enjoying your day so far?" Marcia asked and she was smiling as Todd seemed to get more accepting of her way too obvious crush on him, even if he had no desire to ever return those feelings for her in any way. He let Marcia in right away and she seemed even more thankful towards Todd that he would let her be in his house, or maybe hopefully his room by the end of it all. Not that she wanted to have sex or anything, but she did want him to show her everything that he had to offer for a lack of a better term.

Marcia sat down as close to Todd as she could without having him feel really tempted to tell her to get off or something like that. Which was pretty much like seven inches away from him, and Todd had put his hand to his mouth and he was taking a deep breath as if he were trying not to go to sleep or something like that. Marcia asked Todd another question. "Do you think this is your best birthday ever?"

"I think that it will be one of the best birthdays ever in my life if things go according to my plan. So far, it seems that it has." Todd told her and she put her body another inch of so closer to him in a way to try to get him to tell her what his so called great plan was.

Todd had wondered if Kevin or Jenni were going to be showing up. Or hell, even some others who he had not hung out with much before but would not to sort of give the guy a chance or something like that. "Who all did you invite over?' Byron decided to ask and Todd just shook his head mainly due to the fact that he had not really asked anybody. He had just sort of hoped that they would have shown up.

"I was not really too sure who would come, so I just sort of left it for the people to decide if they had wanted to come or not. Maybe I should have put some more thought to it before hand." Todd said and then afterwards Marcia had put her hand on his arm and Todd was at that point in time in which he had sort of stopped even giving a shit about. Mainly due to the fact that he knew that Marcia would just keep doing that no matter how much Todd would tell her to stop or any of that.

"Just have a good time today and I hope that the rest of your year will be good."

Diana lifted her glasses up and Todd has thought she would do something strange like snorting and Todd would admit that it was one of her qualities that he was not too much of a fan of or any or that. After Diana had said that to Todd, there was yet again another knock on the door and then Todd had decided that he would be the one who got the door instead of the others since he was not wanting to put any of his friends to do any sort of work during their time that they were supposed to be at his house having a good time. But Todd sort of knew who it would have been when he answered the door and then saw Kevin there.

"When I heard that you would be celebrating your birthday, I thought that I would come by and help celebrate with you guys." Kevin told Todd and then he came in the house. He had a blue jacket and he put his jacket off and looked over at the house to sort of take the setting in. He and Todd just walked up the stairs as Todd had realized that all that was left to make this a full celebration would have been Jenni, and Todd knew that Kevin would have been really excited to see Jenni be in the same room as him. Even if it were just to help Todd celebrate his birthday or something simple like that.

"Well, thanks for coming along Kevin. I am glad that you did, since it makes me have a bit more company here. Did your parents approve of you coming here, or did you just come along and not tell them about it?" Todd said as Kevin just told Todd that he sort of came along alone since he had not wanted to deal with Sam trying to tell him some bullshit. But he did tell his mother before he left for the party since he had thought that at least one of them should know before he would head off and just not be a total asshole about it.

"Well, you do what you think works for you. I can't really go on and tell you how you should be living your life after all." Todd decided and then he felt that maybe it was best if he had just left it at that since he didn't want to get into a really big fight of logic and morals with Kevin. After all, Kevin did have a couple of good points there so there wasn't too much to be upset over. After all, from the time that he did stay the night at Kevin's house, Sam kind of was a little bit of a dick to be totally honest. He just would not want to admit it out loud since he didn't want to get kicked out or anything stupid as fuck like that.

"How about we just drop the subject and get onto topics that we will all like to discuss more." Byron suggested and it seemed that most of the group was able to agree on at least that. After all, nothing sucked more than talking about a topic that they all hated. Or even a topic that the majority hated. So Todd sat down and then he was wondering what Kevin had thought of Jenni not being there or anything yet.

"What is your guys favorite holiday of the year?" Todd decided to ask since they were like three days away from Halloween and it was like his favorite part of his birthday being on this day. Since it pretty much lined up. he got his birthday gifts and then he gets candy like three days later that he is able to enjoy for the next week or so. "I like Halloween and the fourth of July." The main reason he loved the fourth of July so much was because it was just so badass to see fireworks go off and everything.

"My favorite holiday is Christmas. I love the presents and I love the snow that also comes along with it. Plus it is even better when you get what you want. I already know what I want for this year." Marcia was saying and then Todd knew right away what she was talking about. He just sort of tried to pretend like he didn't though since she was looking right at him when she was doing that.

"I guess Christmas is good to. The main problem with me is that I literally never come up with what I want until like a week or so before hand so my parents and other family members have to pretty much rush last second to go out and get something." Todd said and then he felt like he was going to get people staring at him for saying that. But it was just the truth. he was really bad when it came to this stuff.

"I love the fourth of July. Helps us celebrate our great country, our patriots, presidents and all the hard work we have done all at once. One of the best days of the year." Byron said and Todd decided that he was not going to argue with Byron even though the fourth of July really had nothing to do with any of the things that he listed and that there were other holidays that were made for these exact things he just named off. But if that was what he liked, then so be it.

"I like New Years day. It is so cool to sort of have the fact that you have lived another year sink in and to sort of get ready for yet another year in the world. You get to see what that year offers and if there is anything great that is going to come out of it. It is a mystery. You have no idea what will happen, so you just sort of think and let it happen as it happens." Diana said and she smiled when she thought about New Years. She was trying to figure out what she would want in this next year.

"I never really thought on what my favorite holiday was. I just sort of live my life out one day at a time and let things just sort of happen. I don't really force myself under a look at days and this and that sort of thing. I think that this makes some form of sense." Kevin said and Todd did not really argue with that. After all, it was a reasonable view point. But he did wonder what there would be to it that would make something stand out to Kevin more if it had been left to his choosing.

That was when there was a knock at the door. Todd got up and rubbed his legs for a second. He loved to do that whenever he stood up since it was a way to make him sort of get his blood going again as well as his body after sitting down for several minutes or when he is at school even a few hours. God, he hated sitting down in school so fucking much. School just is one of the most boring places in the planet. But it has some perks to it in the end. You just sort of have to look for all of them.

Todd reached the door of the stairs and he found that Jenni was the one outside. "Hey, sorry that I showed up late. I was not sure where you lived and was just sort of pointed here. Am I still allowed in?" Jenni said and Todd let her inside and he told her that she was perfectly allowed to come in. Jenni seemed very excited and she walked inside and wished him a happy birthday and Todd accepted that right away and then he smiled. She asked him what he smiled over and this was his response:

"At least I am having a lot of people come over today to enjoy my day with me. People are able to actually have some fun now." Todd said as if he were implying that he has the greatest hang outs in the planet. Which even Todd knew was sort of bullshit, but he was just trying to find a way to make himself feel better as well as have a nice day. So he just sort of went with it. Todd and Jenni walked up stairs and got into the living room. Kevin sat next to Jenni while Todd just sat down on the one untaken seat to be kind of alone.

"Do you not want to sit with any of us?" Diana asked and Todd said that this wasn't the case. He just saw that there was a couch that was not taken up and decided to go there so that way all the places in the room could be filled up. The others seemed to think this was really odd reasoning but didn't argue with it since they knew that they have all made weird reasons for other things as well.

"I guess whatever suits your boat." Byron decided and Todd decided to ask the next question of the conversation. It was a sort of just follow up to the question that they had last though, so it wasn't like too crazy or anything.

"What do you guys plan on doing during Halloween if you don't mind me asking?" Todd waited for the first response but then realized that there was no real reason to wait when he could have just said it himself. "Well, I plan on just going out to all the different houses and get candy again. I don't know if I will continue doing it beyond this year though. I feel like this year might be the last year in which I actually go out and do it." The others seemed to be a little confused on why he would make this his last year if he had enjoyed doing this stuff so much.

"I guess it is a thing of just not wanting to like really stick to the past or anything like that. If that makes any sort of sense. I feel like it does." Todd said and then he was a little bit sad to think that if this was actually going to be his last year doing it, then he won't really get the chance of free candy or anything anymore. Since he really did enjoy that side of things.

"I think for Halloween, I won't really go trick or treating, but I will go on and watch others who do. Sort of as a witness and a travel buddy. I mean, I'm not too much of a fan of dressing up in costumes or eating candy, but I do really like the idea of going around town and knocking on other peoples doors and everything." Jenni decided to say and she looked at the others and put her thumbs together and it was in a way to just sort of move her hands around but she wasn't like trying to come up with some deep meaning on a matter or anything like that.

"What I will probably do is just stay home. I mean, if some of my friends come up and they want me to come along, then I guess I will go. But unless if that happens, I will just stay here for the time. I don't really care about this holiday one way or the other. It's not really bad or anything, it's just sort of not really my cup of tea if you get what I mean." Kevin said and then Diana started to think of the great costumes that she was going to be wearing or the great costumes that she was going to see while she was going to be going around participating in trick or treat.

"I am going to do it. I always loved doing this. It's not my favorite holiday, but I do enjoy dressing up in silly outfits for a day and everything. And it is always cool to see how other people dress up on this day of year. Usually it's vampires and all that, but I don't care. It's just so interesting to check things out." Diana put her hands together and Todd was able to tell that she was excited. Todd already had a feeling on what Marcia was going to say, and by that meaning, he was just sort of preparing himself for it so that way when she did say it this wouldn't feel like it was just the most awkward thing on the planet or anything.

"I am going to go with some of my best friends and I will really enjoy my time with them. There is one that I think I will really enjoy hanging out with." Marcia said and she was waving her hair around while she was looking at Todd and Todd gulped a little bit. When he was preparing himself for it, it actually came out even worse since he was thinking of one way that she would say it. Not the other ways that she would say it or anything like that.

"Hey Todd, can I talk to you for a moment just between the two of us? I want to ask you something, but I don't want the others to hear us talking to each other." Kevin asked and Todd was very confused but he decided to go along with it just to see what he was needing.

"I guess we can talk. Let's go to my room." Todd said and then the two of them stood up and started to head towards Todd's room so that way they could be alone. The whole time Todd was very confused on what was going on and was wondering what Kevin would ask about once they were alone.

Kevin took a moment to look around Todd's room to see what it looked like and everything. Since he thought that the room looked decent but he was also aware of how this was probably going to be one of the few times, if not the only time, in which he will be able to see Todd's room. then once he took the moment to examine it, he looked towards Todd and then he started to get to his point.

"So, I was wanting to ask you for some advice on Jenni." Kevin said and then Todd should have known that this was where he was going to be going with this. After all, Todd was able to see in the last couple of months that Kevin had really liked Jenni and was probably wanting a way to get her to like him. So he decided that he would help him out again.

"What are you needing the advice on?" Todd asked and Kevin thought about it for a moment before he decided to tell it the way that it was. Which was not too shocking to Todd once he heard what it was for, but hearing it from Kevin himself just still seemed to be very odd either way.

"Well, I was wanting to ask her out and everything. But I have no idea if she will want to go out with me and I am very bad at this type of stuff. I have never asked anybody out and I feel like that if I do, she will just turn me down and act like I am crazy for even considering it." Kevin said and the last part was the part that made Todd a little bit surprised to hear from Kevin.

"Well, I don't really know how to help you out there. Maybe you could just take it easy and start off slowly by asking her some questions. Then with that, you guys start to interact and get to know each other. Once you guys get to know each other for a bit, then maybe you can ask her out and see if she will say yes or anything. That is the only way that I can think of you getting to ask her out and everything to what I can imagine." Todd answered and Kevin seemed a little bit sad that Todd had no advice, given the fact that it seemed like he actually was going somewhere with Diana and everything. But he decided not to complain or anything since maybe Todd was just really lucky with the person that he found and everything.

"Well, I guess that I will just try to do that. Get to know her better and all that." Kevin said and Todd could hear from the tone of Kevin's voice that he didn't really seem to think that this was going to be all that helpful but he also knew that there was no real way that he could argue with it or anything. Todd probably did more to help than he really even wanted to to begin with, so with that Kevin nodded.

"Let's go back to the living room. Maybe try and strike a conversation up with her or something." Todd said and then the two of them decided to take a moment to just look around the room for a bit and examine how it looked. Todd was mainly doing it since he was trying to figure out a way to clean it while Kevin was taking one last chance to really take in the look.

"Yea, I think that maybe we should." Kevin agreed and the two decided to leave the room. Once they left the room they went down to the living room and sat down in the places in which they sat at normally. Once somebody tried to ask what they were doing in there, Todd said that it wasn't all that important and the others decided to drop it. Even though they had not really wanted to.

"So what else are you looking forward to this school year?" Byron asked deciding that he was wanting to be the one to start the new conversation at this point and then none of them had a answer for a couple of moments. Marcia was the one that had decided to break the silence by answering the question. Although it shocked Todd when he heard the answer have nothing to do with him for the first time in like forever.

"I can't wait for the party that our teacher is going to be throwing for us. That seems like it will be so much fun. I always like the parties that she throws for us when it is a holiday season. It seems like she likes doing those." Marcia said and then Todd was really confused since he had never heard of these parties and thought that maybe somebody would explain it to him.

"When is that going to be?" Todd asked and then Marcia said that it was going to be the end of school on Halloween. This made Todd even more excited since that had meant that not only was there going to be him and Diana going to trick or treat on Halloween, but there would also be a lit as fuck party on the same school day all at once.

"What do you plan on going as?" Todd decided to ask Marcia in a way of getting a little bit more of a bonding between the two. After all, he did still kind of consider her a friend even if he was really annoyed with the way she always messed with him. "I think I might dress up as a knight. No real reason besides the fact that I think that it would be rather cool."

"I think I might dress up as a princess. That would be so sweet. Maybe somebody could come along and save me with their knight suit." Marcia said and then Todd realized that this was yet again another way she was trying to get him to like her, and he just decided to remain quiet as he was trying to figure out if he even wanted to go as knight anymore considering what he had just heard.

"I still think that I will dress up as JFK. My hero and a true role model. Even more so after the recent Missile Crisis." Byron said and he tucked his hands into his pocket in a way that made it look like he was trying to be all bad ass and everything. Todd decided that he was not even going to bother with that since he knew that Byron only cared about that.

"When are we finally going to have some cake and open the presents?" Marcia asked and Todd didn't seem to consider or care all that much about that since he was just wanting to hang out with his friends more than anything else. Todd just shrugged and then figure out that he needed to have some sort of answer.

"Probably some time in the next hour or so." Todd answered and then the others seemed as if that was probably the best answer there could be. Since that meant that they only had to wait for a little bit longer before Todd can finally just get to opening his presents and all that. Todd just wanted to talk about the halloween party that was coming up with their class and what they were going to be doing during that party.

"So what are you going to do for the party? Are you guys going to put your costumes on and just keep them on for the rest of the day so that way you won't have to change at the end of the day and between the two events?" Todd asked and there was no answer. That was his assumption that maybe they didn't really care about that so much as much as other things.

"Well, it seems like you guys are not that interested about that topic so much at all. Have you guys heard about that female senator Sadie? I heard that she was going to try and pass a new bill into law and just currently needs a few more signatures in order for her bill to pass to law." Byron said and then while nobody was nearly into political talk as he was, they decided that maybe this was at least something that they can talk about.

"Well, I mean, the bill just really depends on how good it is. If the bill works out well and actually makes sense, then I can support it." Kevin said and then he rolled his eyes as if this were the most obvious thing on the planet. Byron decided that he would explain the bill at least a little bit.

"Well, the bill is a plan to add to school budgets to give us more funding for our education which gives us more and more backing to get new materials and have a nice balance." Byron explained and then nobody seemed to really hate that idea too much, however Todd was being realistic and wanted to know more.

"Well, what are they going to increase the budget with? They must be doing something to put money in there. Like taking away funds for other things or maybe even raising taxes or something in order to make sure that the state can be able to pay off this stuff. The midterm election is about a week from now. Maybe you should try and find something that can support how this is a good idea or maybe how it could be a terrible idea." Todd felt so good that he was able to one up Byron in a discussion that was related to political issues.

"Well, my parents seem to think that it is a good idea since it might go into cutting the prices of fuel and gas prices and instead putting that money to school funding." Byron said and Todd seemed to not understand why that would even be needed since gas prices were actually not even that expensive. Or at least from what he was able to understand, they weren't that expensive. After all, they were less than one dollar a gallon and tickets for movies cost like four dollars to pay at the door. If anything, he felt that ticket prices should go cheaper.

"I don't think that either way, there will be too much of a different in what this economy does and functions. So I wouldn't really focus too much on it if I were you. Just sort of take it the way it is I would say." Marcia said and she was saying it in a way that was suggesting that she already wanted to move on to a different topic. Todd didn't mind talking about this stuff, but he just didn't really see the point in it since none of them were old enough to vote on anything or really even give a shit on what was even happening.

"Look here's the thing, why are you even caring guys? None of us are even old enough to vote or understand what is going on. This just sounds like a needless debate that we don't even need to get ourselves into. Can we just try and talk about other things?" Jenni asked and then Kevin shook his head because he decided then that it was just a great moment to add another piece into the puzzle.

"If we wanted to stop talking about it, then we would have by now. The thing is that there are things that need to be cut. Car prices can be cut and we can put that to school funding. Or we just keep things the way that they are and just deal with it since guess what, the school really is not all that bad. It's just a place with some minor problems here and there. But I am proud and happy to go to this school and am very glad that I have gotten to know all of these people in the way that I have gotten to." Kevin said and then Todd nodded since he felt like he had done a pretty good job getting towards the point of the matter.

"The school is great. But there are other schools out there that are not that great or are just terrible. Those schools needs help if they want to take off and get even better than they already are. That is where I am coming from on this. I think that what I say does make sense in a lot of ways and I think that there is something that you got to be able to agree on with all this." Byron said and then he was not really upset that people might have not really agreed with him, but more at the fact that nobody really got what he was trying to explain to them.

"Why does nobody take anything that I try to say seriously? Like I am trying to make a real conversation here, but here you guys all are, just trying to refute my point and pretty much saying that what I am trying to suggest sucks ass." Byron said since he was sort of showing his point of how nothing he said was respected and the others seemed to not really want to say anything to Byron and maybe just at the very least pretend that they were agreeing and understanding what he said.

"Well, there is nothing wrong with what you are saying. I just don't really know if those are the best ideas." Kevin said and he was hoping that the whole debate would just end at that and that they wouldn't go on and continue this stupid debate any longer. At this point in time, there was just no point for them to still talk about it. They had all given their piece of it and it should have really just been that simple.

"Well, I mean I think we can all agree that we are in a better place than we would have been had that deal had gone through and the crisis didn't get avoided. If that happened, we would have died and we wouldn't be in this place talking about stuff like this. So let's just drop this and move on." Jenni said and that seemed to really put in the feeling that this was final to all of them, and with that they had decided to just remain quiet.

"Yeah, maybe we should talk about something else. So Todd, what were you wanting for your birthday?" I mean, obviously that doesn't matter so much now since it is your birthday and you will be getting your gifts in the next few minutes anyways. But I am just curious to hear your thoughts on it." Marcia asked and there was a part of her that was hoping that he was going to say something related to her in some way there. She knew that it was not going to happen, but she was still hoping for that small chance. Todd just did a shrug off of one side.

"I didn't really want to much. I mean I thought it would have been pretty cool to get the new up to date model of the skateboards. But I also know that this probably is not the most easy to get thing on the planet." Todd said as he hoped that one of them did actually get him something like that. But like Marcia with Todd liking her, he also knew that this probably wouldn't happen. He was allowed to hope for something though.

"Was that all you were really wanting? You didn't really want anything else?" Kevin asked a little bit shocked and Todd decided that he would think a little bit since if he thought about it, there could probably be at least one other thing that he could think of that he would want. But maybe it was just not right in his head at that moment.

"Well, I mean that I could probably use a new backpack that I thought was really cool. I know that this is sort of a dumb thing to want, so I never asked for it. I just thought when I saw it that it would be really cool to have and bring to school." Todd said and then none of the others seemed to be too thrilled when they heard that. This was Todd's way of pretty much knowing for sure that none of them had given him that. He didn't mind, but he still thought it would have been cool if at least one of them had. Bit it wasn't like the end of the world or anything.

"Well, now that we are talking about presents and what we got and everything, why not just start to open them?" Diana asked and as she said that Todd looked to the table where he saw that one sole present that his parents got him. Each one of the others pulled something out from what they had with them and it was all wrapped up. This had a clear showing that they had all each brought at least something to give him. Todd was just curious as to what it all was. But he was at least glad that they did do something for him like at all. Considering the fact that he never even asked for something from any of them.

"Well, what does presents all matter when I have a good group of friends who are willing to hang out with me and talk to me over anything that I feel like needs to be talked about? As well as to share memories with them as I get to hang out with them. How about when I am done with all of the presents, we go outside and do some things. Just as long as we you know, don't go inside the forest. As long as we stay away from the forest, I think I will be able to keep it together." Todd said and that was his first sign of showing his past self to the other classmates. He knew that they were going to ask him for more details and Todd knew that he was just going to have to tell them something. But he still didn't want them to know everything, so he would just go the minimum.

"What is so bad about the forest? I happen to enjoy it. All the peaceful and quiet walks that you could take. It just seems so nice to be able to head out and not really care about anything else in the world for even just a little bit." Byron said and this was one of the first times Todd ever really remembered Byron speaking about something that actually was not about you know, running for class president or anything. This was just such a shocker to him that it actually took him a moment to get over before he tried to figure out the best way that he could be able to tell Byron what he had meant with the forest thing. He sure as hell was not going to tell them about the whole incident that happened afterwards. "Maybe you should go there at one point and give it another chance." Byron added in before Todd finally got the chance and balls to answer.

"Well, one day when I was eight years old, I was outside and playing around. As I was playing around, I decided to go to forest to have some fun. As I was in the forest, I just got scared of being in it. I found it kind of boring and I found it scary both at the same time. With those two added together, I was not able to contain myself in that place and then just left since I had felt like I needed to." Todd said and then he had hoped that the matter would be dropped now that he finally answered the question. He knew that he didn't give them the full story, but did they really need the full story?

"Is this at all related to your past and why you are so scared to talk about it?" Diana asked and Todd was giving her a very angry look as if telling her that she needed to drop the subject right now type of thing. When she saw the look on his face, she knew what it was like and she knew that if she were to push further, there would be worse. "Never mind, I think that this doesn't really matter." She decided to say and was sort of subtlety telling the others that they should react this way to. It took a while for the others to get the message, but once they did they stopped talking about it. Even if they wanted to bring it up.

"I think that we should just try and find somewhere nice to talk and hang out. Like you know, maybe the skating park or something. You know, that does make sense." Todd said and he seemed to get the others to stop a little bit when he had said that. They knew how much he like the skate park and because of that they thought that maybe he was right after all. that would be the easy thing to do first and not force him to do something that they knew he would not enjoy. Even if they had no idea what the reasoning was and wanted to know really freaking badly what the reasoning was. The only one who didn't really seem to care either way was actually Jenni, who thought that the idea of him hating forests was perfectly natural.

"Well, maybe Todd and I can practice our skating together at the skate park." Marcia said and this was activity related to what she wanted to do with him that he was able to finally sort of embrace and be able to agree with. After all, there was at least one other person who was able to agree with his plans and that had made him feel ten times better.

"I think I will open the first present now." Todd decided that they really should finally be getting to the point and he stood up. He walked slowly over to the present that his parents had gotten him at the table. He felt like it was only natural to go for that one first since that was his parents and not only that, but they did show him their gift first. He was thinking that he would do Byron next since they were the next one afterwards to go and show up. So to sort of do it in chronological order of who came on first to who came on last. Todd finally sat down and looked at the others.

"So we're finally getting to the point. I guess we couldn't be able to put it off forever." Jenni said and then she wiped her hair. This was the part that she was really interested in. Not all of that talking that got really boring to deal with after the first ten minutes or so. She always liked to see peoples faces and vocal reactions when they would open some gifts.

"Well, here I go." Todd said and then he opened the gift. Opening the gift was a little hard at first since the bottom was all taped together and everything. But after he moved it around a little bit, he finally found the opening that he needed. Well, more like he tore apart the opening that he needed. Once he tore a little bit off, he opened it and the opening went by pretty easy from there. About ten seconds later he found out what the gift was.

The gift was a board game. The game was that pop them sock them type of game. Todd smiled since he was able to really like the thought of the gift, but he just did not know how to feel about the gift itself. After all, it was just a little bit out of nowhere. But as Todd said, he did not really ask for anything so all of the people who gave him gifts were sort of just forced to guess on what he would like. So Todd put the game down.

"Do you want to play that game when we are all done?" Byron asked and Todd said that this was probably an okay idea. But they should probably head out of the house first so that way they could be able to get some form of exercise first. But then he said that once they get home and start to hang out there for a bit, then he would be fine with playing that game a little bit to mainly see if he would actually like it or not.

"Well, now that we got that out of the way, when are you going to open the next present?" Diana asked and Todd said that he would in a little bit. "I think that you would just really like my gift. It really is something nice. Or I least like to think that it is nice. You can tell me if you don't really like it all that much."

"Trust me, I wouldn't want to tell anybody if I didn't like the gift since I don't want to piss off anybody. That is like the first thing I learned when I was a kid. That even if you don't like the gift, at least pretend like you like it so that way you can make the people who bought the item for you at least feel a little bit better." Todd said and that made the others feel better but also at the same time made them wonder if their gifts for him were actually good of if he was just pulling off a case of him pretending like they are good, you know, to avoid them from feeling like they wasted their time.

"Way to make us not so sure if what we gave you was a good gift or not." Kevin had said and he was mostly saying that in a playful tone, and Todd was able to figure that out a little bit. But he still was sort of thinking of what to say to that for a moment before he just decided that maybe there really wasn't anything that he could say about that.

"Well, at least I am not being open about my dislike to something if I didn't like it." Todd said and then the others seemed to think about that for a moment and consider that to be a true compliment. At least in the way that they can at least hope that Todd had liked it, which for the most part he probably did like it and all that.

"I think that I like you a lot. I don't really have to pretend on that." Marcia said and then Todd didn't even try to react towards that. He knew exactly what she was going to say, even if she had said it in a way that he was not really expecting it to go. Then when he thought of it a little bit, he decided that he would actually go with Byron and get his gift next since that was the one that he had planned on doing. For the sole reason that he was the first one to show up.

"Hey Byron, can you hand me your gift? I think that I want to open yours next." Todd decided and then after he decided that, Byron seemed to be a little bit taken back by that and then he thought that this would be a great time for him to be in the spot light for at least a little bit. So he got up and handed Todd his birthday gift as Todd decided to grab it and hold it for a brief moment.

After he had held it for about ten seconds, he decided that he would open it. As he opened it, he was sort of wondering what it was. Which was something that he never thought he would have done over a gift that Byron would have bought him. He never would have thought that he would be interested with the gifts that Byron ever gave him. No wait, get rid of that. He never thought there would be a day at all in which Byron gave him any sort of gifts. That alone was already something of a miracle.

So once Todd opened it, he saw that it was sort of like a necklace in a way. But the thing that it was holding was the thing that was cool to him. The thing seemed to be in the shape of the bird that he had only seen on pictures a couple of times. It was all grey and black, so he wasn't able to really see what the bird was, which was a little bit of a problem for him. But that didn't take away from the fact that Byron had the consideration to give him a gift at all. Which Todd will state again, was a miracle of its own.

"It certainly does look very interesting." Todd decided as he put the necklace on. He had no other way of saying it than just that, so he was going to just leave it there. Then he rubbed the thing a little bit once he out the necklace on. Mainly to see how it felt. A little bumpy, but that was something he could very quickly get used to once he had worn it for a few days. Or hell, maybe even a few hours.

"I think that you will find yourself to like wearing it once you wear it for a little while. Trust me, I never really cared much for it, but I knew that somebody would love it. So I decided that you might be that type of person. It just sort of seems like something that you would like." Byron told Todd and then Todd thought that maybe there was a sense of truth to what Byron said.

"Well, I think that once I give it a few days, I will let you know if I enjoy it not. Is that a fair deal?" Todd suggested and then Byron nodded and Todd decided that maybe he should go onto the next gift. "I think I need to open the next present. I think I will go out to Diana, since she was the next person who had come on over after Byron had." Nobody seemed to argue this logic as Diana handed him his gift so that way he would not have to go out to her and get it himself.

Todd didn't wait for a few seconds on this one. All he did was just feel it and made a quick prediction on what it might be when he said "I feel like it could be some sort of book" and then once he opened it he realized that he was actually not right. Well, not completely at least. It was a picture book, just not a real full on book. He was seeing that it was pictures of the entire previous school year at Wayside. Diana smiled when she saw Todd look at it really confused but slowly more accepting.

"It is something I do every year. I decided to give you this copy of my one from last year. I am working on the one for this year. You have some pictures in it. It's like a year book except for free and I am making it instead because there are a lot of times when I get a little disappointed in the school year books to be totally honest." Diana explained and Todd seemed to get more excited about having this the more that he was holding it.

"Thank you. I am going to be excited to be in the picture book this year. I hope that I can make this school year something truly great." Todd said and then he seemed to consider the thought of how many pages he might actually be in on the year book. He had hoped that it was a lot, he just wasn't really sure what he would count as a lot. Maybe like seven or eight. The highest he ever got in a previous year book on his older schools was five. So this would be breaking his record, plus some on top of it.

"Well, you can be sure that your impression will live on in more than just a few pictures." Diana told Todd and even when she was telling him that, he still was not really sure if that was true. He was just sort of deciding that he would take it in and sort of act like what she was saying was true. After all, he could only really hope that it was.

"I feel so much better when you try and put it that way. Makes me feel like I have done a lot for the people when in reality, I have not. I have just sort of came along to this school and I am trying to really get into the whole feel of it still. I just don't really think I am worth all of the hype in a way to put it." Todd said and he still felt glad that people liked him and all that. he was just trying to be a realist at this point in time. But when that was all over with, he figured it was time to move to the next person.

"I feel like I need to open some more gifts and not keep everybody else waiting." Todd said and then the others kind of felt that maybe there was a certain point to what he was saying and that he was right. Todd thought about it for a moment and then realized that Marcia was the next one there. So he would be getting his next gift from her since he was just going by the order they were coming. "Hey Marcia, what did you get me?" Todd asked and then Marcia smiled as she got a gift ready for him.

"I think that you will really like what I am about to give you." Marcia told Todd and then Todd started to get himself sort of braced for when she handed him the thing. She pulled something out of her pocket and it seemed like she was going to hit him or something like that, but then she ended up just slowly giving him the item. Todd realized then that she was being nice to him due to the fact that it is his birthday after all.

"Well, thank you for going easy on me." Todd said as if he were not able to believe what was going on. Then he opened the present as slowly as possible. Mainly because Marcia at least was able to go slow with him, so he decided that maybe he should go slow with her to make her feel like she had given him something that he would really like.

After he had opened it, he had seen what she had given him. It was a small little picture of her and her cat. Todd looked at it for a moment and let the fact that she gave him that sink in. It seemed really nice the more that he had thought about it. "That is of my cat Fluffy. I really like them and I think that they would be nice to you when you guys meet." As Marcia said that she said that she was really excited for when she would be able to get a picture of him so that way there would be something that she would be able to remember him over. Todd said that he will work with her on that when the time comes.

"I will put this in my wallet." Todd decided to tell Marcia and as he had said that he was wondering where his wallet even was. He thought it was in his room and he just sort of assumed that this was the place it was at. Thinking that, he decided to sort of drop the matter in his head so that way he would be able to focus on other things. So with that, he put the picture in his pocket so that way he would be able to get the other things. Plus, he can always fact check to see if his wallet was in his bedroom later when nobody was around to see what he was doing.

"I think Kevin was the next one who had come here." Todd thought out loud and then he realized that this was true. Since Jenni and Kevin were the only ones who hadn't given him their gifts yet and Jenni had not been there until like at least ten minutes after all the others. "So I am thankful for all the stuff that you guys have given me so far. They are all really good things so far." Todd was about to say that he really liked the picture book but he also thought that maybe it would be wise to not play favorites at least when they were all there to sort of watch every word he said.

"Well, I mean I guess the gift isn't really too much of a big deal. But I thought that maybe you would be able to appreciate it. I don't really know what else to do besides this." Kevin explained in a quiet voice as he slowly handed Todd his gift that he personally made for him. Todd was not really sure where Kevin was going with this, but Kevin seemed really sad over this so he just sort of opened it all slowly.

Todd took nearly a minute to open it. Mainly because of all the fucking tape that Kevin put on the damn thing. Like holy shit, why did there have to be so much damn tape on this thing? Anyways, so as he was opening it, he had started to sort of wonder what the fucking thing could have been to make Kevin so convinced that the thing was just going to fail no matter what? Well, after all when Todd thought about it, Kevin seemed this way over everything so maybe this was just him over hyping it once again like he always did.

After Todd opened it he saw that it was some sort of like helmet. He was really confused on it for a moment until he clicked it in that Kevin had actually bought him a helmet that he could use for his skating. "Well, why did you worry that I was not really going to like this at all? I think this is a pretty neat gift." Todd said and then Kevin gave a response that was half on topic to the gift but half completely different from the topic at the same time.

"Well, I thought that it would work out. To be honest, I had just gotten it like three hours ago. I didn't really know if it would work. That is why I wrapped it up so much. Oh and Todd, I started to try and get that hobby that you had told me about. I don't really know if it will work out, but I think that it will keep me company for the time being. I found this black notebook back in my drawers about a month ago and I have slowly been filling it when I have the chance." Kevin explained and Todd thought that Kevin was not really that type of guy. But as Kevin did say, Todd was glad that he was doing something at all to try and get the hobby going at all.

"How have you been enjoying working on all that?" Todd asked since he thought that by this point, Kevin would have made a choice on if this was really his sort of thing or not. Kevin seemed puzzled at the fact that Todd was asking this. After all, if he was not enjoying it, then why he would have been doing this and going at it still after all this time?

"Well, I seem to be enjoying it more than I thought that I would have enjoyed it. I thought that this was going to be a bit of a drag, but here I am still doing it and thinking that maybe it is actually a good way to work on my thoughts and let them all loose in a way." Kevin explained and he was hoping that Todd would be able to understand what he was saying.

"Well, I think that whatever works for you, you should do. At least you know what you want to do. Or what you would like to do now." Todd said and he was thinking of what was going to come next. Jenni still had to give him a present, but he was not going to speed up the process like he had done with Kevin and Marcia a little bit.

"So what do you plan on doing with that helmet? Do you have another helmet that you still want to use for now?" Kevin asked and then Todd got back into the mindset of his birthday gifts and thought about a way to answer his question. Well, he did have another helmet obviously but he thought that he needed to at least try it all out and everything.

"Well, how about I use it next time I go skating today or tomorrow. Then if I like it, I will keep using it and if I don't then I could say that I had at least tried it out. Fair enough?" Todd said as Kevin tried to decide if this was fair or not. He sort of guessed that it was so he decided that he shouldn't try and act all offended or anything like that.

"Well, tell me how to like it when you try it out." Kevin said to Todd and then Todd made the promise that he would tell Kevin how he liked it right away when he tried it out. With that, Kevin had nodded and then that was the end of the conversation of his helmet. At least for the time being that is.

"Hey, can you open my gift already? I have been waiting here and you have not even come to me to open mine." Jenni told Todd and it felt like she was half meaning it in a serious voice but also half meaning it in a joking voice. But since she did bring it up Todd decided that maybe it would be a good idea to open it. He was going to open it like a minute ago before Kevin had decided to ask him that one question and then Todd felt like he had to go out of his way to answer that question and all that.

"Yeah, let's get going on it right away." Todd said and then asked her to hand him her gift. Jenni moved around for a little bit as if she had forgotten where it was in her stuff but then once it looked like she had remembered it she picked it up and then handed it to Todd. She told him that she hoped he would like it since he did not really know her that much so she kind of had to guess on what to get for him. Todd said that was okay as he started to open it.

"I think that one of the things that I do good at is finding a present last minute for people when it feels like it is just impossible to do it." Jenni laughed and she was not really sure if this was a good thing or not. Maybe it was both a flaw and a strength that she is able to find things at the last minute a lot of time. Todd had finished opening the gift when she had said that and he had seen that the gift was a bowl. The bowl had a bunch of cool designs on it. Mainly looking something like a eagle on many parts of it. Todd took a moment to examine it and then he had realized that this was probably the most american bowl that somebody could have possibly given him in his life.

"I don't really even know what to think of this. I think that it is pretty awesome but also a little bit odd at the same time." Todd said and then he was patting the bowl a little bit. that was the part that was odd to him. The fact that he was patting his own bowl that he had gotten for his birthday. But he was just trying to find some way to show that he was grateful for it. Which was sort of odd to think about him doing it that way. Not that it really mattered all that much.

"Well, I think that you will be able to put it to use. I don't know what exactly you will use it for. But I just feel like there will be a decent amount of things you can get out of it. And if for nothing else, maybe you can just put it up and enjoy it as a prop or something." Jenni suggested as Todd put the cup down with the rest of his gifts. Now it was getting to the point in which he had to find something to do then. After all, there were not that many things to do there anymore since he had done basically everything by then.

"Well, maybe we should go outside now. How do you guys like that idea?" Todd said and then soon as Todd had said that, most of the others decided that this would be a good idea since they had all wanted to get at least some form of fresh breath of air. After all, they had spent like one or two hours in that room doing nothing besides just pure talking and bitching about things going on in real life. Which was fun the first few minutes but then turned into a real drag after a little while.

"I think that maybe we should. There is only so much that we can do inside this house." Kevin decided as he got off the chair and then moved his back around a little bit. As he did so, the others took this as a cue that maybe it was time to end their time being inside. After all, if both Todd and Kevin are on board with this, then it was something that needed to be done.

"Where do we go?" Byron asked and all realized that this was the bigger topic of discussion since none of them had any real idea on where to go or even why to go there in the first place. If they even wanted to go somewhere that was not just outside.

"Well, there are always some stores that we can go on and try out. You know, to see if we like the things that they offer. I know that it is not really the best offer on the planet, but it is something." Diana said and Todd seemed to not really have any real problems with this idea so he nodded and the group started to head out of the house. "I don't even know what any stores offer, I just kind of had that come along in my head."

Todd opened the house door and was the first person out. When the others came out of the house, Todd then closed the door and then with that, he responded to what Diana had just said. "Well, it is something that we can do. And since there are no other ideas for the time being, we will have to do it."

The group started walking more and more away from Todd's house. Todd felt so good that he got to be out of the house for any sort of time since it was his birthday and he didn't want to spend his entire birthday just in his house not having any sort of idea on what to do. Those are always the worst birthdays. The ones in which you have no idea on anything so you just sort of waste it away.

"Seriously Todd, what is your problem with the forest? It is so nice to go into on many days and you can just sit down there and then relax and ponder everything that goes on in your life at the current moment." Marcia asked and she was saying it in a tone that suggested that it was like one of the few things that she enjoyed more than hanging out with Todd and making him think that she is the craziest woman on the face of the fucking planet.

"Yeah seriously Todd, just give it another chance. You can't let one bad event ruin your entire life." Byron told Todd as Todd was feeling like it really wasn't that easy at all. He had wished that it was indeed that easy, but it wasn't and Todd felt like it never would have been that easy. "Just ten minutes. And if you don't like it again, then we will leave you alone about it and let you continue on with your forest hating ways."

As much as Todd was annoyed with them trying to prove a silly point, he did find that statement kind of funny. The way that he said forest hating ways was just something that like needed to be witnessed for people to see just why it was so funny. The way that everybody was trying to convince him to do this made him think that maybe he should actually give it the chance that they have been telling him about. Who knows, maybe he would actually enjoy it more than he thought he would have. "Fine you guys win. I will give it one more chance. If I don't like it again, I will be extra firm on the idea that I will never come back here again and you will not be able to change my mind on this." Todd said and he put his left hand on his right one and then made a fist with his hand.

"Sweet. Let's go there right away." Jenni said and then she was saying that as she seemed to really take in the fact that she was wearing white clothes. meaning that she wouldn't really be able to do a whole lot without fucking up her clothes or anything like that. As she thought about that for a moment she decided that she really could not care less as the others began a slow walk to the forest.

The group started to speak about their first forest memories. As they were doing so, Todd was trying to avoid telling them of it. After all, they seemed to all be waiting for his turn since they all really badly wanted to hear of why Todd hated the forest so much and they assumed that by hearing his first experience in the forest, then they would be able to get it. But Todd needed to find some form of a back up story. Maybe if he could remember a past memory before even then, then he could avoid this for a little bit longer. "My first experience in the forest was when my friend George led me there and we messed around with the logs and pretended like we were in the middle of the jungle." Kevin said and then followed that up by saying that he didn't really talk to George anymore and that he would not really consider him a friend anymore. Todd had figured that out on his own considering he never even heard of this George guy before. The question was how did they stop hanging out.

"What made you two stop talking with each other?" Todd asked and he was asking this since he thought that it was a pretty innocent question that wouldn't really involve too many harsh feelings to Kevin. After he had waited for a second, he started to then realize that maybe he should have just kept his mouth shut and not ask Kevin that question. So then he moved right onto a new subject. "So what was your best forest experience like? Doesn't have to be your first or anything."

"Well I think that my best forest experience was the time in which I found something that looked like the bottom of a waterfall. I tried to go up it and got about ten percent of the way there before I had realized that it was something that I should try to stay away from. Since if I had not, then things would have gotten much worse than they already were at. But when I did get to my peak, I looked above and took a bit of time to appreciate the view a little bit. Oh the view was truly something of wonder." The way that Byron was describing this made Todd almost feel like he had actually wanted to go on and give this forest thing another try. He didn't really want to or even think of wanting to, but damn Byron could be convincing at times.

"At least it seems like you have fun when you guys go out there." Todd said and then he scratched his head a little bit. There were times every once in a while in which he would think that he was wrong about something and try to give it another try. Such as when he thought that getting into music was the dumbest thing ever when he was ten. Then he gave it another chance about eight months later. While he didn't like it much more than he did before, he did go on to at least appreciate the fact that it is a form of art. So some form of a compromise was being made.

"I really want to see what the trees look like over at the forest. Well, at least this entrance of it. Since the other parts of it I am already checking out and I want to check out all of the different sections of it to see how they all look." Diana said and she was saying that as if she wanted to make some sort of map out of it. Which given how she was in general, Todd really did not think was all that big of a shocker. She would do anything to make a map or outline out of it. Even if it meant checking out every single entrance of the forest known to the human race.

Soon enough though, the group had all reached the place that seemingly looked like the entrance of the forest. All of them stood behind Todd since they had wanted to show him that he was now the leader of this path. Todd really did not like how they were doing this to him at all. But he decided that he wouldn't bitch about it or anything since he already bitched enough about this whole thing that he thought they would have hated it if he did it even more. But he did ask if they were really sure if this was a great idea or not and they were all insisting towards him that this was a good idea and that he needed to do it. Then with them telling him that, he decided to just agree reluctantly and then he started to walk through the forest as they had expected.

As he was walking along in the forest, he was starting to think that maybe this wasn't so bad after all and that it was just one experience that had sort of ruined it for him. "Do you like it so far?" Diana asked as she examined the place as much as possible and Todd was not at all sure if he could get himself to say that he liked it yet. But he did like the nice smell of it and how it seemed like there was nothing that he had to really worry about as long as he was down there.

"Can we all just like the fact that there is nothing like terrible going on in here? Like there is nobody dying or anything." Jenni said as she ran up a broken tree that was on the ground. She seemed to be having a blast as she was doing so and Todd felt glad that maybe they did go inside the forest. Not because he liked it or anything. But because for once, he felt like he had been able to play the hero role and it had seemed like everybody was glad that he was the one that had been able to go on and play this hero role. Everybody seemed to enjoy it and that was good enough for him. All his work worked out in the end of it all.