"D-do you want to sign my cast?" I asked Jared even if I kind of knew the answer. I blinked in regret. "Why are you asking me? We're family friends. Why would I be friends with a fucking maniac?" He pushed me and walked off. "And tell your mom to tell my mom that I was nice to you! Car insurance!" I went off the other way with a sigh and went into my first class. The day went by smoothly without any trouble. Well, not a big one. Just that the guy Connor was staring at me in pre-calc and punched me in the arm after class. When I went back home, I laid down on the couch alone. The whole house was quiet except for the sound of some birds outside. There was a note from Mom that said she will be home at midnight and a little smiley face. I went on my phone and found that Jared had texted me. Jared: Come to my place at 5 Me: Ok. Jared invited me to his house about once a month for me to say something nice about him to his mom and to show we are friends. I put on my blue parka I got for Christmas and walked 5 blocks to his house. I knocked 3 times and Jared let me in. His parents weren't here today and Jared let me in his room. It was the first time in his room. There was a large slim TV screen in the middle of the room and a bed facing it. Beside was a table with game software and a computer. The computer showed his IM buddy list. It was empty except for my name. He probably had another account for his real friends. Something I'm not. "Evan I'm going to be your partner for the AP English assessment. So just do the thing and put my name on it too. Got it?" "Y-yeah sure." "Write the damn letter to my mom and get out of the house that's it." I did as he told.
While I was walking, I was thinking why he didn't just text me about that and made me call his mom? Did he want to meet me? Of course not. I'm not his real friend. I'm a family friend. The word stuck in my head. Family friends. I wasn't paying attention to walking and bumped into someone. "Oh, s-sorry I didn't mean to ... " "Oh. Hey! Your Evan ... Right? I'm Alana from your school. You do Spanish with me right?" "Y-yea ... " "Well can we have a little talk about the homework? I want to see what you're writing about for the essay" "S-sure." Alana was the girl in my Spanish class and she sits in front of me. I remember when I saw her in the assembly last year when she was having a speech about global warming or some war. I remembered that she was clever. "Hey why don't we go to that place and have a chat?" she asked while pointing at an ice cream shop. A la mode. "I-I don't have m-money bec-cause you know ... my mom's al-lone and ... " "Oh. I'm sorry to hear that. Well, that's actually not uncommon because there was a census in the US and said that 13.5% of the US citizens were living in poverty. Well, I don't mind buying you an ice cream." "N-no. Is ok. You don't have to. I'm s-sorry but I have to g-go now. S-sorry." "Oh, ok. It's fine." "I'm so s-sorry. Sorry." I walked away from her and headed home once again. She probably thinks that I'm stupid and would never want to see me again. I feel like aluminium. Like everyone else is a magnet. But most people have an N and S and they stick to each other. But I'm aluminium and nothing stick to me. Even if they try to, gravity makes them slip away. Why am I like this?