Kick

Push

Kick

Push

The feel of the hard and cracked sidewalk, all the crevices and imperfections reverberated through the hard plastic wheels, into the trucks and through the thin plywood into his feet and up his legs. It's a feeling he's never going to get used to, the trembling and the excitement of going fast, weaving though people are just too slow and not aware enough to move out of his way.

Leaning on the board, he cuts off a man who looks like he's in no hurry to be anywhere. Darts behind a mother addressing her fussy toddler and in between a couple of girls on their way to school. He sees his destination coming in fast, a small liquor store made of brown brick that's been painted over many times to rid itself of the graffiti. It's a temporary solution. There will be more tagging there be the end of the week.

He slows down and jumps off his board, pressing heavily at the end, kicking the front up so he can grab it. He walks by, peers into the propped open entrance and sees the elderly woman who runs the place paying no mind to anything. Diligently working on her sudoku book. Brows creased and tongue peeking out from between her thinning lips.

He walks past and around the corner of the small building, the side faced away from the main road where he spots his morning companion. Hiro sits there in his fading blue-grey hoodie, biting down into a muffin, two cans of arizona-unopened-by his side along with a brown paperbag. Hiro digs into the bag and produces another muffin.

"Banana-nut?" Hayden asks, knowing the answer. It's tradition really.

"Do you have to ask?" Hiro cocks an eyebrow, lifting the baked good toward Hayden.

"It's tradition." The older boy shrugs and plops himself down next to Hiro. Both their backs pressed against the cold brick wall. He takes the muffin and bites into him then hums. "Still warm." Hiro grins before turning his attention back to his own breakfast.

They both sit in relative silence, just the sound of Hayden's converse tapping on the asphalt, them both opening their tall arizona cans at different times. The time silently ticks by, getting closer and closer to the first bell ringing.

Hiro checks his phone, sleek black screen blinking to life and displaying the time in large numbers. Hayden recognizes the background. Hiro and his older brother both at some kind of convention. "We should go." Hiro says thoughtfully.

"Alrighty. Thanks for breakfast bud." They both get up, Hayden retrieves his skateboard and Hiro grabs his own.

"You've got to get breakfast tomorrow, don't forget."

"Do I ever forget?" Hayden Scoffs.

"Yes! Like, a bunch of times!" The younger boy half yells.

"What? When?" He asks, taking a bit of a running start before getting onto his board. Hiro follows suit. Hayden only half listens as Hiro lists all the times he's shown up to their meeting place empty handed.

He focuses more on the cracks in the sidewalk and the uneven earth that rumbles through his board.

Kick

Push

Kick

Push

They skate through the neighborhoods, watching the surroundings change from urban to suburban, the sidewalk gets smoother and colors around them become less muddled. Hayden remembers when they first started this tradition. He had asked Hiro to meet him at that liquor store and to bring food. Hiro had asked over and over again why they were meeting so far from where they lived. After receiving dodgy answers and muttered excuses Hiro gave up but kept meeting him here.

They zoomed past the first checkpoint, pristine white gates, and onto the campus. Shouts of "Hey! No skateboarding!" Greeted them as they rode pass one of the teachers. Hiro hears a "Fucking kids" muttered under the teachers break and he chuckles. They both dismount their boards and part ways. "See you." Hiro called after the older boy. Hayden waved over his shoulder, not looking back. Never looked back to see Hiro stand there looking at his retreating form before going off to class himself.

Hayden struts into class, ignores his teacher's, Mrs. Wen's, gaze. "Nice to see you on time Mr. Haddock." She comments from her hard wood desk, hair drawn up into a loose bun and legs crossed. Her hands fiddle in her lap as she wait for the final bell to ring.

Hayden takes his seat by the window next to Flynn. They nod to each other and Fynn goes back to texting on his phone, no so subtly hidden under his desk. He never understands why people think no one notices them looking at their crotch instead of the board. The brunet rolls his eyes and looks out the window at the campus' quad. It was still verdant and the leaves on the shade giving trees had yet to turn even in the face of the on coming autumn. The final bell rings and Mrs. Wen gets up from her chair and closes the door then looks at the class, about to address them when a sudden pounding at the door gives her pause.

The class is quiet for a moment and she opens the door slightly. "Sorry, bell's rung. Make your way to the tardy…" She pauses. "You are?" Hayden tries to look past her to see the student on the other side of the door.

"Jackson Overland? I, uh, have a note. I know I'm like, 3 weeks late in the semester but the office here was having trouble receiving my transcripts…"

"Alright mister Overland." She backs away from the door and lets the boy into the room. Hes tall and lanky. Tan chinos and a light blue cardigan accompanied by a dark blue undershirt. The class erupts in whispers. "Get a look at this dude's hair." He hears Flynn say to him. Jackson has snowy white hair styled in a way to make it look like it was an accident.

"Class." Mrs. Wen says, silencing the entire class, some even sit up straighter. "This is Jackson Overland. Late addition. Treat him nicely. Mister Overland, there is an empty seat over by Mr. Haddock. See the boy with the skateboard and non regulation piercings? Behind him." Hayden scowls at Mrs. Wen and the boy, Jackson, nods nervously and heads over. Hayden can't help but notice the smell of hair gel and mint as Jackson passes him. He hears the scrap of chair against linoleum floor. A thud of a backpack being dropped and opened.

"Alright, class. Welcome back to the wonderful world of eastern history. I hope you all had a lovely weekend. Because this week is going to be brutal. We're going to be closing up on the Huns." A few students start taking notes as she lectures. He can hear the scribbling behind him and the tapping of thumbs beside him. Hayden elects to stare out the window. Listening for important tidbits that will be on the test.

His mind refocuses when he feels a steady tap, tap, tap on his chair leg.

It stops for a moment and Hayden decides let his mind wander back outside when again tap, tap, tap.

"Stop." He says loudly enough for Jackson and Flynn to hear. the brunet half turn in his seat and looks at Jackson.

"Huh?" The new kid says dumbly. Too engrossed in his note taking.

"You're kicking my chair." Hayden says lowly. "Stop."

"Oh, um. Sorry. I just-uh. Long legs." He smiles apologetically, pulling his legs out from under Hayden's chair."

"Is there a problem over there?" Mrs. Wen stops her lecture. "Mr. Haddock? Mr. Overland?" The class looks ever to them.

"N-no." Jackson stammers.

Hayden gave her an even stare before looking back out the window.

"Alright then." She turns back to the board and starts going over time-lines again. Flynn chuckles and types something on his phone. Haydens phone buzzes in his pocket. He quickly and quietly fishes it out and sees it's a text from Flynn.

'Picking on the new kid already?'

He puts the phone back into his pocket without replying.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Jackson scribbled furiously, trying to keep up with the fast talking woman at the front of the class. He was 3 week late into the semester because Montfort had been slow in transferring over Jacksons transcripts. He's pretty sure it was done purposefully. Deacon Albrite could be a major asshole sometime;. well, all the time really.

But it's fine now. He's here, in a public school where people can have their own style and really represent themselves the way they want. After the first negative reactions from his father, a very tight frown, and Miriam, who had scoffed and called him something under her breath. He had started to regret bleaching his hair. Until Sophie had addressed him in the back of his father's car on their way to school.

She hadn't said anything to get his attention, simply peeked at him shyly until Jackson gave her a quizzical look. "I like you hair." She had said low and shy. He smiled brightly.

"Thanks, Sophie."

"Here's your stop, Jackson." His father had said bringing his car to a stop. He had said something to Jackson that he could not remember. He had been too preoccupied staring at the pristine white gates. He waved them off as Jackson's father and sister drove off.

People in the halls all either ignored Jackson or had smiled at him.

Now though, he was sitting behind this kid that Mrs. Wen had called Haddock, like the fish, Jackson presumed. He didn't seem to be in a good mood...or a very warm person the way he had glared at their teacher. He looked intimidating too. Piercings in his face and in all black even with a black beanie on his head, letting locks of red-brown hair peek out from beneath it. Jackson didn't understand that at all. It was a good eighty-seven degrees out. Not hot, but certainly not cold enough to warrant a beanie.

Not to mention he had already gotten on his desk mate's bad side with his bad habit of stretching his legs out and tapping with his foot. He had pulled his legs back to himself, his knees touching the underside of the desk. He was sure he could feel used gum touching his thigh. Very gross.

He blocks it all out though and concentrated on the notes he was supposed to take down. He'd have to ask a fellow classmate for the previous weeks note to make sense of all of it. He immediately rules out Haddock in front of him as he only stared out the window. He also rules out the boy in the other isle of desks. He spent the entire class texting.

Jackson nearly jumps when the shrill shriek of the bell goes off. Mrs. Wen looks at the clock and frowns. "Alright, class! Remember to read through chapters three and four. There will be a quiz on it." She half shouted over the sound of kids talking, chairs scraping against the floor and notebooks being put away.

Jack quickly shoved his notebook into his messenger bag and began to get up only to notice that Haddock was the first out the door. Jack paid him no mind as he walked toward the front of the class.

"Uh, Mrs. Wen?"

"Hm?" The woman doesnt bother looking at him, instead keeps erasing the marker off the board.

"I was, um, wondering if you had the notes from classes I had missed?" She turns around and gives him a sympathetic smile.

"Most of my lecture is done from memory Mr. Overland. I have sheets with main topic points but they won't do you much good. I suggest you read the book and catch up." Jackson's shoulders slumped and she went back to her erasing.

"I can help you." A girl walks into Jackson's field of vision. She gives him a small smile. "I have all the notes from previous classes. I can let you copy them if you don't mind following me to my locker."

"Oh, uh. Yeah sure. I can do that."

"Alrighty, follow me. My name's Anna by the way." She extends her hand and Jackson takes it.

"Jackson." He smiles at her and she begins walking out into the hall and presumably toward her locker. "You have awesome hair by the way! My sister has something like that but a bit blonder." She stops suddenly and Jackson almost plows into her. "That isn't natural is it?" She looks at him over her shoulder.

"'Fraid not." He runs a hand through it but stops himself, remembering the time it took to get it the way he liked it.

"Ah, well my sister's a natural platinum blonde. Very rare in our family, apparently." Jackson finds it hard to keep up with her, both in pace and conversation as she takes random turns and skillfully weaves between people much much bigger than her. Jackson loses sight of her once or twice but eventually catches up only to realize she had never stopped talking.

He found the girl rummaging through her locker, which looked messy, and produced a rather thick red notebook. "And I mean, could you believe she ignored me for almost six months! So I went on a date with a college guy! He was nice...until I found out he was a total psycho. But still! I swear, that girl is never gonna get laid. Well, I mean, she's never going to want to get laid but thats besides the point!"

"What do you mean?" Jack tilts his head, and asks a question for the first time since Anna had started this particular tangent.

"Well, she says she's asexual, and boy did that explain a whole lot when she told us. I'm serious, no one was surprised at all when she told." She pauses, thinking to herself. "She was actually a little miffed."

"Oh...well atleast you were all there for her. Not everyone's families are so understanding…" Jackson says softly, remembering his coming out experience or rather his being outed.

"Yeah, that's why she founded the LGBT...A? Q? There's a club flier in here somewhere…" She puts her hands on her hips and stares at the mess in her locker.

"Theres an LGBT club here?" He asks, words spilling out of his mouth too quickly in his excitement.

"There sure is. Nice bunch too. Anyway! This is the first two weeks of Eastern History...and some math. And some brit lit….and doodles-but I'm sure you'll figure it out." She closes her locker and hoists her heavy looking backpack onto her shoulder, about to head out.

"Wait! Um, I was wondering if you could...introduce me? To the LGBT club I mean." He can feel heat pooling in his stomach and heat on his face. But he has to do this, he tells himself.

Anna pauses, looking Jackson up and down before she smiles, even laughs a little. "Sure thing. Meet me after school in the quad. Under the cherry tree." She hoists the bag again but-

"One more thing! Do you know where…" He reaches into his back pocket for his list of classes. "room B sixteen is?" He aks slightly embarrassed. "I'm supposed to have AP biology with a Mrs. Porter?"

"Oh! That's on the way to my class. I'll walk ya. Have you gotten your locker yet by the way? Because I remember when I first started going here they took forever to give me my locker. Had to carry all my books around for weeks. Horrible." Jackson, as a matter of fact, had not received his locker yet. The continued on their way with Anna chattering and Jackson listening and following as best he could.

When they had arrived in the right building, Anna had apparently taken a wrong turn, not paying attention while she was walking and talking. Jackson rushed inside the room just as the bell rang. He hoped Anna had made it to her class before the bell. He's hate for her to be tardy because of him.

"Oh, hello there." Jackson's attention shot toward the woman sitting on the teachers desk, book opened in her hands. "Mister Jackson Overland, I presume?" She gets off the desk and approaches him with a friendly smile. "My name is Jane Porter, you can address me as Mrs. Porter. I dont think it would be very professional for my students to call me Jane." She laughs quietly to herself. "Why dont you take a seat by…" She gazes over the students in her class. Jackson is initially surprised at how small the class is. Well, the class room is actually fairly large, filled with posters of the anatomy of certain animals. Shelves with insects on display. Some alive, some preserved. Animal skeletons propped up along the walls and five larger tables with sinks in the back of the classroom away from the standard desks.

There were only around fifteen students in the actual class however. "Hayden! There's a seat next to him. Mister Haddock? If you could raise your hand." Jackson stills slightly, his eyes land on the boy he sat behind in his previous class giving him a rather annoyed look. Jackson smiles nervously in response. "And if I remember correctly with you that makes...fifteen!" She says loudly, clasping her hands. "That means you can be in Hayden's group bringing that groups number to three like the rest. Well that worked itself out quite nicely didn't it?!" Jackson gulped as Mrs. Porter walked toward the board to begin her lesson, chuckling to herself.

Jackson sits down beside Hayden, glad that this time he could stretch his legs. "Hey there again." Jackson tries to strike up conversation with the brunet. Hayden elects to stare up at the ceiling instead, since this room didn't have large windows to look through. He frowns, and doesn't try again. Instead he directs his attention to the woman at the head of the class talking about insects. Jackson pulls out an empty notebook from his messenger bag and began taking notes, noticing that again the boy next to him doesn't bother taking notes.

It's the end of a very long day when Jackson wanders out onto the quad, toward the pink cherry tree. The day had been long and brutal. From his AP English class with Mr. Smith, which was after his AP biology class, all the way till has last period which was Cooking with Remmy, which Jackson thinks had been really fun actually.

He soon spots a group of girls standing in front of the cherry blossom tree talking amongst themselves. One of them is a short girl, probably youngest one there. Her hair was pulled into messy pigtails. Next to her, a taller girl with multi-colored hair and sharp features. A girl who looked older than all of them with platinum blond hair done in a braid looked at the tree skeptically, stood off slightly to the side of the other two. Next to her was Anna, who had spotted him walking up to them.

As Jackson got closer he hears the youngest of them talking with a slight accent. "All I know is, you better get the shot you need before autumn rolls around and it looks like a fuckin' anime puked all over this place." She spits out.

"It's going to look beautiful!" The one with multi colored hair says, clasping her hands in front of her, prompting the short one to roll her eyes.

"If you say so."

"Jack!" Anna announces his presence. The three other girl turn to look at him. The smallest one sizes him up, making him feel a little uncomfortable. "Jack, this is the club! And this!" She points toward the girl with blonde hair next to him. "Is Elsa, my sister."

"Um, hi?" Jack offerers lamely. Elsa looks him up and down before stepping forward with her hand out stretched.

"It's nice to meet you Jackson. I heard you wanted to join our club?" She asks, her head tilts slightly to the side. Jackson takes her hand in curt and polite shake before she retracts it.

"Yeah, I mean. If that's okay?"

"Sure it is!" Comes the bubbly answer from the other girl who had been talking to the shorter one. She was still looking at Jack like she was taller than him. "My names Toothiana!" She grabs Jacks hand in both of hers and shakes enthusiastically. "That's Audrey other there." The short girl tilts her head in recognition but says nothing. "Dont worry about her, she's shy around new people."

"Am not!"

"We're missing a few people. Merida is at rugby practice and Rapunzel is probably still painting in the art studio. So we're all thats here at the moment. It's going to be so exciting having the first boy in the club!"

"There…" Jackson stops her for a moment. "There aren't any guys in the club?"

"Sadly no." Elsa addresses him. "Besides, I guess, you theres only one other guy that's out at this school and he wouldn't be caught dead in our club." Elsa rolls his eyes. "Like I'd let him in anyway."

"Elsa!" Anna smacks her shoulder lightly. "Hayden's a nice guy...once you get to know him."

"Wait." Jackson interjects. "Hayden...Haddock? Wears all back. Skateboard?"

"Yeah! You sat behind him in Mrs. Wen's class. He's gay too."

"Oh…" Jackson deflates.

"Is there a problem Jackson?" Elsa asks.

"No...I was just hoping I'd be able to meet...other guys like me."

"Hey dude, if you're looking for random hookups. There's an app for it. This ain't no dating service." Audrey cocks her hip out to the side, fist placed on it.

"N-no. Thats not it! I've just, um. It doesnt matter. I'd still like to join. If you'll have me."

"Of course Jackson." Elsa smiles at him, it's an easy going one that seems oddly misplaced on her face. "Meetings are on Tuesdays and Thursdays in that light blue building over there." She points to the tallest building on campus. "That's the Ghibli building. Were on the second floor in room seventeen. Right now were having a sort of...unofficial meeting about an event coming up. You can stay if you'd like."

"Oh, uh. I'd like to but I have to get going. My dad's on his way to pick me up. I'll be there tomorrow though!" Jackson says excitedly before he starts off in a jog toward the main entrance.

His thoughts drift back to what had been said. He was going to be the only guy in the club...and the only other gay kid on campus was, apparently, Hayden Haddock, who for all Jack knew, hated him already.

Things were not looking up.