"Hey skits, where you goin' for lunch?"
My head whipped around searching for the speaker; Cowboy.
I shrugged, leaning back hard in my chair so that my feet stretched towards the other end of the laboratory table.
"I dunno. Aren't you going with molly today, its Thursday?"
God, how I hated the two of them, always groping at each other in the hallways.
"Nah she's sick. So where you wanna go?"
I shrugged apathetically again and turned to face the front of the classroom where Mr. Chan was writing down our assignment on the board.
"Give me a pen." I demanded cowboy bluntly, reaching across the table to where he sat and taking a pen from his binder before he could even reply.
I gave him an acerbic smile and pointed to his folder where he had been doodling little anarchy A's all over the cover.
"Nice." I exclaimed mordantly, while writing the homework on the back of my hand.
Cowboy gave me toothy grin, stealing the pen from my grasp and continuing to draw more anarchy A's across the vast stretch of green plastic.
I stole another glance towards the front of the room where Mr. Chan continued to lecture the sub-conscious class on weather systems.
Go to hell fucker, I doodled on a blank sheet of paper with my own pencil.
Cowboy craned his neck to see what I had written. He tried hopelessly to suppress the smile slowly forming at his lips.
You're an asshole Mr. Chan. Go fuck your mother and let us be.
Again cowboy looked over at my binder, having to muffle his laughter, "Your such a bitch, Skittery."
Outside the bell signaling the end of 4th period rang.
"Yeah, I know," I responded wryly, closing my binder and stuffing it in my torn and over used backpack.
A few months ago I had forgotten to take my switchblade out of the front pocket of the bag after a camping trip and the knife had ripped the front pocket clean open so that fabric hung freely. Several mid size holes had also taken shape in the main part of the bag, but besides for the fact that my stuff often went missing, I could care less.
"C'mon." Cowboy nodded his head towards the open door at the front of the classroom, his equally mistreated bag slung over his shoulder listlessly.
"Man, you got a sweatshirt I could borrow?" I asked once we had reached the sophomore lockers on the third floor the building.
I was wearing my tie-dye jimmy Hendrix shirt and as more and more people passed us I felt more and more self-conscious. Shit, I wish I had let my mum give it to the good will.
"Nah, sorry man. Mush might though, his mum's always making him take an extra layer to school."
I nodded, reluctant to walk any farther with the ridiculous t-shirt on. Fuck, who in their right mind lets their goddamn son out of the house with a tee shirt on in fucking March!
From his locker cowboy withdrew his Walkman, slamming the metal door shut moments later.
"You ready for Love Buzz?" he asked as he placed the headphones on his ears, lounging against his locker.
The dreaded talent show. We had been practicing since December, 4 months ago, yet still a small bubble of an anxiety formed in my stomach whenever I even thought of the thing.
I nodded lazily, my eyes searching the hallway for another one of our 'clique' members.
I hated the word clique. Just the sound of it seemed bitchy and exclusive. But it was hard to deny the reality that what we had was in fact a clique. A hard, solid, asshole-filled clique.
"We're gonna rock pretty damn hard that's for sure. Definitely book at least second prize." He continued, adjusting the headphones on his head.
No we weren't. We sucked balls and if the rest of our group thought other wise then they were just plain off their rockers. Of course we rocked hard, but when you combine two killer guitarists, a garage rock vocalist, a slamming bassist and an angry drummer, its not really music any more. What we had was noise. Fucking white noise. Our inaudible 'noise' wasn't the only problem. The talent show had been a trivial topic ever since me and spot had our little 'disagreement' over lead guitar. I hadn't talked much to the dude since the fight. But man, that fight was just plain dumb. We just argued back and forth online and then the next day in school and then at lunch and then at practice. Finally we simply stopped talking to each other all together. We both wanted lead guitar for Love Buzz with a fiery passion cause its so damn fun to play but for months now we hadn't been able to decide who should get it. We both have the same statistics and history on guitar; started at the same time, learned from the same teacher. No fact could prove me or him better, only what the ear heard and I'm pretty sure folk's ears liked my playing a hell of alot better.
Suddenly Dead Kennedys began to blast from cowboy's headphones.
I stared down at his Dead Kennedy's sweatshirt.
"You better be careful no one starts calling you a fuckin' poser, man."
He gave me a cynical smile "Mind your own bee's wax, bird brain."
I snorted at his insult. "Nice, that was a real smooth one, cowboy," I muttered sarcastically, my hands in my back pockets.
He leaned his head back against the locker, "someone better have a smoke on hand."
"I may be able to supply you," Came the mocking voice of blink. He was wearing a yellow vans tee shirt and a pair of brown, straight leg corduroys. A wallet chain protruded from his back pocket.
He looked around the hallway; students rushing off to lunch, coming in and out of classrooms.
"Others not here yet?"
"Hey we gonna practice one more time today," I asked hastily, ignoring blink's question; if he didn't see the others here well then question answered.
Jack shrugged, lost in his music. I doubt he even heard what I had asked.
"Dunno. You guys wanna practice again?"
I shrugged, glancing anxiously around the hallway. If the others didn't show up soon it would take hours to get food unless we cut the line.
"I think you should." Put in racetrack as he strolled casually over to our group of three, his hands dug into the pockets of his camouflage jeans. Although Racetrack wasn't part of our band (out of free will and lack of talent in the musical area) he was as much part of our 'clique' as any one of those other fuckers were. We kind of considered him our musical consultant.
"Hey race, you gotta an extra layer?" I asked for a second time.
He shook his head 'no'.
I looked to blink.
"All I have," Blink replied earnestly, pointing to the flannel shirt draped carelessly around his lean frame.
I shrugged once again; some days talking just seemed a pain in the ass and besides, why use words when shrugs can portray just as much and require less thought.
Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder. Coolly I turned my head slightly to the left.
"Hey, Rita." I muttered to the blonde by my side.
"Hey unsocial Skittery, a bit depressed are we today?" she asked in her usual effervescent voice.
God how I hated that bitch! She had been calling me 'unsocial Skittery' ever since I had stopped going to party's about a month ago and already, the name made me want to smash a mirror every time I heard it. I wasn't unsocial (yet) I just didn't like parties! What's wrong with that! I mean all that ever happened at the parties in our school was all the couples made out while everybody else either got exceedingly stoned and watched a movie or listened to crappy music and got mad drunk. Or both. I mean take me to a real party, I wont complain, but bring me to one of those shit-hole flings and I'm gonna leave within the first half hour.
"Now unsocial Skittery, don't tell me you haven't been taking your medication," Rita teased on.
Aw if only we hadn't been in school cause I would've smacked the shit out of her any place else.
"I said 'hi Rita', isn't that enough?"
The girl scowled playfully at me before turning to the other people in our group to say a hello to them as well.
Although I simply despised Rita's attitude, I had to admit she was hott. About two months ago she had gotten out of her rocker chick phase and now was in an 80's punk phase. Everyday she came in wearing different colored tights, madras converse, a frilly short skirt and a skimpy, yet radically colored, tank top, showing some major cleavage.
The other's waved a hello to her. They didn't hate Rita as I did. They only disliked her.
"Where's jade?" blink inquired about his girlfriend, leaning next to cowboy against the lockers.
"She's down stairs with mush and spot."
Cowboy rolled his eyes. "Fuckin' scabbers could'a told us where they were going." He muttered to himself, throwing his Walkman in his locker, slamming it shut and beginning to amble towards the stairwell, his hands thrust into the pockets of his Dead Kennedy's hoodie.
"You've been hanging around skits to much." race snorted, following cowboy closely towards the stairwell.
Cowboy cast a hateful glance back at race before turning around once more, bobbing up and down ever so slightly as he walked.
"Yeah and you've been hanging round Rita to much." I muttered under my breath, dropping to the back of our slowly moving group.
Suddenly a glassy eyed girl popped up by my side, latching on to my arm.
"Hey skits." She chirped pleasantly, a wide smile set about her freckled face.
"Hey doll." I replied, planting a small kiss atop the girl's brown, wavy hair, my scowled expression immediately turning into a grin.
Kayla wasn't my girlfriend. Surprisingly, Kayla and me were just best friends. Really, really close best friends. Now I know that sounds a hell of a lot like fuck buddies but we weren't or we aren't anymore. Sure I broke her in, but we got over the romance by 9th grade. Kayla and me were just incredibly close, best friends. Like best, best, friends. She was probably the only one in our 'gang' who hadn't once called me an unsocial bitch or claimed I was on the verge of Goth-hood and I was probably the only one out of our gang who hadn't called her a prude. Of course one of the reasons I had never called her a prude was because she had already proven me other wise but the point isn't who I've fucked and who I haven't. The point is that we were each other's shelter, protective gear I guess. Any time the world lashed out at Kayla, she came running to me and vise versa. Conclusion; we loved each other to death.
"You guys goin' to the band room for one more practice?" Kayla asked, her juvenile face beaming up at mine.
"Yeah I guess, if we ever find mush and spot."
She nodded understandably; her dark curls bouncing up and down, going this way and that way like branches swaying in a calm storm.
"So where you goin for lunch."
I rubbed my eyes, unhooking our arms momentarily, "I dunno, no one can seem to decide on anything today."
I yawned loudly, causing Kayla to giggle.
"God, I got 2 hours of sleep last night."
"Nervous?"
"Nah, I dunno what was keeping me up," I shrugged.
She nodded her head again. Man, how I loved that girl.
"Hey," I bent down to whisper in Kayla's ear, "wanna just skip out on them…go to Thai food or something?"
She furrowed her brow, "don't you guys have to practice, talent show's tomorrow night?"
I shrugged, putting my arm around Kayla's shoulder once more, "they're never gonna be able find mush and spot and jade. They'll probably end up going to star bucks or something, 'sides, I'm too tired to put up with Rita today."
Kayla gave me a crude look, "she's not that bad."
I shot back at her a vigilant smile, "oh, yes she is."
Kayla slapped me playfully on the back of the head, "be nice."
"You tell me to 'be nice' to her when she starts addressing you as unsocial Kayla or depressed Kayla."
"You just didn't get enough sleep." Kayla proclaimed glibly as we hopped down the stairs, a flight behind cowboy and the others.
"Ok, so I didn't get enough sleep," I admitted hastily "now lets go before they remember we're here."
Kayla threw a glance down the next flight of stairs at where the others were sliding down the railing, talking and cursing in loud boisterous voices.
"You know what, I already have too much of a headache today and a lunch with spot -if they ever find him- isn't going to make me feel any better. C'mon, lets try to get a ride in the elevator and beat them downstairs," She led me over to the door off of the stairwell, pulling me threw its frame by my hand, "between the attention Rita draws towards herself and the amount of curses Race incorporates into every sentence, they'll never realize we're gone."
Man, I really did love that girl.
i hope you liked the first chapter! please rr! ill try to update soon.