"You're smoking again."
"Yes."
"I thought you quit."
I sigh heavily before turning to Token with a glare. "It's been a rough day." Token and I drive to school so we get here earlier than Clyde and Kenny. Right now though, we're not at school, otherwise I couldn't be smoking. I told him I needed to before hell began and we walked off.
"Rough day?" Token laughs, "It's seven in the morning. School hasn't even started yet."
"Yeah, I know," I tell him. "That's the point."
"Well, what happened?"
I groan. "It's my parents! Actually," I say. "No- Well, yeah. I couldn't get to sleep last night so eventually, I just said fuck it and I started watching Red Racer. When my parents woke up and saw me on the couch, they lost their minds. They accuse me of being high and shit. My mom was yelling at me about my hickys and that this 'girl'," I use to fingers to quote, "Is affecting my grades. Then, somehow, my dad and I got into it about college." I toss my bud and grind it into the pavement with my heel.
"You know, just one of those huge arguments about nothing. And I've had a migraine since last night." Though, it is slightly going away finally.
"That sucks," Token says.
"And when Kenny and Clyde see this shit they're gonna have a field day."
"Yeah," he agrees. "They probably wouldn't tease you so much if you just told us who it was."
"First, they'd definitely tease me more if they knew who it was and why do you guys care so much," I ask. I always ask this when it comes up- who's leaving the bruises on my neck. It's come up enough. I don't have a solid argument. I'm still working on it. Tweek could make it a little easier for me, but he doesn't.
"Why are you so adamant on keeping it a secret?"
I scoff, "I'm not 'keeping it a secret,' Token. It's just none of your business. It's nothing serious anyways so why does it matter?"
"We have flings all the time and we tell each other about them. I don't know," Token admits. "But, when everyone else is bragging about something and then you're the complete opposite. It's just weird. Like, why's it such a secret?"
"It's not," I repeat.
"Then who is it?"
"None of your fucking business."
"We wouldn't care, Craig," he says, "If they're like in a relationship or something. Or if it's someone we've been with. I don't care, at least."
Without thinking I mutter, "I'm no homewrecker." It was a joke but it wasn't very funny, especially since it knocks that argument off the board, if I ever decided to lie.
"Okay, then what are you hiding?" Token asks.
"Jesus Christ, what does it matter?"
"She seems to want us to know her, since she's leaving all these hickys. Last week it looked like she tried to make a heart and this week it's an actual trail from your neck to your ear."
"What?" I yank my phone from my pocket and check my reflection. "Son of a-"
Token laughs, "You didn't notice?"
What I don't want to do is call Tweek a she and if I say he then the cats out of the bag and I might as well tell them it's Tweek. I don't really want to talk about this anymore but I also don't want to tip Token off that this isn't just me hiding a relationship with some girl. There's something really uncomfortable about thinking if people knew because they shouldn't. Unless I tell them obviously.
Token shrugs. We start walking back toward the campus.
"Is it Bebe?" I laugh, "Wendy?"
"Absolutely not."
"Red."
"No."
Token sighs heavily, "Are you lying? Who else could it be? He asks. "-And why are you hiding it?"
"Token, listen, it's not anyone you know, okay? Trust me. I'll tell you eventually," I promise which is probably not very true. I just want him to agree to leave me alone.
He's quiet for a while but then says, "Have you applied to college yet?"
"Mm," I hum. "You know how that is."
"So, you're really not going?"
"I never said that," I say. "Some schools take applications in February."
"Art schools mostly. Unless you're going for photography."
"What am I gonna do with four years of photography school?"
"Make money as a photographer."
"Don't make it sound so simple, Toke. I might start to believe you."
"Whatever," he says. "I'm young and optimistic."
"Since when?" I chuckle.
Token laughs at this and says, "Yeah, well, maybe you should do a little more research before it's too late."
"College happens too fast anyways. I can go next year if I even want to go."
Token agrees and then says how much it will suck when everyone goes their separate ways which makes me cringe and want to tell him to stop talking without him knowing it makes me uncomfortable ( talking about everyone 'going their separate ways') but instead the bell rings in the distance and I'm thankful.
Even Clyde is leaving the State. He's going to Alabama or something stupid and he doesn't even know why. I swear he just absorbs his parent's opinions. He doesn't know what he wants he just knows what he knows. I try to act completely indifferent about it because I know that would hurt Clyde the most. He d0es the same and I can't tell if it's for the same reason. I don't think Clyde's smart enough for that.
Token and I start heading to class. I count my blessings and prepare for what's to come.
"At least it's early day."
"I wish high school were over already."
"Dude, five more months."
We get to class before most people because we were standing right outside. I felt lucky. I thought I'd be really lucky if one of the miscreants didn't come to school at all.
But I'm not that lucky.
"Wassup!" Kenny grins at Token and me. Clyde comes in right behind him. Kenny's eyes drop to my neck and he gasps.
"What?" Clyde asks.
"Craig Andrew Tucker," Kenny exclaims, dramatically. "Your neck!" He grabs my face just as my mother had and I wonder if maybe Kenny's gone through the same with his mother and that's why he was able to quote my mother verbatim because otherwise, he stalks me. I would not be the least bit surprised but Kenny's just weird like that.
He tilts my face upward and he and Clyde examine the damage. They both start laughing loudly the more they see. "It's just so funny because you won't tell anyone who it is and they must know that so they're doing this shit on purpose just to fuck with you!" Clyde cackles.
Clyde sits down in front of me and Kenny sits next to him across from me with Token sitting behind me.
"What if he's giving them to himself?" Kenny laughs. Clyde laughs too and asks the blonde how I'd do that. "Like- like, with one of those vacuum. The ones for ziplock bags! One time my sister out it on her forehead and she had a mark on her head for weeks!" They laugh.
"I doubt it," Clyde says. "Looks pretty real and I don't doubt someone wanting to suck on Craig's neck. You head what the girls say about him."
"Yeah, but do you ever see Craig talking to girls?" Kenny says.
"We can't all be whores," I say. Clyde 'ooh's' and Token laughs.
"Yeah, but you don't ever talk to girls."
I roll my eyes.
"Maybe Craig likes older women," Clyde gasps.
Now Kenny gasps, "Is it a teacher!" Everyone in the class looks at us. I cover my face with my hand. "Sorry," Kenny says.
"It's not a fucking teacher, you fucking morons. Now, can you please shut the fuck up about this? I have a headache."
They simply boo me and continue to make kissy faces and noises in my face. I try to ignore them at first, looking out the window and the classroom door that's still propped open for late kids.
But then I see Tweek walk by and he notices me almost immediately. It was scary how we made eye contact. It was also scary how his presence seemed to tune out Clyde and Kenny's idiocy. Tweek has a bandage over his nose which makes the corner of my mouth twitch.
Tweek sees Kenny and Clyde and starts to laugh, also making smoochie faces and sticking his tongue out at me before continuing on. It makes my stomach drop which is scary.
I don't know why he's not in class or where he's going. I don't even know what class he's in or if he even has a class this period. And I don't know why I care, which is scary.
I mush Clyde's face away hard enough for him to not try to get that close again and thankfully, the teacher starts his lesson so Kenny and Clyde finally shut up.
The first time Tweek and I boxed, he knocked me out. For the first few months after that I always wondered if he did it on purpose. I thought of so many theories: he hadn't done it on purpose and because he never boxed with anyone before he didn't know his own strength, but it's pretty common sense that if you hit someone in the face hard enough they will pass out, but maybe it was an accident, maybe he was nervous, maybe he missed. I'm not sure why it was so important to me to know.
I never knocked Tweek out but the first time I ever beat him was late in middle school or early high school. We'd already been boxing for two years maybe it was close to the time we started messing around. I don't actually remember which came first. No- I do, because the day I beat him was the day I finally saved up enough for my truck and I had this crazy ass wet dream with Tweek in the bed of it. Arguably one of the best dreams I've ever had. So it was after everything happened.
I remember thinking Tweek hated me. He was always so mean looking and he never said anything. He showed up, punched me in the face, we took our showers (a little too close), and then we went home. Maybe that's why it made me so mad. I remember thinking it wasn't fair for me to be mad because Tweek treated me how I treated everyone else. Maybe that's why it made me so mad. Gradually we began speaking. It was never anything different. It was school, assignments, teachers, and boxing or coach. It was never our parents, our struggles, our problems, or even our dreams.
I like thinking that we're both just really fucking boring because that's the life I wish I had.
So I'm just gonna post this like this because I think for this story I'm gonna have shorter chapters so I can post more... posting more is good right(?)
Did you know it's against the ff rules to have authors notes hahaha. ( I read that somewhere I think)
And if you like this story and you're feelin it and wanna leave a review that'd be cool too, I like to know what yall are thinking or whatever and this story is really hard for me to write for some reason and it's only chapter two like, whats up with that?
Idk, I'm struggling
Merry Christmas. I won't be posting for a while. xx
