Tear Us Apart

Sharks

Waltzing through the deserted isles of a nearby 7/11, a lonely Daniel combs through the equally as melancholy items stocked on the shelves waiting for something to change. Something did change. For the worse. A shorter, confident boy struts in with a band of friends and starts to pick a packet of Doritos out before noticing Daniel who was now talking to the cashier. "Look, Aden, it's Daniel" One of the short boy's friends says.
Daniel slowly spun around to see the familiar face of Aden, his old friend who had become more of a nuisance.
"Hey Aden"
"Daniel" Aden nods back, a smirk was growing across his face, a wicked vine spindling around a cold brick wall. The group goes quiet, then they start to circle Daniel like sharks around prey. They start catching up with each other and joking around but Daniel and Aden were quite the opposite. Aden had retreated from his extroverted character and was now standing at the back of the group laying an awful stare on Daniel who, like Aden, was standing quietly at the edge of the pack. By now they had all finished purchasing their snacks and were making their way to the door when Aden grabbed Daniel firmly by the arm. His hand seemed to linger gently before hissing "Don't blow this for me, just stay out".

The group faded into the somewhat foggy Autumn air and Daniel mounted his bike and left.  He couldn't help but overthink about what Aden had said to him "Don't blow this for me", they were once great friends and shared everything with each other, they drifted apart and they both said things they would grow to regret. Daniel switched classes and friend groups,
Aden made sure to leave snarky comments when passing Daniel in the hallway. "I just don't know what I've done to piss him off" Daniel was now talking to his faint reflection in the middle of his bike handles, wondering what might have caused the drifting between him and Aden.

"4:26" Daniel still hadn't gone to sleep, he'd been tossing and turning his bed, every noise distracted him from sleep, every light was blinding. He couldn't shake Aden's expression when the group was leaving from his mind. Daniel eventually went to sleep, he slept for most of the weekend in a sluggish state and not leaving his room with the exception of bathroom breaks and dinner.

A shrill alarm woke Daniel up Monday morning, he slumped out of bed and in time made it to school. School was, as usual, a jungle scape. He spent most of his time learning things he won't remember or joking around with Felix and Chris, Daniel's closest friends. By the end of the day, Daniel's social metre was run down and the last thing he needed was Aden parading around with his goon. This is exactly what ended up happening. Despite being verbally batted around by the group, Daniel was still quite happy partially because the day was over and partially because he missed seeing his old friends. The rest of the week was pretty similar with the exception of Thursday when Daniel fell over in front of the class on his way to Humanities. The whole class was laughing but it beats having to watch Aden enjoy Daniel's old friends.