~•Me And The Boys•~

2 - All the Attention

I wring my hands, anxious as usual. When I took the bus, I never had anxiety like this, but ever since the incident on my bus, my mother insisted on driving me to school. She had made me late plenty of times, and that didn't help my already overflowing anxiety.

What would Cayden think? What about Alex? And Evan? Oh god, what would Olivia think? She liked me, after all. I liked her too, right? That's what I was supposed to do, accept her confession. She's pretty cute, I guess. I mean, she kind of looks like a pug, and not in the good way, but she's alright. But more importantly, what would happen to my gym grade? That was my only 100, I couldn't give that up.

"Ugh, I really don't want to go to work today. You're lucky I wake up early every single day to drive you to school. I could be asleep right now. It's ridiculous, really. We have to wake up at six for this shit?" She grumbled. She always does this. She lectures me about shit I can't control.

"You don't HAVE to drive me, mom. You just do. I have a bus stop." I roll my eyes, staring out the window.

"Don't backtalk me. You're not going back to the bus after that shit you pulled."

"Mom, that was 7th grade. That kid was literally throwing my backpack down the isle. I wasn't in trouble."

"I told you not to backtalk me. You're not going to see your little friend there this weekend if you keep it up."

I keep quiet. I wasn't going to risk it, Cayden means a lot to me. Sure, all of my friends do, but Cayden is my best friend.

I gulp as I see bus after bus filled with children flow into the driveway, my mother waiting for every one of them to enter before she does, seeing as how they have the right away.

She pulls into the unnecessarily long driveway to the school, my anxiety bubbling up and almost making me want to vomit.

I grab my binder and my crutches, waiting for her to stop in the drop-off.

"What, you wanna go to school that badly? Maybe you should just live there." She attempts a joke, stopping and putting the car(that, may I mention is way shorter than me) in park.

"I just miss my friends. It's been a while." I shrug, my anxiety worse than ever as I open the car door, seeing everybody else going to school as usual.

She grumbles something underneath her breath, waving goodbye to me and speeding off right as I'm on the sidewalk and trying to hold my binder in a way that actually lets me walk with the crutches.

Just as I finally figure it out and just put the strap around my neck(I'm not very smart), a swarm of kids come through, waiting for the bell to ring so that we can be let inside. Those around me push and shove each other, but are careful around my crutches, one even slinking away from me as their stuff hangs loosely around their shoulder and waist. It was that weird emo trans kid who everybody seemed to have a problem with.

I painstakingly make my way up the set of five, useless stairs and eventually get to the elevator that is in the middle of the hall. Using the elevator, the only bonus to having multiple breaks in your foot.

Still, we all have to end up in the same place, the top floor, and so I wait as the shabby elevator comes to a halt and eventually, it opens.

And from that point, I was off to experience a new day, in a new way of life. Hooray.

Getting out of the elevator, I look around at the dozens of other people around me. What would Cayden think? He hadn't heard the news quite yet, I couldn't just communicate with him outside of school. He has a phone but I don't, it kind of feels unfair. He's younger than me, but my mother insists that I don't need one.

But anyway, I'd just have to wait and see what comes of the day. He probably heard something, there's a lot of people who know about it. I didn't even consider that he might have been worried, or had wanted to talk at all.

Best friend. It sounded wrong saying it now, though I had done it countless times before, to others and myself. Is that what we are? I thought so, seeing as we're so incredibly close, but something still feels off about calling him my, "best friend". I had called him that so many times before with no hesitation, without thinking, because that's what he is to me. And yet, it now feels wrong?

It might be because he spends so much time with others. I have some major jealousy issues, but I try to be nice, especially since I'm friends with the people he hangs out with too.

Shaking off the thoughts, I decide to stop standing in the middle of the crowded hallway and actually do something. Moving over to my locker, I open it and grab a pencil from the top shelf, and stuff a few goldfish in my mouth while I'm there. Thank Evan for the great idea of keeping snacks in here.

Moving backwards and closing my locker, I hear a voice behind me.

"Hey Landon, what happened?" It asked curiously.

I whipped my head around, though I was disappointed by the realization that it was just Alex.

"Oh, hey dude. Some shit happened at the game that you skipped on us." I replied sarcastically.

Griffin suddenly appeared next to us, about to start talking when the homeroom bell rang.

"Shit, see you around guys!" He yelled it, though it was almost quiet as people started getting to their homerooms and out of the halls.

I moved once more to my homeroom, which happens to have a few friends in it. Though the day was off to a bad start, I'm going to be okay.

I was late to homeroom, but I would be fine. My teacher really didn't care.

I got more than a few looks as I entered the room on my crutches, my binder swinging as I moved. Two of my friends happened to be in my homeroom, Evan and Micah. Well, I wouldn't call Micah a friend but we interacted. He knew about my injury, seeing as how his father was my coach.

Micah just straight up ignored me, which I was somewhat hurt by, but Evan quickly got up to talk to me, many kids eyeing the crutches.

Of course, none of the kids staring at me actually came up and talked to me. Why would they?

I sit down at my desk, for about 30 seconds before the announcements came on. I didn't stand nor did I say the pledge, it's stupid anyway. I never stood, and I never will.