Strayed

The Other Side of the Coin

No matter how hard Caden tried to concentrate, he could barely make out the words written in white chalk on the board. It was the last class of one long day he always forced himself to take and the teacher was going on and on about some revolution in some foreign country, that made no sense whatsoever, neither did he care. Caden never liked History. His excuses for not liking the subject were cliched as anything, he knew it, but what could he do about it. Trying not to doze off, he focused on his notebook, where he had previously drawn some graffiti about his classroom in an isometric view. He wasn't a painter, but he always thought he knew a thing or two.

He threw a quick sideways glance, and caught a glimpse of Dan trying to catch his eye. He doubled back. Dan was gesturing at his own notebook where he had drawn their History teacher, Mr Harper.

'What?' Caden mouthed.

Dan gestured again.

'What? ' Caden gave a hiss.

Dan grimaced and turned away.

Caden shook his head a bit, turning to his notebook again, where he turned the pages to the last lecture that he had ever noted down: his first day of History class. Not another lecture was there. And it wasn't a surprise at all...

Caden Miller was the seventeen year old Average Joe of Alaskan High Academy, the only high school in the town of Hillbanks. Being an institution that hardly had more than three hundred students, it was pretty easy to get noticed. Caden, because of his quiet nature and a thing for trouble avoidance, had quickly become the meal for the senior year bullies. At least in the start. To be completely honest, Caden was as worked up in Alaskan High as he was in his elementary school. Things had gone pretty wrong when Caden's family first moved to Alaska when he was in the third grade. His whole life was a mess: he was being bullied every single day, even by his own class-fellows. To add a little icing to the cake that was his worsening state of mind, he ended up having no friends for a period of straight six years. Somehow, things had started to improve since he started high school, where he met his only friend, Dan Lee. People started to ignore him rather than bully him in high school, but even that took a little while. That wasn't even an improvement, but Caden was okay with what he got. After all, it was always a wise decision to be invisible to the predator, and he camouflaged well, naturally.

A shrill bell sounded outside in the corridor, ending the meaningless rant of Mr Harper as well as Caden's train of thought.

'Hey, what was with that notebook you're pointing at back there?' Caden questioned as he joined his best buddy getting out of the school and into the parking lot.

'Yeah, well, now I forgot, but I definitely saw something on Mr Harper, and I wrote it down to show you,' Dan said, fixing his glasses. 'But then you were doing your regular weird stuff, and turned away, so...'

'I thought you were showing me some graffiti you drew,' Caden frowned. 'Sorry.'

They entered the parking lot, and Caden followed Dan to his bike.

'Don't mention it, man,' Dan tried to lighten the mood.

'Hey, can you... Not drop me today? At my place?' Caden asked causally.

'You're going with someone else or you wanna play Xbox at my place tonight?' Dan asked instead, holding the helmet to his head.

'Maybe... I don't know... I was thinking I could just crash at your place, you know, for the weekend.'

'What's going on?' Dan tried to catch his friend's gaze, but Caden avoided him. 'You're acting very weird for the past few days, you know that. Very, very weird. You're barely paying attention to what is going around you these days. You seem like you're high all the time or you can't overcome the worst hang-over of your life. And, to make it all worse, you're always finding excuses to get away from your new dad. Huh? What is it? Is he becoming a douche, like they always turn into?'