I don't want to be your friend anymore

3| But them? Nice

3 weeks had passed and Eli still didn't know what Jessica even looked like. She hadn't been coming to college, supposedly since the incident he heard about on his first day. Whenever he could, he would eavesdrop on her friends' conversations about her. They talked like she was some kind of walking legend so, naturally, Eli was curious.

But he was also intrigued. He was shocked and, now, he knew why he didn't like Hannah from the very beginning. She seemed to have a superiority complex and it turned out to be the actual truth. Hearing the students defending this Jessica girl brought a warm feeling to Eli's heart and made him want to befriend River, Nadia, Payton and even David to some extent.

You see, people who stand up for someone like the group did for Jessica were hard to find. He was grateful such people still existed and even more that they were his classmates.

He was sitting on his couch watching TV when his phone rang next to him. It was his childhood best friend, Jason.

"Jay, what's up?" Eli answered the phone, excited.

"Hey stranger! Haven't heard from you in a while" Jason said. He sounded sad and so was Eli.

"It's been a rough couple of weeks, bro. College is so demanding here! I found out some of the students are bullying a girl on my first day and, to make things worse, my parents are always up my ass" Eli released a small chuckle and complained to his friend.

They shared any and everything with each other and would always have one another's back no matter what.

"Man, don't get tangled in those people's mess and stay away! Since you're new, they might turn their attention to you" his friend warned him.

"Yeah, right... I wish a motherfucker would" Eli said with a scoff. "If they think they can target me, they got another thing coming their way!"

They talked for the next two hours. 11pm never came so quickly for Eli, never before he moved, that is. He really missed his best friend.

Getting off the phone with Jason, he yawned and got up from the couch and walked into his bedroom. He plopped down and drifted off into a comfortable sleep.

The next day, Eli was sitting in one of Mr. Sanders lectures, who had announced that a project was coming up and that groups of up to six could work on one of the three topics he had proposed.

Eli didn't really know any of his classmates to choose who he wanted to work with. He looked around the classroom and saw Nadia, Payton, David and River chattering behind him and wondered if they would let him join in.

Doesn't hurt to ask.

He turned around a little more until he was sitting on his chair sideways, facing towards the other four students. As he was about to open his mouth, River looked at him and smiled.

"Hey! Eli, right?" he asked, making the rest of them also lift up their gazes to Eli and send a friendly smile his way.

"Yeah, that's me" Eli said.

"Want to join in? We could be a group of 6" Payton suggested. Eli looked at them confused since there were only 5 of them there.

"There's 5 of us... here...?" he half said, half questioned.

"Jessica's finally coming in tomorrow. Man, I missed that girl! She really is an essential part of me" Nadia said, wiping a fake tear away. Payton, David and River rolled their eyes, earning a chuckle from Eli.

"Oh, right. Jessica..." Eli didn't forget about her, he just didn't know she would be coming back soon. "How is she?"

He was surprised he even asked and so was the group in front of him. Their shock quickly morphed into happy expressions as they started talking about their friend.