𝔯𝔬𝔠𝔨𝔰𝔱𝔞𝔯𝔰 𝔫𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔯 𝔡𝔦𝔢 [𝔥𝔲𝔫𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔰𝔶𝔩𝔳𝔢𝔰𝔱𝔢𝔯]

𝔯𝔞𝔤𝔢

★★★

"ℑt's only a wedding," Kevin said, for the fourth or fifth time. Hunter rolled his eyes. I turned the volume up on my phone, trying to drown out the clacking noise of Kevin's brothers toy truck.

"Look, you've gotta understand something, Kevin. We don't fit in. You can try as hard as you want. You can get yourself a girlfriend or whatever, but you're still not gonna fit in," Hunter told him. His voice shook. My lips twitched as I watched the fog take over the houses we passed.

"Well, she doesn't fit in, either. Why can't we all not fit in together? I mean, you got yourself a girlfriend, too," Kevin replied, slowing to a stop at the sign. Hunter shook his head.

"Okay, well, I'm not talking about that right now. I don't even wanna go there right now. I'm talking about you being a traitor -" Hunter started, but Kevin butted in.

"Maybe I wanna talk about it!"

I chimed in from the backseat, pausing my music. What I was about to say would anger Hunter, I knew,  but it only felt right to stick up for Kevin in the moment. Like I said yesterday, Hunter was selfish.

"I left too, you know. I don't see how Kevin is being a traitor for simply helping another guy out, but I'm not a traitor for just up and ditching you guys," I commented. Hunter turned around in his seat, opening his mouth. Again, he was interrupted.

"Thank you," Kevin breathed, hitting his steering wheel with his palm.

"Well, as the original founder of Skullfucker, I say no Yokos," Hunter declared. I rolled my eyes, flicking my wrist.

"You said fuck!" Earl cried, dropping his toy truck to the floor.

"We are both founding members of Skullfucker," Kevin corrected.

"I am way more founding than you. I wrote our songs, I bought the equipment, I designed our Facebook page," Hunter went on.

"Oh, fuck our Facebook page!" Kevin yelled, leaning his head back.

"I am the founding member of Skullfucker and I say no Yokos!" Hunter concluded.

"No more fuck!" Earl yelled out, dropping hisnother toy. I pinched the bridge of my nose, exhaling sharply.

"Shut up!" Kevin shouted, looking back at Earl in the rearview mirror. He shrunk back into the seat. I groaned out loud, tired of the bullshit. I just wanted to go home.

"End of conversation."

Kevin looked over at Hunter, face distorted with anger and frustration. "No, you - you can't just declare end of conversation," he argued, "you don't have that authority."

Hunter was staring out the window. I almost reached up and touched his shoulder to get his attention so I could shoot him a calming look, but I decided against it. I didn't think it'd be easy to calm him down right now, anyway. Earl squirmed around in the seat, kicking at his toys. I rolled my eyes.

"Fine. End of conversation."

★

I waited by Hunter's locker for him. We usually met up between classes since we didn't have any together. But I was beginning to think he forgot, or he got caught up in foot traffic or requested by Dean Swanson. I began to walk away until the metallic sound of metal on metal came from where I previously stood.

"The fuck!?"

It was Hunter. I swiveled around, my shoes squeaking on the tile. A few kids stopped walking; someone at the top of the stairs held out a phone.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Hunter yelled, shrugging Kevin off of him. I was shocked when Kevin threw his drumsticks. One can only imagine what seeing him like this felt like. It must have something to do with the incident with Emily. My classroom was just down the hall. We heard the whole thing.