~•Me And The Boys•~

3 - Cayden!!!

The kids that stood for the pledge eventually sat back down, the room filled with loud chatter. Technically class wasn't started yet. Not even our teacher wanted to be here.

First period went by incredibly slowly. But I was watching the clock, and that probably made it feel so much slower. I hated first period. American history. Mr. Arruda is the worst teacher, I'm not even going to lie. He's a bitch and he's incredibly boring.

He put kids in the wrong groups for projects, like that emo kid with the long hair with Logan and Aleana. Aleana is a bitch. I don't like her. She bullied the fuck out of that poor emo kid. She thought it was funny. She wasn't even good at bullying. Her insults were mediocre at best. And the way she smacked her gum made me want to curl up and die.

First period was just listening to the teacher talk and talk and talk. Something about a project we were going to start soon.

As soon as the bell rang, I was up on my crutches and out of there. Fuck that. Of course everybody pushed and shoved at the door as per usual, but this time I wasn't the one getting shoved. Maybe having a broken foot had a few perks.

Like the sympathy I'd get from Cayden when I saw him next.

Oh, the sympathy was great. He and I shared second period English class. He was immediately all over me, and it felt great. He offered to take my stuff and made more room for me at the desk than usual.

I was a big guy already, broad shouldered and tall. Cayden was a little thing, skinny and short. His glasses were too big for his face and he dressed like a highlighter, complete Nike outfit as per usual. Today his sweatshirt was neon green and his shorts were black. He always wore that combo, no matter the weather. Did he ever even get cold?

He wasn't really a stereotypical nerd. He was more into sports than he was any math class despite the fact that he looked and sounded like the nerd emoji. He talked like it, genuinely. He has this kind of nasally voice that hasn't quite lowered yet. Not that it was annoying, I loved listening to him talk.

Cayden always liked to talk about bugs, for some reason. I never cared for bugs much, not until he started talking about them. He likes those weird little stick bugs the most. I caught one for him one day and he kept it in a tank until it died. He's kind of a dork.

But that's good for me, because I cannot study for the life of me. I was always a more sporty guy. A broken foot doesn't do me any good in that area. At least Cayden was a good mix of smart and rowdy. I was just loud, the class clown if you will.

Cayden was practically everybody's friend, but I got to claim the sole title of best friend. Cayden was just generally agreeable. He wasn't a girlfriend stealer or a total bitch, he was just kinda... Cayden.

What he is, however, is a sore loser. Too competitive for his own good. The type that gets on the floor and wails if he gets out in dodgeball.

Speaking of dodgeball, every time we're put on opposite teams he only targets me. Not the other Landon, who's a worse sport than he is, not the girls who just stand in the back and don't help, and not the kids who will actually hit the backboard and get their entire team back in the game. He would rather see me taken down than ruin an entire team and win a game.

Sometimes it's like he wants to see me crumple. But it's not like dodgeball is the first time he's put me on the ground. He hit me with a scooter once. Bitch.

Okay, maybe Cayden's kind of a bitch. But what's not to love about that?

And I got to watch him walk in the door to our class today. His eyes tell me so much about what's going on inside his head, it's kind of crazy.

But then again, Cayden's always been incredibly expressive. Mostly at the wrong times. He makes the dumbest faces.

The way his eyes scan the room looking for me, the way he lights up upon seeing me, it's enough to make a man's day. Even the look of confusion on his face is amusing.

I waved to him with a wide grin, and he was over in a second. His first words to me? Not a hello, not my name, not any other typical greeting.

"What the fuck happened to you?"

His stupid, nasally voice cut through the light chatter of the classroom. He always sounded like he needed to blow his nose. I was tempted to hold him down and try.

He sat right next to me, eyeing the crutches and the bulky cast on my foot. The way he squinted at me, as if trying to see through my chest, was funny too. He looked at me suspiciously, as if I could fake a broken foot so convincingly. I wasn't that good at acting and we both knew it.

Even when we sat, he was at my chest height. I could hug him and his head would be right on my heart.

The start of class what mostly just conversation between us. We were supposed to be writing our book reports, but did we ever do what we were supposed to?

No. We just got out our computers and pretended that we were working, because book reports are boring and stupid. He pulled up some stupid video on YouTube.

It was of some family guy clip, the dog staring at the camera. But the video wasn't making any sound, so he turned it up. All the way up.

Biggest mistake he's ever made - the video was a jumpscare. One not very scary, might I add. And the entire class heard it.

We couldn't help ourselves, how were we to not laugh at the situation? Mrs. Seyboth, in her annoying and grating voice, told him to turn it off, of course after the video was already over and his computer was shut.

Nobody but us thought that this was funny, but did I care? No. I wasn't going to get my work done anyway.

We spent that entire class goofing off, really. Mrs. Seyboth threatened to assign us new seats multiple times, but she never would. She didn't like putting in any more effort than she was required to. She was the same teacher that had a million expectations for every assignment, and if you couldn't meet every single one, she'd yell at you. We had all gotten used to it by now.

I had typed maybe two sentences on my Google doc when the bell rang. I'd probably finish my book report at home or at lunch or something. Now I had to go to Home and Careers, which was one of my least favorite classes. I had no friends in that class aside from Griffin and Mr. Rose was also an asshole. He was a bully, but in a kind of fun way. He had cooked professionally for Gordon Ramsay once, and then for some reason came to teach at our low budget, shitty school. It felt like charity work.

Also he was bald. Bald and annoying and rude. We made breaking bad jokes about him all the time and he was so very tired of it. It's not our fault that he tried to teach us about the stock market and made himself sound like a nerd.