Hearts Parade of a Lyrical Life

I was NOT a Loser in Highschool

Monday, September 11th

When I show up to school, Ryan looks genuinely happy to see me. Grace pulls me in for a hug and I wave to Ryan. We walk together to class and Grace wants to know all about band practice, I never told her I got in without being able to play an instrument, and I didn't have the heart to break it to her. Apparently neither did Ryan because neither of us mentioned what happened on Saturday. Ryan skimmed over the basic ideas of what we did, learning a new cover song that we were going to try out together today. Grace squeals in excitement and pulls us both in for a hug.

"You have to invite me to your first show!" Grace beams. Ryan and I laugh, looking at each other. We won't be having a first show in a while, I thought.

In class Ryan doesn't hide his notes again. Seriously with the back and forth, why doesn't he make up his mind. I decide to consider this a good sign, he's open to sharing his notes, maybe I can ask for them after class sometime.

Jon sees us at lunch today and asks if he can join, scooting in next to me and pushing me over closer to Ryan who was beside me for once. I could tell he was trying to act like some kind of a wingman now that he had his suspicions of Ryan. Ryan moves over, giving me space again and Jon nudges my shoulder, as if it's some kind of admission of guilt. I roll my eyes at him before remembering I should probably introduce him.

"Oh, Grace this is Jon by the way. He's in the year above us and is the leader of our band."

Jon raises his hand across the table to shake Grace's. They exchange pleasantries and Grace is unsurprisingly excited to be sitting with the full band.

"I can't believe Ryan's in such a cool band now, back in highschool I never would've imagined he'd make this many friends!" Grace beams.

"Ouch." Ryan replies, offended.

"Oh no, I didn't mean it like that. I just meant in the sense that you were so shy before, you didn't make any friends other than me and that's just cause we were neighbors." Grace isn't helping herself, I choke on my water at her comment and Ryan looks at me, offended again.

"I wasn't some loser in highschool, I had friends." Ryan tries to reassure the group, Jon raises an eyebrow.

"What were their names?" Jon probed. This teasing wasn't exactly going to be good for morale, regardless, I didn't have it in me to interject.

"Oh come on why is it so hard to believe I had more than one friend in highschool?" Ryans voice cracks and we all burst out laughing at his expense. He goes red with embarrassment, or maybe it was red with anger? Either way his face was red. Ryan got up and left in a huff, throwing his sandwich in the bin on the way out.

"Too far?" Asks Spencer. 'Too far', I thought.

Grace and I give eachother a knowing look and get up to go after Ryan. After looking around the grounds for a bit, we give up, sitting outside the toilets in the west hall. As we sit, trying to catch our breath from running around an absurdly large campus, Jared comes out the boys toilets.

"Oh, hey Y/N. What are you doing waiting around outside the washrooms?" Jared asked, almost like he didn't care to hear the answer.

"We were looking for our friend Ryan, he left in a hurry and we're worried about him." I say, catching my breath with every word, "It's a large campus, so we figured we'd sit down for a bit. Outside the toilets I guess."

Jared gives a nod, seemingly uninterested at my detailed answer. "Well I don't know if you'd care, but there's some lanky kid in the washroom splashing his face with water, he's all red."

"That's him!" I exclaim and jump up before immediately collapsing to my knees, forgetting how exhausted I just was. I sit back down. "Jared can you get him to come out of there for me? We need to talk to him."