The Homecoming Agenda

step four; don't hang with a pair of fuck ups

step four; don't hang with a pair of fuck ups

I slumped down in my seat. The bus was silent as we made our way to school at seven in the morning. No one could be bothered to speak. I was sitting alone in on of the seats farthest back. About the only perk of being a senior riding the bus still; you got to sit where you want.

            The bus pulled into the high school drive and came to a slow stop in front of the school. I sat up and pulled the straps of my backpack on. The few seniors and juniors that didn’t drive stood up, along with myself. The freshman and sophomores glanced at us, but didn’t budge. They still had another ten-minute journey to get to the intermediate high.

            I followed a junior of the bus and into the school. I quickly glanced at the cafeteria before heading to my locker. Students were crowded around in clusters, laughing and being generally annoying. I turned a corner and saw a couple of people standing right in front of the aisle my locker was on. I didn’t say anything but walked straight in between them, causing the guy to call out, “Watch where you're walking, slut.”

            I clenched my fists. Football players are morons.

“He’s just mad because he’s about to get kicked off the team.”

            I closed my eyes and stopped walking for a moment. This guy was following me around. “What are you talking about Matt?”

“The coach is gonna kick that guy off the football team soon, and he’s mad about it.” Matt shrugged, and started walking with me as I continued to my locker.

“Right. Now why are you here?” I stopped in front of my locker and spun the lock to my code. Meanwhile, Matt was only standing about a centimeter away from me which made it very hard to concentrate on getting the numbers right.

“Damn.” I muttered after I failed to do it right on the third try.

            Matt chuckled. “Guess I'm not the only stupid one here.”

            I shoved my middle finger in his face. He just laughed.

            I hate Matt Thompson.

“Let me do it. What’s your combination?” Matt nudged me out of the way.

“Like I'm gonna tell you. You’ll probably stash your drug supply in here and get me expelled.” I scoffed. What an idiot.

            Matt raised his eyebrow and leaned on the locker. “I don’t bring drugs to school, dude, I'm not totally stupid. My friend got expelled that way.” The way he crossed his arms made his muscles look more defined, and I think he almost caught me staring at him. Which in turn made me want to shoot myself in the foot. Stoners aren’t attractive, Alaina.

            I shook my head to force the thought out, and tried to open my lock once more. This time I thankfully spun it to the right numbers and swung it open. I grabbed the books I needed, while Matt peered into my locker.

“So, today we’re going to walk to class together. I know Carl will already be there because he has no friends, so he has no where else to go and then he’ll see us together and think we’re going to homecoming together.” Matt said as if this was some brilliant plan he had taken hours to plan. Eh, it probably did take hours for him.

“How long did it take you to come up with that?” I snorted, and fixed the straps of my backpack before closing my locker door.

            Matt frowned and signaled for me to walk with him, all the while saying nothing. He didn’t say a word until we had successfully made it out of the locker area and into the cafeteria, getting plenty of strange glances along the way.