Baby Fat

five

Monday's are still dreadful, Bradley decides as he sits down in his seat in Honor English. Technically, they don't have assigned seats—unlike his other classes—but they still have their seats.

He's a few minutes early. His Calculus class is only a few feet from this class. There are only a couple of other students in the room.

On Bradley's right is a girl with gorgeous blonde hair that whooshes as she moves her head back and forth between the door and Mrs. Castillo's desk. The girl may be beautiful, but she was nothing but trouble.

On Bradley's left, a boy sitting by himself. He's texting on his iPhone, having no regard for the school rule about no electronics in class. He has his chestnut brown hair quiffed up. He has a lip ring which, again, is against school policies. Bradley usually finds lip rings tacky, but for the boy Bradley thinks it suits him. More students file in, taking their unassigned seat.

When the bell finally rings Bradley stops staring at the boy—who never looked up from his phone—and turns to the front of the room, looking at the board. The room is filled with mindless chatter, kids talking about useless and irrelevant things.

Maybe Bradley's a pessimist. Maybe Bradley just doesn't work like the rest of the teens at school, but Bradley knows that life is short and he sure as hell knows he isn't wasting his on insignificant things anymore.

Mrs. Castillo walks into the room, finally, and the class goes silent immediately. Mrs. Castillo doesn't waste time with hellos, and how's the day been so far. She writes a prompt on the board, like she does every morning, and sits down in her desk.

Bradley pulls his writing notebook out from under the pile of textbooks he has. His notebook is only half-full of stories whereas the rest of the class's are almost done with there's, as they should be. Bradley didn't write as much as other's; they could go on and on about things, fill up to four pages. Bradley, however, always cut stories short. He could write a page, two pages at most.

Bradley reads the prompt on the white board: if you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? Bradley knows the answer right away, it comes to him faster than someone could snap their fingers. He looks around the room, kids having already started to write.

Bradley scribbles the prompt and date down on a blank page of his notebook and begins to write. Time disappears. Before Bradley knows it, Mrs. Castillo is talking.

Bradley sighs, closing his notebook and looking at his teacher. She's saying something about the next assignment, something about partners. Bradley groans internally. He hates working with partners, he always does all of the work.

"One month. Write a short story, minimum of ten thousand words, with your partner in one month." Mrs. Castillo sits on the edge of her metal desk as she speaks. Her legs bump pictures stuck to it with magnets. They're all pictures of students who've come back to thank her, for whatever reason they had.

Bradley knows he's screwed. Really. Fucking. Screwed. He doesn't want and or need to write a story.

Other students having already started to chat with who Bradley assumes they want to be their partner. Bradley has no one to talk to about it, doesn't want to talk to anyone about it. He's sure Mrs. Castillo will let him write it alone.

Well, he was until Mrs. Castillo says, "I'll be assigning you partners."

Bradley grumbles under his breath. He just wants to do this by himself, but the universe is never so fair.

Mrs. Castillo starts calling off names from a clipboard in her hands. Bradley doesn't listen that closely until "Leo and Bradley" comes out of her mouth. Bradley has no idea who Leo is. He searches the room, eyes wandering between guys. His eyes set on the same boy he was staring at before class. The boy with the quiff and the lip ring.