Baby Fat

seven

"We should I write a story about someone who's anorexic," Bradley tells Leo, as soon as Leo sits down in the seat beside him. English started ten minutes ago, but Leo just walked in a few minutes ago. Bradley had been going over ideas for days before deciding on one he liked.

"What?" Leo laughs a bit before nodding his head. He bites his lip ring, which Bradley has a very hard time not staring at.

"So you agree?" Bradley asks, happily. He grins so wide his face starts to hurt. He blushes bright red before he stops showing emotion at all.

"Of course!" Leo says enthusiastically. "Most people are writing about cliches, you don't see serious things like that being written about, especially by teenage boys." Leo reaches under his desk and pulls out notebook. It has the words "The Book for the Unspoken Words." scribbled across it. Bradley likes the name for the notebook.

"Like the name?" Leo asks smugly. Bradley rolls his eyes to play it off. He twirls his pencil with his fingers before watching Leo write something on the first page of the notebook.

It doesn't say anything important, just their names and the date in pen.

"Should we come up with a plot first or a title?" Bradley asks, before face palming. "Of course we need to work on the plot."

Leo nods his head before biting the end of his pen. Bradley pretends he doesn't find it oddly cute.

They spend most of the period discussing a plot for the story, only occasionally getting distracted by telling their own stories. By the time the bell rings, Bradley can't believe the period is already over.

"See you tomorrow," Leo smiles before walking out of the room. Bradley collects his books before he shoves the stuff into his locker to go to lunch.

By the time he arrives at the table, Hannah's there talking to Matt. Bradley finds it unorthodox but doesn't say anything when he sits down.

"Hey," Hannah greets him. She smiles before going back to her obviously very interesting conversation, where she's laughing about every two seconds.

Corrie sits down next to Bradley, patting him on the shoulder.

"Where's your food?" Corrie asks, concerned. Bradley looks down at his tray: a granola bar, a water, and a small salad. He doesn't see anything wrong with it.

"What do you mean?" Bradley asks. He's a mix of embarrassed and angry that Corrie would call out him like that. The rest of Corrie's crew sits down, like they have for the past few weeks, and mind their own business.

"Your tray looks empty," Corrie notions to his styrofoam tray and then to Bradley's tray. "Is everything okay?"

"Can't I not be hungry one fucking lunch of the year?" Bradley snaps. He immediately regrets it when the table looks at him confused. Most of the jocks look at him like they're ready to bite his head off, and Hannah and Corrie look at him concerned. Usually Bradley is pretty good at controlling his temper, but today is different.

Bradley stands up, shoving his chair backwards. He stomps his way out of the cafeteria. His face grows bright red when he realizes people are looking at him.

He walks to a empty classroom, working on his breathing. He sits down on the desk and leans his hands against his knees. He doesn't know why he's so angry, usually he becomes snappy when he's hungry.

Maybe he shouldn't have skipped—

"Hey, what happened in there?" Leo's familiar scent fills Bradley's nose. It's a mixture of vanilla and mint.

"Don't tell me," Bradley sighs, "you saw that very horrendous scene." Leo sits down next to Bradley, a little too close.

"Yeah, you looked angry." Leo states the obvious. Bradley laughs bitterly.