The Breaking & Broken

Chapter 1

I can feel the cold air nipping at my bottom lip as I walk through the school parking lot. My ears are red, fingers purple and feet numb under the thick snow. Slowly approaching the main doors the muffled school bell rings; I missed biology again. Walking through the front doors into the heated halls filled with students I checked my phone for the time, 9:53am. I slowly started making my way to my locker, only to find an already over-happy Hart leaning against it. He looked up from his phone, "You missed biology. again. Nothing happened really, just more notes." I nodded and moved him off my locker. I opened it then grabbed all the stuff I needed for the rest of the day. I closed my locker then flicked Hart in the side of the neck. He didn't seem to notice, he was too glued into his phone, Typical Hart. "Let's go, egg-head. We'll be late for English," I said as I grabbed Harts phone from him and started walking down the hallway.

The bell rings as we take our seats in my least favourite class. English is my subject of choice, but our english teacher, Mr. Westman, has it out for me and Hart. This man takes time out of his life to make sure I look like a fool in front of my peers, but never succeeds.

He starts teaching his lesson on prepositions and what a proper sentence looks like. As I'm copying out the notes, Hart nudges me in the side. I look to my left to see him writing something on the side of his notebook.

Party tonight at Lainie's place? Check your phone.

I check to see if Mr. Westman is still writing out the notes then slip out my phone. The details filled my lock screen:

"Party at my house tonight, you should know the spot ;) i'll supply the drinks as always. Don't forget to bring your boys with you Nate"

Laine never failed to pursue people into going to her events.

I put my phone back into my pocket, but before it was completely away, Mr. Westman looked directly at me.

"Mr. Clark," he spoke sharply at me. The whole class turned to me. Hart kept his head low, quickly copying out the notes on the board. Silence filled the room as I held my gaze on Mr. Westman. "Would you like to come teach my class?" his words almost sounding more like an invitation than a question. "Gladly," I said to him with a grin spread across my face. He gestured to the podium at the front of the class. As I walked up to the front, I quickly skimmed the notes on the board and realized he had yet to give any examples of a preposition. I stood behind the podium and then started speaking. "Alright class, so Mr.Westman over here has kindly gone over the basics with you, even though I'm sure you learnt this in your grade 9 year of education," The class chuckled. Mr.Westman did not looked very impressed. "But, if it must be learnt again, some examples would have been valuable to refresh the memory. 'through', 'over', 'with', and 'from' are all prepositions". There was a humming of conversations around the class, none of which were about prepositions. Mr.Westman started to stand from his seat, but I put my hand out and gestured him to stay seated. "Now, we all know a sentence is a collection of words including a subject, predicate, and expresses a complete thought, but we have no examples of a sentence in these notes. An example of a proper sentence is,' Mr, Westman talks too much". I thank the class then take my seat. The room falls silent after I receive an unsettling look from Mr.Westman. Everyone stares, waiting for the next move. I looked at Hart, smirked, and then went to copy out my notes. "Nathan Clark, you have earned yourself three weeks of-" The bell rang and I made a B-line out the door, Hart following quickly behind me.

"You're going to get yourself thrown out of this school, I hope you know that," Hart spoke in a joking manner.

We made our way to the cafeteria where Locklen ( Hart's twin brother) and Will were already in their seats at our table. Hart jumped on his brother as I gave Will a nudge.

"So did you guys get the message about the party tonight?"Hart said as he grabbed his lunch. The both nodded their heads with excitement. " I heard that Mel Porter and her sister Sydney are going to be there," Locklen said to Hart who didn't seem to impressed by the news. Will looked up from his food then asked, "Who's driving tonight?" I raised my hand and hung my head in shame as the boys laughed. "Hey a least I can get girls sober or not," I said to stop their laughing. Hart punched me in the arm," No need to brag okay? You know we're only laughing because you hate being the designated driver." I joined in on their laughing, because Hart was right. The bell rang shortly after the joke died and we all went to our separate classes.