Sugarcane Chronicles Volume I: One and Lonely (ryden)

Lunch With Mikey Feat. Jake and Alan

The rest of my day was boring as usual. Apart from the rest of lunch and music, nothing is worth mentioning. When I had music, Dallon was back to (what seemed like) normal. No more 'fun facts'.

The guys and I walked back to the Ross-Smith-Stump house together and I stayed there until I had to go home.

When I got home, I had dinner, did my homework then went to bed. I had a dream that me and Rachel from Friends went on a date.

I woke up the next morning and got dressed and nearly fell down the stairs trying to get to the front door. I yelled good-bye to Mom and ran out the door and to the woods.

When I was nearing the woods, I slowed down and began to walk down the path. I was about halfway there when Jon stepped in front of me.

"Hey, Jon," I grinned. "What's up?"

"You can't come to the house," he said sternly.

I made a perplexed face. "What do you mean?"

"You can't come into the house. Not right now, at least. Patrick's already at school."

"Uhm, a-alright," I started to turn around.

"And Brendon."

I turned around, looking at Jon.

"Try to stay away from the guys as much as you can. You can hang on Josh and Tyler all you want, just not my boys, alright?"

I nodded, turning again to walk to the school. I couldn't quite think of why Jon doesn't want me around Spencer, Patrick and Ryan, but Jon's a reasonable guy so he wouldn't want me away from them just to be away from them.

As I walked to school, I couldn't believe how normal walking by myself had felt before I met the guys. I just felt lonely and awkward. I usually held hands with Ryan, so I didn't know what to do with my hands. I tried a few positions before settling on putting them in my pockets and walking with my head down.

I began looking for Patrick as soon as I could see the school. It didn't take long to find him since he was wearing all black and was the shortest person outside of the school this early. He was sitting on some kind of short wall outside of the school that held half-hearted flower gardens and sad trees. I walked up to him.

"Hey, Patrick," I said, smiling.

"Hi, Brendon," he replied, swinging his legs.

I gestured to his outfit. "I like what you've got going on here. It's very...nemo."

He smiled at me inquisitively. "Nemo?"

"Yeah. Nerd plus emo equals nemo," I explained. He nodded in understanding although he obviously didn't understand my logic.

"So," Patrick started after a little while. "Where's everybody else?"

"At home," I said slowly. He was still looking at me confusedly so I continued. "Jon told me I couldn't go in the house and shouldn't come near you guys today. Did you not know about that?"

"No, I didn't," Patrick said, jumping down from his place on the short wall. "I'm going to go call Jon about this." He pulled out his phone and walked away.

I sighed and sat in the spot Patrick was sitting in before. It was still warm.

Not even a minute later, a very new and very shiny minivan pulled up to the school. Josh and Tyler stepped out of the car and walked towards the school after waving to whoever drove them. The passenger window rolled down and Andy stuck his head out the window.

"Have a great day! We love you!" he yelled after Josh and Tyler.

They mumbled something back that I couldn't hear and continued walking. Andy rolled the window back up and the minivan drove away.