Falling

4

The next morning I woke to unusually good weather. I guessed that this was the first of five days of good weather London saw each year. I was happy too, which was also somewhat of a rarity back then. Probably because of what happened with Lacey the night before, what with all her drunken antics. Then, all of a sudden, I felt a pang in my stomach as I remembered she'd just endured a nasty split with Kyle. She would be completely broken. What was I going to do? I felt that, because I was her best friend, it was my duty to help her get through this, which I had no doubt she'd be able to do. It would just take some time, but for now I had to focus on 'fixing' her as much as possible.

School was different, but the difference wasn't positive in the slightest. I felt an entirely different, unusually melancholy vibe and I knew exactly why that was the case. I met up with my friends in the same semicircle at the same time of day as I did every day, but this time there was something missing. A certain ever-present positivity was nowhere to be found. I hadn't expected Lacey to show up to school the day after Kyle left her broken-hearted. God, what a dick he was. I still hated him for hurting Lacey like that, although I also felt like an overprotective parent. I spotted him walking down the hallway as confident as ever, as if he had already moved on from Lacey. ONE day after breaking up with her he was already all cheery and happy. What the fuck? Surely if she meant as much to him as he meant to her, Kyle was bound to feel at least a little upset. Lacey was in bed sobbing (at least, I assumed she was) and he was acting as if nothing had ever happened. How?

My answer came in the form of a beautiful yet completely brainless girl. Kiera Jones walked up to Kyle, slung her arm around his shoulder and leaned in for a kiss. A fucking kiss. Kyle was already dating someone else THE DAY AFTER he broke up with Lacey! Is it even possible to get into a new relationship the day after breaking up with someone? This made me mad, because it was now evident that Kyle didn't give a toss about her and he'd just toyed with her feelings. He had left Lacey in a million broken-hearted little pieces, and when Lacey was hurt I was hurt. I could feel my body temperature rising, the anger inside me reaching a boiling point. Calling her a whore was one thing, but showing that he didn't even care about their relationship was too much. Blinded by rage, I decided that I was going to let him know what he'd done. I turned to Gus and Ben, who were just as surprised about Kyle's new girlfriend as I was. "I'm going to murder that fucker" I said, trying as hard as possible to keep from blowing up. Despite both my friends trying to convince me out of what looked like a suicide mission, I pushed them away and strode towards Kyle full of anger and confidence. 'Who knows?' I thought. Maybe the confidence would give me the extra strength I needed to fuck him up. I confronted both him and Kiera. "Hey!" I shouted angrily at Kyle, trying to sound as confident as possible which wasn't easy when I was shitting myself inside. "What you did to Lacey...that crossed the line. You can't just hurt someone's feelings like that. Lacey really cared about you. The least you could do is show some decency" I glanced at Kiera.

Instead of realising his wrongdoing like I hoped he would, he just laughed. "Lacey is a whore. I just let everyone else know. You should be grateful. I've seen the way you look at her. You love her, don't you?" Kyle was just toying with me. I hated it. "What the fuck do you know about love? Judging by the way you 'moved on' from Lacey, you didn't give a shit about her."

"You couldn't be more right. I didn't then and I don't now. You want Lacey? I know you love her. You can have that worthless piece of shit."

That made me even angrier. That, and the fact that Kyle could somehow read my fucking mind. At that point, I just gave up trying to talk to him and punched him in the face. Well, I tried to anyway. Before he effortlessly caught my fist in his palm, smiled menacingly, and kicked me in the stomach, which caused me to fly halfway across the corridor and land painfully on my left butt-cheek. He turned and walked away. Why was I so stupid? Picking a fight with a guy I knew I could never beat. Gus walked towards me and helped me up. I walked towards Ben as he stifled a snicker. Everyone else in the hallway stared at me with laughter as well as amusement. I decided, since I couldn't get it through Kyle's head directly, I was going to drop by Lacey's place and check on her. I hoped she wasn't too upset. I was still angry at Kyle, no doubt, but I knew I couldn't do anything about it. Not at school, anyway. Before I saw Lacey, though, I had a full day of school to deal with. I hate it how teachers talk about school like it's enjoyable, because it's just not. School as a whole just didn't appeal to me, and I was sure I was speaking for at least half the teenage population when I said that. It's just...getting up early to attend classes you hate in order to obtain information you'll never use after a test (for the most part) just wasn't my thing. It didn't help that I only had three friends. Good friends, but I'd have preferred if my social circle was even a little wider.

First class? History. With Mr. Tanner. Ew. Worst. Teacher. Ever. For a number of reasons. First, he was a total dick. On regular occasions, he'd given helpless students detentions for raising their hands when he asked a question, and asking to go to the bathroom instead of answering the question. Why did that merit sitting in a room for two hours after school with a teacher watching your every move? Second, he had a massive ego, similar in size to that of Kyle's. Whenever he got a fact wrong, he would search it up on google and when it, too, showed that he had gotten the fact wrong, he would send a complaint letter to every website he could find that showed the correct fact requesting for the information on the site to be reviewed. Finally, and most annoyingly, whenever he handed a detention slip to a student, he would say this stupid catchphrase. He would be like "You've just been Tannered!" which didn't exactly instill fear into his students.

I walked into the classroom, still reeling from Kyle's kick. I had never really been in a fight before. I mean, I had always been physically bullied but there had never been retaliation of any kind from me so it technically wasn't a fight. I sat down, ready for a boring hour with Mr. Tanner. The seat next to me was empty. It was usually Lacey's, but she hadn't shown today. I stared for a good five seconds at the empty chair, which made me miss her even more.

I would tell you about my school day, but I won't. For two reasons.

1. I can't be bothered

2. The whole day kind of flew past. I was too preoccupied with one thing. Throughout the whole day, I couldn't stop worrying about Lacey. Was she okay? I knew deep down that she probably was perfectly fine, but I still couldn't stop thinking about her. You know that feeling where you know something's probably true but you won't stop thinking about it until you've seen it for yourself and know for sure? That was me the whole day.

After school, I met up with Ben and Gus in the main hallway so that we could tell each other about our after-school plans. Gus and Ben both had nothing to do, so the most likely scenario for them was to play video games at Ben's house. He'd just gotten this really cool virtual reality thing that I wanted to try out. School was tougher than ever, and I saw this VR thing as a quick escape from reality. Sure enough, that was the plan. "Guys, wanna come over to check out my new VR?" Ben said excitedly. He was as excited about this VR machine as I was. "Yeah, sure dude. Sounds really cool. I can only stay for a few hours though, my mum was like "you've been going out too much these days. Get home and study!" So yeah, I'll come for a bit but I've got to be home by 5." "Sounds good." Ben smiled. "Well, you guys have fun." I said. 'This is the part where they would question why I wasn't going' I thought. Since we only had each other as friends, we did pretty much everything together. "You're not coming?" Ben, understandably, sounded disappointed.

"No, not today. I've got a doctor's appointment in the next hour."

"For what?"

"Just, you know, a check up. I'll see you guys later." With that, I exited school and went to Lacey's. I was a terrible liar, and Ben and Gus both knew that. They probably sensed my untruthfulness but I had to lie to them. I knew that if I said I was going to check up on Lacey they would insist on joining me, because they cared about her just as much as I did. This time, though, I felt like it would be better if I did it alone.