Well Beyond Expectation

Chapter Five.

Weston

"Weston, sweetie, time to wake up."

Mom's low whisper wakes me just before she pulls the curtains open on my windows. I groan, throwing the blankets up over my head and sigh. "I'll start tomorrow." I grumble.

I feel her weight sit down beside me on the bed and she slowly pulls the blanket back. "You said that yesterday," She reminds me softly. "and the day before." Her tone is careful just like it's been for the past three and a half months. It's so damn frustrating. Everyone tiptoeing around me, not raising their voices hardly above a whisper like something is going to set me off.

Shit, maybe they're right. Right now I feel like I'm about to blow.

"Don't want to go." I rephrase, narrowing my eyes at her, she's not high on my list of people I want in my face right now. Not after what she did.

To my disliking, she doesn't back down. "Weston, I know you've had a hard time lately, but your father had to pay a lot of money to the school to take you back. You know Plexer has a no fail policy."

My father, I scoff to myself and look away.

I want to roll my eyes and yell at her about how Dad isn't really losing too much money since he no longer has to pay for Beckham, what with Beckham being dead and six feet under the ground in a fucking box.

I can't stand the weight of her stare, like she's waiting for me to breakdown. Everyone would love that. Like it's against the fucking law to not cry when your best friend dies. I feel like shit about it every second of every day. Why do I need to make water come out of my eyes to make people see that it hurt me too?

I throw back the blankets and practically run out of the bed on the opposite side of her, ducking into my bathroom and slamming the door behind me.

Fuck school.

After Beck...died, I blew off school for the last few weeks and missed all of my exams. I should be at college right now, just waking up from a party with a girl cuddled up beside me, but instead I get to repeat the twelfth grade.

Plexer Prep is just about the last place on earth I'd like to be today. But like mom said, I've already skipped the first two days, and I'm not ever getting out of this hell hole town and away from the ghost of my mistakes until I finish school.

I don't fool with a shower. I hardly run a brush through my grown out hair and shove on my wrinkled uniform and then I'm out the door.

The drive to school is a silent one. I haven't been able to listen to the radio much since everything went down. I might be an ass, but I'm not heartless. Losing Beck broke me. I won't dare let someone see it, but nothing feels right anymore. I'm functioning in a fog in isolation of my own creation. I completely ghosted on everyone after that night. It was the last normal day of my life. Really it was only the last normal morning. After I got those texts in the senior assembly, mine and everyone else's lives went to shit.

The parking lot is bustling with students and I park up front in the senior section for the second year in a row. Such bullshit I'm having to take the whole year over, but that's private schooling for you.

"West!" My name is shouted the second I lift out of my car, throwing my bag over my shoulder. "I heard a rumor you were coming back this year, where the hell you been?"