"Healy, where the hell were you all weekend? I left you, like, six voicemails!" Daniel drills me the moment I get to school on Monday. Also, he's lying. He left me one, single, drunken voicemail about how he was going to spend Saturday night wanking off. If I learned anything from that, it's not to get high with him. "I was busy." I lie, since the only time I was actually busy was Friday night. The rest of the weekend, I was staying in my room, avoiding human beings, hugging my spare pillow because Snake slept on it. "Right, well I got tickets to see Skulls this weekend, and you're coming with me." Daniel says. Fuck, I'm camping out with Snake this weekend, and I do not feel like cancelling that. Besides, I have no way to tell him. He's mysterious like that, meaning he doesn't have a cellphone. "Shit dude, I can't." I reply. "I'm camping out this weekend."
"What the fuck? With who?" He asks, angrily slamming his locker shut. "You and I used to go camping every year in your yard." Hurry, Healy. Think of a lie. "With Brandon." Good one. "Blowjob from Brittany Brandon? You're kidding," He laughs, "He hates you, mate."
"He and I really bonded with that whole blackmail thing." I say. Luckily, Daniel's dumb enough to believe me. He stops slandering it and decides he'll ask Mikey to go with him, someone I haven't spoken to in years. "What team's your hoodie for?" He asks. I'm wearing the hoodie Snake bought at the gas station. It smells like him. He smells good for being a smoker.
The day goes by agonizingly slowly. The god of time must know that I'm waiting for this weekend to come. I thought he and I were friends. Guess not. A lot of people bring up the old McDonald's fire, and I pretend I'm shocked. A group of people starts snickering and glancing over at me in the cafeteria. It's Brandon, Michelle, and their clique of obnoxious people. I see the envelope that Brandon brought to our meeting behind the gym, and fear bites me in the ass again. He's teasing me for Friday. He must not be happy with the meeting he and his brother had. As I'm thinking about it with my sandwich in my hand, dripping jam all over the table, Brandon walks over, and sits down. "We had a deal." I say, setting my soggy sandwich down. "Yeah, but old Jesse was stoned, and you brought him home." He pulls a new photo from the envelope of Snake and I climbing up to my window. This guy must have fun stalking me. And why the hell does he have cameras on my house!? "Leave me alone, man. You got to see him." I growl. "Besides, why does it matter so much? He only came over for clothes."
"Then why didn't he leave until morning, Healy?" Brandon asks, showing me another photo, this time it's from Saturday morning, after Snake left. He was gone when I woke up. The time stamp says five A.M. I tell him that Snake spent the night, simply because he's homeless. Brandon doesn't believe me, of course. Probably because Michelle told him not to. That girl keeps him on a leash, I swear. She probably thinks I want her boyfriend. If so, she couldn't be further from incorrect. I wouldn't go with Brandon if he was the last existing male on earth. He is nothing but a disgusting, egotistical maniac with no brain to spare. I hate him. He's ruining my life, just because of a grudge. Why did I have to punch him in his ugly, huge head? He makes me want to scoop my eyes out with a spoon, bathe them in bleach, and then attempt to put them back in my head. I look over at Michelle, who's almost as nauseating. She's sexually eating a lollipop, as any girl like her would do, I suppose. Does she think that's attractive? Maybe I'm flirting wrong. I could truly learn a thing or two from these Barbie-style people.
George Daniel gives me hell all week about the camping thing. He asked Brandon and apparently, he told Daniel that he isn't camping with me this weekend. I make up a new lie. I'm camping with a girl I met named Jessica. She's hot and gorgeous and definitely not a man. He likes this story. He makes grotesque hand motions, hinting towards sex, and I laugh and nod, pretending I'm not bothered. Of course, Brandon gives me shit for lying about the camping thing, and he shows the math class the photo of me kissing Snake. How much longer until Daniel sees it? I don't want it to bother me, but it does. That night, I get high. I stole some cigarettes from Snake while he wasn't looking, and they had marijuana in them, fresh rolled by him that morning, I assume. Hopefully he isn't too mad, if he finds out. I almost fall off my roof, which disappoints me because I really wanted to do it. I can barely get inside my window, and I pass out on my bedroom floor, hugging the Go Team hoodie. The next morning, I wake up and Nana asks me where that hoodie came from, and I tell her it was a birthday gift from George Daniel. She says that it's a nice gift, and I agree. Little does she know. I stole it from a twenty-year-old, smoking, male, who bought it at a gas station whilst I was with him, after he murdered his best friend. Nana leaves me to myself, reminds me it's Thursday, and I'm ten minutes late for school because I'm hungover and I can barely stand the dim lamp in my bedroom. I've been wearing this hoodie every day since I got it. My peers are bound to think I don't own anything else. I do, it's just this hoodie makes me hate wearing anything else. At least it isn't black. I think everyone just misses that point. I fail a math test, because I'm busy thinking about tomorrow night and this weekend. I want to scream, I miss Snake so much. I'm so anxious, I start writing exclamation points after my first name and my last, so when I write it, it looks like Matty!! Healy!! It seems like I'm very excited about writing my name. No, I'm just freaking the fuck out about camping with Snake this weekend, but I can't exactly fit that whole story onto the Name line, now can I? Nope. When I get home on Thursday after school, my grandparents are standing in my bedroom with Monday's newspaper, and, oh shit, Snake's jeans. They inform me that Brandon showed them some very interesting photos from his house's security cameras, of me kissing a man. That dumb jock has gone way too far. My grandparents are angry, terrifyingly so. They demand I tell him who the owner of these pants are, and who I was kissing in the photo. I want to bash my head on the wall until I pass out. I lie, and tell them it was a girl named Jessica. I tell them about how dramatic Brandon can be, and how he tends to make things up for attention. I tell them that the pants they found are mine, just a very old pair. They believe me, and apologize for the inconvenience. I feel guilty for lying, but it's worth it.
