“Dude your mom’s gonna kill me if we don’t actually get some work done,” Zack stated as he turned around in his seat. I was currently sat in art, lazily fiddling with the sheet of paper I was supposed to be drawing on as I wasn’t really feeling like I wanted to draw anything and there was no way I could make the pile of seashells looks remotely like a pile of anything realistic in this mood.
“What do you mean?” I asked looking up in confusion as to what he was talking about.
“Our art project stupid. There’s only so many times I can get my mom to cover for both of us and she’s starting to ask why.”
“I’m sorry man, how about I actually come round tonight so we can get on with it?” I suggested.
“I think my mom will actually faint at the sight of you if you turn up. That or she’ll knock you out.”
“Mr Merrick what part of this task requires you to talk to Gaskarth?”
“It doesn’t ma’am but this is the only opportunity I will get to talk to him about our art project as he’s usually too busy fucking Barakat to make time for me,” he replied as he turned around to face the teacher. Most of the class gasped and looked at Zack in shock as he never swore let alone talking back to a teacher, so the fact that he did both in the same sentence was something else.
“You hang around with the wrong type Merrick, take a detention for foul language and get back to work in silence,” she sighed in defeat as she filled out the form for Zack. The entire class groaned at having to be silent and begrudgingly went back to their work.
“Round mine then? I have a date with Jack next week and I don’t want to risk my face being ruined,” I grinned as he gave me a death stare for landing him in trouble.
“Whatever. I’m not doing your work for you though.” He just rolled his eyes.
“Wouldn’t expect you to.” I let Zack get back to his work and I went back to playing with the corner of my paper where the only thing currently on it was a couple of lyrics I had thought of and my name in a really fancy font as I figured that I should at least do something artistic if I wasn’t going to work.
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"So what do I actually have to do for this then?" I asked completely confused as I stared blankly at the list of hyperlinks Zack had sent me.
"Well you click on then and they take you to a more useful website where it will pretty much do your work for you, which means that you will only complete about 10% of your project between me and the internet."
"Where's all the sarcasm coming from? This isn't like you Zack."
"I've been hanging around you and Jack for too long," he replied nonchalantly.
"Yeah, but you've never sworn or talked back to a teacher like that. What's going on?"
"Nothing," he replied quickly. I turned around in my chair and just stared at him.
"It's nothing Alex; I'm just not feeling great at the moment."
"Well if you want to talk..."
"I'm okay Alex."
"You know where I am."
"I know where the bathroom is," he muttered.
"Heard that."
"You were meant to."
"So mean. Why are you all so mean to me?" I pouted.
"Because it's fun."
"You sound just like Jack."
"Great isn't it?"
"No."
"Well I could use some help with my design," Zack expertly changed the subject.
"What sort of thing do you want?" I sighed as I joined him on my bed. He explained what he wanted and we spent the next few hours working on and designing what our projects would look like.
"Well I need to get going if I want to fit in a session at the gym."
"Well thanks for the help," I replied as I followed my friend to the door.
"See you tomorrow."
