All the Beautiful Things

II

SCHOOL ON FRIDAY went by at an agonizing pace, each hour ticking by slowly. The clock was hung directly beside Everest, and the sound of each second ticking away filled his ears noisily, as if it was trying to mess with him. Of course, it didn't work, as the blonde didn't care about how long the hour was.

He was seated in the very front row of his advanced health class, scribbling away on his section of the assigned worksheet. His partner was a small blonde by the name of Marilla. She wrote silently on her side of the paper, being careful as she avoided bumping her hand against Everest's, as if she was afraid of him. Just like everyone else. When she wasn't talking, the girl quietly sung old music as she worked. Her voice, though too quiet for most students to hear, was rather pretty in Everest's opinion. She sung the song like she truly cared about each individual word and tune, something that was hard to find in people. She must really enjoy it.

While Marilla wrote away on the sheet, Everest pretended to know what he was doing, when really, he was looking around. looking to see if a hint to the sheet's answers would somehow magically appear for him. Obviously, it did not. But Everest already knew it wouldn't. Health may not be his strongest subject, but he wasn't that dense.

After sixteen minutes of faking it, the boy gave up and stared blankly at the paper. He was supposed to be writing internal parts of the human body and its anatomy, making sure to get each organ in the correct location. Honestly, he hadn't been paying too much attention when they learned about this particular section. That day, he had three tests for English, Science, and American History, so he had been too busy studying, thinking that teachers should understand that students have more classes than just their own, and cut them a little slack now and again.

Even now, the boy wasn't thinking about Health anymore. His mind drifted into thinking about the fun Calum had at the park with him the previous night. Most of the time, when a person associated with Everest, they looked just as blank and empty as himself, feeling bored and uncomfortable in the color blind boy's presence, but Calum paid no mind to Everest's differences, he accepted him for who he was and had fun anyway. In fact, Calum seemed to love Everest's strange qualities. He laughed at the way the blonde spoke, though that was to be expected, seeing as the boy laughed and anything and everything. He enjoyed dragging Everest around like a rag doll, showing him the things he loved and talking constantly about things that other people wouldn't.

This was fine. Everest followed Calum and listened to what he had to say because he had no other friends, and Calum actually seemed to want to give friendship a shot. Any normal person would be flattered by this, but Everest just assumed the smaller boy wanted to be friends with everyone, which was definitely not true, but how was he to know?

One would think Everest was crushing on Calum, with the way he thought about him so much only a day after meeting, but for one, Everest could not feel emotion, which tossed crushes out of the picture, but for two, he had no other people besides his mother and father, so it was only natural that he thought about his only friend constantly. From the moment the boys met, there was an instant connection, and friendship was inevitable. Like it was supposed to be.

From the day the boys were born, their friendship was written in the stars. It was meant to be, and the timing of it didn't matter. Multiple times throughout their childhood, they had come close to meeting, but some invisible force had always prevented this from happening. Perhaps the world knew when they would need each other most, and made that moment be the right time for them to interact. And it would make sense. Calum was his own version of different, his quirks and energy made him loved by all, but at the same time, he was mostly recognized as an irritation. During middle school and early high school, girls found him adorable and sweet, while guys found him "cool" and a good person for comic relief. But as they grew older, his cuteness quickly took a right turn towards irritation, and the qualities that kept him apart from others were recognized as annoyances. People tended to avoid him, too stressed out with school, relationships, and jobs to put up with the wavy haired ball of energy that was Calum Campbell. And with this, there came teasing. Constantly, he was told to "grow up" and to stop acting like a child.