Reality Check

1

    Music flowed through the halls of West Point High School, reaching the classrooms. The first bell rang, interrupting the music and sending a little under 2000 kids to their seats. In class B-3, the teacher began taking roll, calling name by name and stopping at the names of her least favorite students. "Eli?" She called distastefully, looking for the teen.

He raised his hand half-heartedly, chewing on a pen, deep in thoughts of his girlfriend while he drew out patterns for football. "Darby's not here."

"Is he sick?" she questioned hopefully, her pen anxiously tapping the clipboard as one of the two was plenty enough for her.

"Nah, he's in the stairwell," he mumbles, gesturing to the door then going back to drawing his masterpiece of Xs, Os and assorted lines, watching their teacher Ms. James storm out of the room from the corner of his eye.

She sped down the hallways as fast as her heels and tight skirt would allow, arriving at the main stairwell. "Darby!" she yelled, seeing the boy on the central landing. He was sitting with his legs crossed, and a guitar in his lap, writing notes and lyrics in a notebook as they came to him.

He peered up at her, his eyes adjusting to the light change since her body was blocking the doorway. "Hey, Shannon." He shifted his guitar. "I'll get to class when I'm done."

Her eye twitched as a small smirk formed across his lips. "Darb-"

"I'm kidding, gimme a sec." He got up, packing his stuff into his bag as slow as possible, adding wood to the flames of Ms. Jame's anger one whole tree at a time.

When he was done packing his stuff and guitar, she grabbed his wrist, ignoring him muttering "kinky" under his breath. "C'mon, you're going to the office." He shrugged as she practically dragged him to the main office. She took his guitar and had him sit in the waiting area. "This will be in my classroom. You may get it after school." With that, she went back to class, leaving Darby alone.

When Ms. James walked back into B-3 toting the wooden guitar, she froze, a speeding football narrowly missing her head and bouncing off the door frame. Everyone was either talking, texting or vandalizing the room in some way; a large phallic object was drawn on her whiteboard in sharpie directed towards a poorly drawn figure with the words 'Ms. James' written over it. She stared at her classroom, Eli running over to retrieve his ball. He paused, looking at her and pointing at the guitar clasped in her hand. "That's my brother's."

She nodded slowly. "Yes... what happened..." she got to the front of the room, taking down a few notes then erased the drawing of her and attempted to rid of the sharpie penis to no avail. While she tried to collect the class' attention, Eli snuck over, taking Darby's guitar and setting it in the closet where he could find it.

Ryan watched, commenting quietly about Darby and Eli's relationship being a sappy gay love story. Eli glared at him. "Ryan, he's my brother-"

"Who's your brother~," a voice identical to Eli's said from his other side.

Eli jumped and turned to look at Darby. "Ah, you're finally here."

Darby smirked, sitting on Eli's desk. "No one can hold me back for long, am I right?"

"Whatever, get off my desk." Eli pushed his brother off the desk and onto the floor.

From his new seat on the floor at his brother's feet, Darby looked up at Ms. James. "Yo Shannon, can I sit here?" The twins smiled at each other as she just pinched the bridge of her nose in surrender and let the two do what they wanted.