Idle Town [Stand By Me]

"What's stopping you?"

Christopher Chambers. My first love. The person I'll always love.

...

It was the beginning of sixth grade. Our Language Arts teacher had assigned us a project - a book report. When she announced that we would have partners, I was excited because that meant I would get to work with Dolores. But of course, we had to have assigned partners. I listened to her call out names until I heard my own.

"...Aspen, you'll be with Christopher." Snickers were heard all around the room. Dolores even turned to face me from the other side of it. She gave me a shit eating grin, to which I replied with a middle finger.

When Mrs. Cooper had finished assigning us partners, she gave us the last few minutes to decide what book we would report with our partners.

When I walked over to the now empty desk next to his, I knew exactly how to approach him - I'd just be nice. You see, Chris had kind of a reputation of being a "bad kid." When you meet a kid like that, you're always nice to them so they have no reason to hate you. But don't mistake the bad kids for the mean kids. Bad kids rebel. Mean kids are bullies for the sake of being bullies.

"So," I sat next to him. "Do you have any preferences?"

"What?" He asked, despite looking straight at me.

"What book do you wanna do?"

"Oh," he replied. "Well, uh, I don't really read much, ya know?"

"Alright," I nodded. "Well, I think we should do Lord of the Flies because it's on an eighth grade reading level and I think it'd be pretty hard to get a bad grade with that."

"Okay," he agreed.

"I assume you've never read it. You wanna borrow my copy?" I offered.

"Well, actually," he scratched the back of his neck. "You think you could read it to me? So you can, like, explain it to me? I'm not really that smart," he laughed nervously.

When I agreed, he told me about a treehouse he and his friends had for us to meet in.

Soon the bell rang and we were excused to go. As I got up to leave, my name was called. My teacher told me that she paired her best students with her worst, which was why I ended up with Chris.

After talking to him, I realized something - he wasn't a bad kid, he was troubled.

...

So here we were, sitting in his tree house. His head was propped on my lap as I finished reading Lord of the Flies.

"The officer, surrounded by these noises, was moved and a little embarrassed. He turned away to give them time to pull themselves together; and waited, allowing his eyes to rest on the trim cruiser in the distance."

"Holy shit," Chris breathed out, his eyes on the ceiling.

"Yeah," I agreed, closing the book. Then I looked down at him, smirking as I had a realization. "You know, you haven't really asked me anything about the book."