The Way We Get By

3 // Angel

"Last night I got so high that I waited for a stop sign to turn green."

I slam my locker shut and raise an eyebrow at Sean.

"Are you stupid?"

He shrugs. "Weed makes you dumb."

"You don't need weed to be dumb," I point out as we begin to walk towards chemistry. I can see Alex from down the hall, talking with Jason while he bends down to take a sip from a water fountain.

"Don't act like you haven't done stupid shit after smoking," he remarks. I already know where this is going. "Remember that time you slept with the—"

"Shut up!"

I reprimand him and glance around the bustling hallway with furrowed brows. He lets out a hideous cackle as we walk towards the chemistry room, and after a moment of dodging around slow groups of chatty students in the hall, we slip into the room and take our seats in the back row of the chemistry lab.

It's a bleak room, eight lab tables lined up in two rows of four like victims of a firing squad just waiting to be shot at by the even-bleaker lectures of Mr. Mason.

"We still hanging out tonight?" My bag hits the floor with a thud and I glance up at Sean. He nods and brushes light brown hair out of his face.

"You 'betcha. I'm bringing the weed."

I give him a thumbs up, and take out my phone to text Eliza. Alex and Jason take their seats at the lab table in front of Sean and I, though I don't pay Alex much attention.

We're different people at school and at home. At school, we're not really brothers. Of course everyone knows we are—they can tell just by looking at our practically identical appearances—but everyone also knows that we simply don't talk.

We're polar opposites, and that's how everyone at schools knows us. If we weren't brothers I don't know that we'd ever cross paths, besides the unfortunate fact of being stuck in the same chemistry class.

"Ohhh," Sean coos. I feel the poke of his warm breath on my ear and snap up to see him staring at my phone screen. "You texting your girlfriend?"

"She's not my girlfriend."

"Then what is she?"

I slip my phone back into my pocket and feel my jaw harden.

"She's my booty call. Friends with benefits." A sharp exhale leaves my nostrils at the thought of Eliza. "Whatever the fuck you wanna call her."

The teacher starts his lesson, something about thermochemistry. Apparently that's a thing. But it shuts Sean up, and it makes me thankful for once in my life that Mr. Mason doesn't tolerate talking during lectures.

I pull my phone out and scroll through posts and pictures, the lecture being the last thing on my mind. I've accepted by this point in the year that my grade has hit the fan, and that my only hope of recovering my future is going to be a generous basketball scholarship.

Sean does the same with his phone, though both of us glance up every once in a while to make it look like we're paying attention.

Towards the end of the period, though, Mr. Raisin Looking Ass says something that catches my ear.

"We're switching things up! Find another person to be your lab partner for the next few months. It can't be the same person that you're partners with now."

I sit still for a moment to make sure I heard him right, though when students begin to rise from their lab stools and move their things, I realize he's dead serious. It's not usual of him to do a lab partner switch, but he's made it his mission lately to make this class about as terrible as possible.