Stupid Boys

03 My Other Friends

I am freaking out. I've never paid so much attention in class trying to avoid my thoughts. I got a ride to school with Jake and couldn't talk to him. And not just because his mum was in the car. I don't know how to act around him. He can't not remember what happened at the club. He would've said something. Anything. He pays attention in class and does all of his work. He's across the room from me. And I'm trying not to stare at him.

But.. look at him. Like he wasn't high until 2 this morning. This man is my hero for how he rallies.

"Kingsley!" I hear my teacher yell and jolt from my seat. Everyone is looking at me.

"Um.. yes miss?" I gulp and heat Jake chuckling.

"When was the battle of Hastings? Easy question." she frowns and I rack my brain. There are so many dates to remember in History and I can't think of one. But I glance at the clock and see we have thirty seconds until the end. So, of course:

"Well.. of course.. it was before Williams crowning... and if you think about it.." I stretch out every word and hear the class laughing behind me. The bell rings just as I'm about to run out of options. I've been known as a bit of a class clown. Like the time I snatched one of the teachers screen remotes and paused the video we were watching in class all the time and zoomed in on people's faces.

"Kingsley, stay behind please." the teacher says and the sporty guy in our class that has the body of Terry Crews pats me on the shoulder and I trip.

"Listen, I know you're family is going through a tough time at the moment," she says calmly and I furrow my eyebrows, "But that does not excuse your behaviour in my class. You need to focus more if you want to pass."

I nod sheepishly, hating this teacher-student confrontation. Especially when she's greying and scary.

Jake is waiting outside of the class for me - any reason to be late for maths. I'm greeted with an obnoxious laugh followed by a weirdly deep voice:

"Just got schooled."

I push his chest back with my hand as he ambushes me and laugh.

Kiss.

I retract my hand quickly and stop laughing. Jake clearly notices and grabs my wrist, pulling me into the bathroom. Fuck. Fuuuuuuck. He spins me around angrily and slouches against the bathroom walls.

"Okay, what happened last night?" he spits and I scoff.

"Right. And you remember nothing."

"Uh.. yes? What did I do?" he asked, completely dumbfounded and then his eyes widen and he gasps, "Did I piss on your shoes?" and puts his hand over his mouth.

Someone in the bathroom stool chuckles and I instantly recognise that laugh.

"Classic Jake. Always pissing on people's shoes." Olly comments, appearing from the small corridor of cubicles and walking up straight to us. Y'know, with dirty hands.

Olly is in our friend group. There's a few of us there actually: me and Jake (of course), Olly, Ramir, Joe and Tyler. Olly is definitely the grossest. He eats like an animal - literally. He ducks his head down into his food and manages to savage it without barely any use of his hands. Quite impressive, really. And yet he has a girlfriend - that weird, ginger slob managed to get a girl. A real one, too. We had to meet her because none of us believed he was telling the truth.

"No. You didn't piss on my- why would you even say that? Have you done it before?" I ask and he looks away guiltily. Nah.

I mentally plan to clean all of my shoes tonight.

"Okay the other can't have been that bad." he says, acting as if his hands are a weighing scale.  Olly laughs and pushes my shoulder, walking out. I turn to walk away too but Jake grabs my wrist. Fuck.

"Wanna get high again?" he raises his eyebrows and I shout back to fast:

"No!"

And it's lunch now and we're laughing about the fact that Tyler mooned a teacher and got suspended for three days. Olly is trying to show us a card trick but failing because he doesn't know any.

"Okay wait.. pick a card." he insists to me and Joe chuckles, staring at his phone.

"Fine." I sigh, picking the only card that Olly is holding towards me. He then looks back at the entire deck for a good minute before looking back up.

"2 of hearts?" he says in a questionable tone as Joe leans over me to see if he got it right.

"8 of clubs." I furrow my eyebrows and the boy on his phone let's out an abrupt laugh.

Joe is the kind of person that you like to be around in a group. But not the person that you can hang out with alone. He's the one who always posts when you're doing cool stuff. The one you ask for photos of last night. He's like a parrot - peering over your shoulder and a good laugh when he needs to be.

Olly tried to shuffle the cards in an abstract way to impress us but throws them everywhere. That's when Ramir and Jake enter.

Ramir is in top set. I always question that because his common knowledge is about the same as a five year olds. He curses to us in french and thought that suntan made him prone to sunburn. He's asked questions that would astound you like - But I thought that gonorrhoea was a country? And - What do you call a female chef? Cheffete?

So yeah, he's a genuine knobhead and we all love him for it.

"Did you guys hear about Tyler?" Jake says as he throws his bag onto the table and we nod, "Ramir dared him."

Those are my friends. Tyler - who will do anything for a laugh, Ramir - who's stupider than a child in nursery, Olly - who's the human version of shrek, Joe - who's basically a news reporter and Jake. Who I kissed.