Reality And Us

Chapter Five

Monday lunch break was one of Nick's least favourite lunch breaks, the periods they had afterwards were never really exciting - or maybe that wasn't the lesson's fault, maybe his french and his history teacher were simply incapable of teaching well.

This lunch break was quite different, though.

Following the suggestion of one of the football guys, he had invited his friends over to the table he sat at, and having Jamie and Stella around really made this place feel less boring, in a way. He might not actually have interacted with them much, but their presence was comforting and their voices felt like balm to his soul.

Stella was babbling about something with another girl at the table, his friend was quite obviously better than him at adapting to different social environments. And if Nick didn't misinterpret their talk, they were currently talking about some kind of fashion thing the boy wasn't keen on understanding.

Stella really wasn't one to care about looks or something, so that did kind of surprise Nicklas, he never thought her to be a girl to gush about these kinds of topics.

On the other hand, there wasn't really a reason for her not to - he doubted the girls at this table ever talked about other themes.

Jamie on the other hand was talking with a team member of Nick - Austin or something like that - and seemed to be quite happy with said conversation. It was expected that Jamie was doing so, after all the boy loved to mingle with other people, even though he never spoke or thought highly about them in private.

Nick was quite used to his friend covering up his true intentions and thoughts, and it was funny to watch him dupe them into thinking he liked them.

Even though his friends were now with him, he didn't talk a lot.

He was too lost in thought about something.

It had been bothering him the last few days. When Jamie and him were in town, spending time together like on every Friday afternoon, searching for a cute bracelet, he couldn't stop thinking.

Or on Saturday, when he was out running, it didn't leave his mind.

Or on Sunday, when his father was trying to teach his son and his wife at least something about cooking, he was distracted by the questions in his mind.

And now, on Monday, he was sitting there, in the cafeteria with a bunch of quidnuncs gibbering about whatever first filled their mind, and he couldn't stop asking himself at what point he had decided that they were nothing but clowns undeserving of his attention.

Did he decide that before he even met them? Before they had the chance to prove themselves to be otherwise?

He was quite sure that that was the case, that the first time of meeting them had, before they even had done anything, before they even had opened their mouths in front of him, he had judged them, sorted them into a category he had no clue back then they would fit in.

It angered him, anger directed at himself, he might have been right, but that didn't make it right.

There was no guarantee that he was right about everyone he had assumed to be good-for-nothing, and there might be someone out there he could have met, he could have spend time with, befriended even, someone who might have enriched his time.

He knew that ameliorating oneself was important, and he might have missed out on plenty opportunities on doing so, by judging too quickly.

He could have had surrounded himself with more sophisticated people, how come he let that chance pass?

On the other hand, those last few days had brought up other questions in his head.

Some of them reassured him, others made him scared out of his mind.