Hopelessly Broken

14. Lunch with the Populars

4.18.20

I was walking to lunch with Blake when I heard a loud voice shout, "Bro! What are you doing!?"

I turned my head to see that Jack was walking in my direction, and his loud mouthed friend was shouting at him. It's show time, people. I stopped walking abruptly, and I felt Blake tense up beside me expecting a fight.

Jack stopped in front of me and fixed me a fake glare. "I wanted to apologize for initiating a pointless fight with you."

"And how do I know that you're actually sorry?" I responded suspiciously. I might make a decent actor, I've never tried it personally. I think half of the theater department would shit their panties if I showed up, and my band director would question my motives. At my school, the arts shared one budget, so the band teacher and the drama teacher always got into a huge fight over who gets how much of the budget. It was considered unclassy to be both a band kid and a drama student, but I might have to break that rule since I'm already a black sheep. I've always been curious, and I grew up with an extreme love for anything Broadway.

"The most I can offer you is... Do you want to have lunch with us today?" Jack asked coldly.

"WHAT!?" his annoying jock friend shouted. "Jack, what the hell!?"

"Got a problem, Damien?" Jack snarled. They maintained eye contact for a few tense moments until Damien eventually looked away in silent submission. "Get your food. Bring Blake if you want," Jack snapped before stalking away at the head of his complaining possy. The entire hallway broke into chatter, and I turned around to go into the cafeteria.

"What in the hell did I just witness?" Blake asked once we were situated in the lunch line.

"No fucking idea," I lied smoothly. Blake seemed to accept that, and once we both had out food, he followed me like a loyal dog to the popular table.

"Sit," Jack commanded coldly while about five different girls tried flirting with him. I slid into a seat rigidly with a lot of glares coming my direction.

Suddenly, I heard a female voice begin speaking flirtatiously in my direction, and I realized that the easy girl that basically every dude in this school had been with at least once was flirting with me. I could tell that a lot of the table was watching me when I set my fork down and began to listen to whatever she was ranting on and on about.

Her mouth stopped moving, and when her eyelashes fluttered, I recognized that I had been tuning out every single word she had said. "Sorry, what?" I asked, and the girl visibly deflated.

"I said that I think the whole mysterious appeal you give off is hot... I totally dig it," she repeated.

"Sorry, I'm not interested," I answered honestly.

"Aw, baby, how could you not want a piece of this pie?"

"You mean the pie that's been split into approximately 300 pieces? I think I'm fine."

The girl grabbed my collar and dragged me across the table before purring, "I know you have your mysterious reputation to uphold. Don't worry, I can keep a secret."

"No, seriously, I already like someone, and it sure as hell isn't you," I rejected again. And I sure as hell don't want to lose my virginity to this hoe. I added to myself.

"So who is it, hmm? Who is this magical girl that has you looking like a lost dog looking for it's mommy? Oh wait, I forgot you didn't have a mommy!" she taunted.

The table erupted into chatter, and I figured that they also realized the boundary this girl just crossed. "I'm sorry, I don't care if you're a girl, no one can talk to me like that," I growled.

"Aww, is little orphan boy gonna cry?"

"Jackie, leave hi–" one of the other boys at the table began before Jackie interrupted him again.

"No one even want to adopt the poor, poor stoner boy! How sad!"

I clenched my jaw slightly, and Blake's finger were digging into my thigh since he recognized that the only thing that could distract me from extreme anger was a little bit of pain. Instead of giving her a rise, I took another bite out of my sandwich and put all of my focus into chewing.

"You can't just ignore me! I'd bet that you're still a virgin with the way you treat girls."

"Okay, so I don't stick myself into anything that breathes, is that such an issue?"

Her face was starting to get kind of red now, and we officially had the attention of the whole cafeteria. "Not even a family."

"At least I won't have a family of my own and be a highschool drop out at age 17 only to live in my parents basement drunk and jobless," I suggested. I heard a chorus of 'ooo' sounds around me, and I felt the slightest bit of satisfaction.

Just when I was about to take another bite of my food, it was smacked out of my hand and onto some poor nerd's face. "You are nothing here, so I have power over you, bastard!"

"Sure..." I murmured.

Jackie opened her mouth to shoot back another insult before being silenced by Jack's loud, "would you please shut up Jackie? Your high pitched whining is giving me a massive headache!"

She stomped her left foot angrily before storming out of the cafeteria. Suddenly, everyone was on their feet applauding me for my treatment of the girl. Blake stood up before dragging me up, rather begrudgingly, until I was standing up awkwardly in front of the entire junior class.

Once the pandemonium calmed down, Blake finally let me sit down again. "I just wanted my freaking ham sandwich," I complained.

"Bro, that was so awesome! Did you see her face? Totally sick," one of Jack's friends told me, and the rest of the table agreed quickly. Eww, jock talk. Please kill me now.

"It wasn't a huge deal. She was being a bitch, and I handled it."

"You should totally sit with us again tomorrow!" one of the more tame girls suggested while the rest of the table nodded in agreement.

"I... Uhh... Okay," I agreed. My decision was met with words of praise just as the bell rang, and we all split ways. Suddenly instead of being the mysterious stoner, I was that guy that stood up against the school slut. People I had literally never seen before were coming up to me and starting conversations.

I was almost to my fourth block before I was stopped one last time by the guy that got hit with a runaway sandwich.

"Here you go," the boy murmured while putting it back into my hand.

"Thank you, and I'm sorry that you got in the middle of that," I responded. Even if I'm in the top one percent of the school population right now, I will not drop down the level of being mean to people for no reason. Of course, everything I did was under surveillance by the student body, so by the time I sat down in fourth block everyone knew that I had been nice to one of the nerds.

All I know is that I suddenly have a whole bunch more friends all over the school. This isn't such a horrible change.