Kid in a Locker (REWRITING)

7. How I Met Your Mother

To know the human body, you must know what it's made up of. From my standpoint as a hopeful future doctor, I would tell you bones. Cells. Neurons. Genetics. These are the thing that make you who you are. These are the things that make you human, correct?

Then what about empathy? Trust? Those periods of bright anger that make you see red? How can those things, so far from uniformality, be considered basic humanistic principles? Do they really make us human, or do they force us away from what being a human actually means?

This dilemma was enough to keep me silent as I ride in the passenger seat of Nick's truck as we ride over to his house. It was a Thursday and one of those rare days where Mother Nature takes a break from beating us with icy weather and breathes the sun into our path. This meant having the windows rolled down while I hung an arm out of the window, swimming my hand through the air as it pushes back on me.

Nick thought that this was annoying, I could tell, but like a gentleman he never said anything. He has the radio turned up and bobs his head along to an unfamiliar song as we ride follow the caravan of high schoolers heading to the suburbs. Many of them had the same idea as us as well. I could see many people hanging out of their own respective windows, trying to soak up the sun before he disappears for good for the rest of the year.

I had yet to see snow. Nick said that there was potential snow clouds moving into town during the next week. That didn't give me much hope. Being the weatherman is the only profession where you can be wrong ninety-nine point nine percent of the time and still get payed. I found that ridiculous. If I did that on one of my tests I would be praised with money, but I would be grounded.

The project was due next week sometimes, but Nick and I weren't too worried. We technically didn't even need to get together today since we got well past halfway done the last time I came over. This visit was just mainly to finish it just so we wouldn't have to worry about it anymore.

We had it planned. Finish it, I take the essay and notes that prove we actually researched and understand the endocrine system. He would take the poster and finish printing out the pictures so that when it was due, we would get extra credit for bringing a physical representation of the human body system.

I liked working with Nick. He was of the more reserved jocks I've seen at school, besides that morning where he shoved his cousin into a locker. He had assured me that it was only a joke and that I wasn't endangered of getting put into a locker myself. I found that answer oddly confusing.

Soon enough we pull into his parking spot in front of the house. He lived only ten minutes away from the school, fifteen with traffic, unlike my brothers and I do. It was why we opted to come to his house again instead of mine, so that we could get more done.

The third time I walk into his house I feel like it almost welcomes me. The floor is cleared of all party items and the sofa is moved back to where it originally sat before the party. Nick discards his keys in a bowl by the front door as I start to walk through the house to the back porch, where a table and umbrella sat. We had worked there last time and it worked pretty well. It was big enough that we could lay everything out without piling it on top of each other and we could move around freely without being in each other's personal space.

"Lemonade?" Nick asks, pointing with his thumb to the kitchen.

"Sure." I nod.

I have everything set up on the desk by the time he comes out, two large glasses shaking in his hands. He sets them down successfully, only spilling a few drops on the porch.

He sighs and slings his bookbag off his shoulder, slamming himself and the bag down into a chair. I look up at him questionably and stay silent. I had learnt that if Nick wanted you to know something, he said it. If he didn't you would never know.