When We Meet Again

Chapter II

As soon as I shut the car door, Tony turned off the song. I turned my head around to see who else was in the car with us. Just behind me sat my friend Theo, and right next to him was my other friend Charlie, both with big stupid smiles on their faces, hiding something behind their backs.

"Guys?" I asked nervously while facing them, flinching for whatever would come next.

I watched both of them pull out two small loaded Nerf guns. They pointed the toys at my face, and before I knew what was happening, they pulled the triggers in unison. They both bounced off my face, one landing in Tony's lap, and the other on the fifth seat in the car, right in between the two gomers. It stung, surprisingly, since it was such a small, inexpensive kids' toy.

"Your time is up, partner!" Charlie said in a mock cowboy accent.

Charlie Gregg was the perfect stereotype of a nerd. He had thick-rimmed black glasses, big blue eyes, and freckles scattered about his face. He was wearing a baby blue collared shirt with sleeves rolled up to his elbows, exposing his pale, hairless forearms. He sported jeans with a pair of black Vans. Since he was a straight-A student, he would always share answers to the homework on a special group chat we had on our phones. He was kind, considerate, but he didn't always understand social cues very well. I remember the first time we met in junior year, he always sat in the back of the class on his phone. Being as lonely as I was, I sat next to him and realized he was the complete opposite of how I thought he was. He was shy, but outgoing at the same time. He was the group's puppy, in the sense that no one would want to see him hurt because he was such a lovable person.

Theodore Hopper had been a friend of mine since eighth grade. I remember being forced to be paired with him for an English project about reliable power sources, or something. He had neck-length light blonde hair dyed a faded shade of pastel pink. He had piercing blue eyes, braces for longer than I can remember, and a wild attitude. He wore what would've been classified as an "E-Boy", back around ten to twenty years ago. He wore a deep grey T-shirt with a decal of two sad clouds creating a grey rainbow, and the caption "Rainy Daze" between the two depressed bundles of water vapor, with a long sleeve black and white striped undershirt. He wore black jeans with a silver chain, probably made from plastic, tied onto two of his belt loops. He wore white and blue polka dot socks and beat-up sneakers with sharpie drawings all over them. He was, retro, for our time.

"Got you good, Gus!" Theo cheered and high-fived Charlie.

These guys are such nerds. I love it.

I turned over to Tony to see what he was making out of all of this. He looked like he was on the brim of a heart attack, and burst out laughing, not able to keep his poker-face. He was wearing a black blink-182 shirt with a red flannel over it, with baggy jeans and Nike's. He also wore his silver cross necklace that I've never seen him without.

"You guys were all in on this?" I asked playfully.

"Yeah!" They all said at scattered points.

I rolled my eyes hard enough that they could all see it, while Tony put the car into drive, and we sped off.

"So, what kind of party is this?" I asked.

"It honestly shouldn't be anything too crazy, from what I hear. Just a small get-together celebrating the survival of our first few weeks of school that I was invited to, and I was allowed to bring three other people," Theo said.

"Who invited you?" Tony turned to Theo for a brief second.

"I honestly don't know his name. Jake? Jacob? Joseph?"

"Wait, you mean Jake Blair!?" I asked in disbelief.

"Oh yeah! It was Jake Blair!" Theo said with a goofy smile.