A loud blaring of an alarm goes off on Ned’s phone and Ned reaches over to the nightstand and picks up his phone. He rubs his eyes and turns the alarm off. He rolls over in his bed and looks out the window and the sun is just rising. He takes a deep breath and gets out of bed, leaves his room and goes to the bathroom to take a shower. He brushes his teeth, puts on deodorant, gets on new clothes, and grabs his backpack.
Ned walks past his mom, who's still passed out on the couch, and sighs, then leaves the house. He walks down the road all the way to Chris’s house, so they can walk to school together. Ned sits outside the curb for a good ten minutes and there is no sign of Chris at all.
“I’m gonna be late at this point, where the fuck is Chris?” Ned pulled out his phone and texted him and even called him, but he never answered. “Goddammit, is he still mad at me?” Ned looks back at Chris’s blue house and he gets up from the curb and starts walking to school.
“Maybe he will be at school. Hopefully.” Ned said to himself, as he took the path he took yesterday to get to school.
He makes it to the front entrance of the school and looks around at all of the people around talking and could not even find Chris anywhere. He wanders around looking all over the crowd of people and still cannot find Chris at all.
“Is he not even gonna show up to school?” Ned stopped looking around and sat down on a bench with his back slumping down. “Or maybe he got kidnapped by those Girl Point workers or whatever they’re called. Wait, no, I shouldn’t think like that. He’s probably fine, guess he’s just still angry.”
The school bell rings out and everyone begins to migrate over to their first period class. Ned was the only person left at the front entrance was Ned, and there was still no sign of Chris.
246Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8bmc9K3I6h
Ned walked to his first period class, hoping to see Chris, but yet again, still no sign of him at all. He went into history when the lecture just started and he was reprimanded by the teacher as he sat down at his desk. Ned sat through the whole class and didn’t pay attention to even a single word of it, his mind was only fixated on the fact that Chris wasn’t at school.
First period ended and Ned quickly got up from his desk and walked to his math class. But then, he saw him. Chris was walking down the hallway towards Ned, or it looked like it.
“Hey Chris!” Ned shouted from down the hallway, running towards him. Chris rolled his eyes and groaned and just kept walking as Ned reached him. “Where were you man? I was looking all over for you.”
“Don’t talk to me.” Chris shoved past Ned.
“Are you still mad from last night?”
“What else does it fucking look like?”
“Well what do you want me to do to make it up to you?”
“There is nothing you can do! Don’t you understand!?”
People started looking in their direction and people walking by took a glance.
“Then what the fuck do you want me to do?”
“I already said it. Nothing. Don’t talk to me, don’t come to my house again, and don’t ever try to call or text me!”
“A bit harsh you think?”
“A bit harsh? Hah! A bit harsh huh? Says the man who almost got us killed last night!”
“But thanks to you we didn’t.”
“Yeah, what would’ve happened if I didn’t come in there. You would’ve fucking died, we would’ve died, no, we should’ve died! There’s no way we should’ve survived with that guy just shooting wildly like that.”
“But the important thing is that we survived! We fucking lived through that shit isn’t that crazy to you?”
“Was that exciting to you? Is all of this just a fucking joke to you? Because let me tell you something Ned, I don’t find this shit that funny. Do you know how hard it was for me to sleep at night? I was terrified, every single decibel of noise scared me to my core, do you know what that feels like?”
“Well, no but-”
“Then you should just shut the fuck up. I’m going to class.”
Chris walks away and through the crowd, shoving through people along the way. Ned left there speechless and the bell rang and Ned rushed all the way to class.
246Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡusN2VjPZrQ
Ned ran into math class and everyone looked at him as he rushed to his desk and sat down.
“Ned, you’re unexpectedly late.” Mr. Eggmound said, facing the whiteboard in the front of the classroom.
“Sorry.” Ned quickly responded, digging into his backpack to pull out his notebook.
“Now…” Mr. Eggmound began going to the lecture he had planned for today.
Michelle is sitting right next to her friend, Rachel, all the way in the back of the class. Rachel had brown skin, and curly long brown hair with pink eyes.
“Hey.” Rachel whispered, tapping Michelle on the shoulder. “What did you get on the quiz?”
“Like a five.” Michelle said.
“Are you kidding me, that quiz was out of twenty.”
“I know, I’m just struggling in this class, and Mr. Eggmound isn’t making it any easier.”
“Like how?”
“He’s just not a good teacher at all. I haven’t learned a single thing in this class.”
“Well, how about you ask someone for help?”
“Like who?”
Rachel sweeps the rooms and she lands directly on Ned, who is writing stuff down in his notebook. “That kid, the one that came in late.”
“Really? He’s kinda weird.”
“Oh come on, I’m sure he’s not that bad. He’s the only one in this class with an A. So he obviously knows what he’s doing.”
“Fine, I’ll ask him after class. What’s his name again?”
“I think the teacher said Ted.”
“Michelle and Rachel, if I have to tell you one more time this week to stop talking to each other, I’m giving you both an F in this class. Now pay attention!”
Michelle and Rachel quickly shut up and sit up in their seats.
246Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvrVSefLSVJ
After a boring lecture the bell rings and everyone packs up their stuff. Ned is stuffing things into his backpack and gets up from his desk.
“Hey Ted.” Michelle came up behind Ned and tapped him on the shoulder.
“Yeah-” Ned turns around and sees Michelle and jumps a little. “Y-Y-Yeah, what do you wa-nee-need?” Ned rubbing his head nervously and not really making eye contact with Michelle.
“I was just wondering, do you know how to do the homework? I’ve been struggling with this the past few days.”
“Oh that.” Ned nervously laughs. “Yeah, I can help you with th-th-the homework yeah I can do that.”
“Great, can you meet me by the library after school?”
“Sure, yeah.”
“Thanks. See you then.” Michelle walked out of the classroom and Rachel joined her.
Ned was left there stunned as he stood there in an awkward position just spacing out. Ned finally shook his head back and forth and snapped back into reality. He then started pumping his fists in the air.
“I fucking did it! I talked to a girl!” Ned cheered as he happily ran out of the room and down the halls. “I gotta tell Chris about this at lunch! He’s gonna be so proud of me, hopefully.”
Ned hurried out the door and into the main courtyard of the school where the first lunch was already in motion with people waiting in lunch lines, and people sitting at their respective tables having their conversations. Ned looked around the sea of people that were all talking, walking, or sitting. The loud noise of the people drowning out Ned’s own thoughts as he wandered around the courtyard searching for Chris. Like all of the other times he searched around for Chris, he never found them. Ned wasted the first ten minutes of the lunch period just searching for Chris and looked down dejected as he was now alone. He walked back to the lunch table where him and Chris used to sit and it was taken by a group of students. Now, he didn’t even have a table to sit down at and now walked around a corner of the huge cafeteria building and slopped down onto the wall, sliding down it and sitting down with his back leaning up against the wall.
“Guess it’s like junior high again huh, sitting alone at lunch and not seeing Chris at all.” A group of girls walk by and look at Ned then laugh as they walk away. “Yep, definitely junior high all over again.” Ned proceeded to spend the rest of the lunch period in the little corner he settled down in until it was over and headed to his third period class.
246Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVvPi82beMW
Seventh period ended and Ned immediately sprinted out of the classroom without any hesitation, he was the first one to even step foot in the hallway and run out of the doors before the hoard of teens came out from the classrooms who were more than ready to go home.
Ned sprinted all the way through the courtyard and to the library, as he got weird stares from students as he sprinted past them with such determination. He got to the front doors of the library breathing heavily and trying to catch his breath as he stumbled a little bit. He quickly fixed himself up right and tucked on his shirt a little and leaned against the library wall as he patiently waited by the door.
A little while later after the mass of students cleared out of the school and a few other students walked by Ned and into the library, Michelle and Rachel were now walking up. Michelle waved at Ned and he nervously waved back.
“Sorry to keep you waiting.” Michelle said.
“No worries, I wasn’t waiting long.”
“Rachel was taking too long in the bathroom.”
“Hey!” Rachel retorted. “Sometimes a girl just needs to fix herself up.”
“I know, but you could hurry up at least.”
“Whatever, let’s just go inside already.”
Rachel pushed past Ned and Michelle and directly into the library, swinging the door open.
“Sorry about her.”
“It’s ok, it’s the usual behavior I see from those types of girls.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Just forget it, it was stupid.”
“Alright then.”
There was an awkward silence as Ned took slow steps towards the door and opened it for Michelle. Michelle thanked him as she walked in, and Ned stepped in after her.
There were a total of six other people in the library all at other different tables doing their homework, studying, or just on their phone. Rachel was seated over at a bigger table with four other chairs. Ned and Michelle take a seat right next to each other and they both unzip their backpacks and pull out the math homework.
“So what were you having a problem with?” Ned asked as he pulled out a pencil and a calculator.
“Every single one of them.” Michelle laughed.
“Wow. Ok, tell me what you don’t understand.”
“It’s just that, it’s just hard to set up the equation and to remember the steps.”
“Let me see.” Ned slid the piece of paper Michelle had her homework on in front of him and looked at it closely. “Ah, I see.” Ned turned the paper toward Michelle and pointed at one of the problems. “I can tell where you’re getting messed up on. It’s a pretty common mistake, I’ll help you.”
Ned went on a very detailed lecture type lesson, pointing out the mistakes Michelle was making and on how to easily fix them. He put it in a tone to make sure that Michelle understood and didn’t feel stupid about the mistakes she made. He sounded very confident and was straight to the point. Michelle was very impressed and paid attention way more than she ever did in Mr. Eggmound’s class. She even thought he was a better teacher than most of the teachers she had. Rachel was even impressed, looking up from her phone time to time at the little lesson Ned was teaching.
“Any more questions?” Ned asked. “Cause I’ll be glad to answer them.”
“Nope, you’ve basically answered all of them.” Michelle jokingly responded, putting her homework in her folder.
“Glad I could help.” Ned packed up his stuff and zipped up his backpack and turned to face Michelle. “So, how long have you two been friends?”
“Ever since kindergarten.” Michelle replied, looking at Rachel.
“Damn, you’ve been friends for eleven years?”
“Yep. The only reason we met in kindergarten was because some kid stole my doll.”
“And, I taught that kid a lesson. He wasn’t gonna mess with my girl like that.” Rachel butted in, putting her phone down on the table.
“You do remember you kicked him in the balls, right?”
“You bet I do, that kid deserved it.”
“Not really, pretty overboard if you ask me.”
“You still got your doll back right? And that was all because of me.”
Michelle giggles. “Yeah, that's still a badass moment.” Ned gave a little chuckle and Michelle turned to him. “Do you have any friends?”
“Oh me? Well, I do. He’s just not here today.”
“I was just wondering because I saw you sitting alone at lunch today.”
“Oh really.”
“Did you even eat anything? I saw you didn’t have any food in your hand.”
“No, I didn't eat anything at all.”
“Really? You must be hungry then, I still have a granola bar if you want it.”
“I’m good, when you live like me you get used to being hungry.”
“Oh.” Michelle gave him a concerned look.
“Wait, I didn’t mean it like that.” Ned started doing weird hand motions. “I just mean that I don’t eat a lot, that’s it.”
“Good, got me worried there for a second.”
There was a weird awkward silence that fell upon them, and Rachel got up from the table.
“Welp, looks like we’re done here. Let’s go.” Rachel walked away and out the door, as Ned and Michelle got up from the table.
“Thank you for helping me. I’ve learned more from you than Mr. Eggmound ever could teach me.”
“You’re welcome. If you need anything else you can always talk to me.”
“Will do.” Michelle started to walk away but stopped and turned around. “Just one more thing.”
“What is it?”
“Where did you learn all of that? Because I’m sure as hell you didn’t learn that from Mr. Eggmound”
“Oh, well when you spend a lot of time by yourself you just have a lot of time to teach yourself.”
“Heh, you’re pretty smart. I like that.”
“Thanks.” Ned and Michelle both nervously laugh.
“See you tomorrow in class.”
“See you too.” Michelle walked out the door and joined up with Rachel. Ned was left there standing, more proud of himself than ever. He actually held a conversation with other people that weren’t Chris. He had a huge smile on his face.
“I should’ve listened to Chris. It really wasn’t that hard.” Ned’s smile faded away as he was now reminded that he would now have to walk back home all alone, then come back home just to take care of his mom.
Ned walked towards the doors of the library with those thoughts in mind. “Hopefully after today, things will get better. Hopefully.”246Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4mR7TpKrru
