Smile On His Lips and Cuts On His Hips (Jalex)

Thirty Four - It Won't

I was contemplating the contents of my locker, working on recalling the Thursday’s schedule and what my upcoming periods necessitated, when Zack walked up next to me. He continued our most recently ended conversation, in which I’d panicked over math and extracted how to properly solve distance problems from him, saying “How was your quiz?”

“I definitely failed it,” I replied, scrunching up my forehead as I focused, eventually realizing that I had PE and science and, therefore, needed nothing. I preferred to retrieve my science materials after gym; pulling notebooks from under the clothes that got tossed on them was inessential and irritating.

Groaning at my idiocy, I slammed my locker shut and tugged on the bottom of my t-shirt, shrugging when Zack countered, “You say that about every test you take.”

“Exactly; if I actually got an F, I won’t be upset, and if I managed to do better than that, I’ll be happily surprised! Win-win,” I explained, examining the bustling students we passed. I noted fractions of disconnected conversations and teenagers who were shoving direly as if they had somewhere important to be, pushing through laughing blockages and  other obstructions. Kids strangely liked to congregate in the most inconvenient places possible. Assholes.

Zack shook his head in response to that justification for my pessimism, disagreeing with me. While he may be a jock who exercised in his free time – which confused me,  since voluntarily stressing muscles was absolutely absurd to me – Zack was intelligent and maintained all A’s. This was the reason that his intense hatred of some teachers and alarm when he received a C amused me so greatly; there was exactly no chance that any of his instructors didn’t like him or his immaculate grades were in danger of being damaged by an imperfect score.

We definitely had different priorities: he worked for academic and physical excellence, I struggled to not go insane.

Rearranging the books that were stabbing his side, Zack spotted something that caused his expression to change curiously, squinting ahead of us and asking, “Is that Ramsay talking to Vinny?”

Interested, I looked in the same direction as Zack, realizing that, yes, that was Vinny Vegas (stupid name, large ego,  excessively loud, unexplainably popular) seemingly joking with Josh Ramsay (socially incompetent, blue-banged, completely friendless, oblivious recipient of teasing). That was irregular, though not extremely shocking, since Ramsay never recognized when he was unwanted. He stuck himself to those who were obviously aggravated by his blabbering. The kid had no companions and was pathetic in his efforts to get some; both lame and amusing.

Laughing, I nodded and said, “When is he going to realize that he’s fucking annoying and there’s a reason that nobody talks to him?”

“Never, apparently,” Zack said, frowning as we turned a corner, the odd combo out of sight. He was nicer than me, too – more athletic, smart, and compassionate. Fuck, I was totally inferior to my closest friend.

Contrarily, compared to Ramsay, even I was amazing. While I was substandard in every subject and reprehensible, I wasn’t him.

It was sad, really, to take pride in something like that, but didn't have any virtues to smile about. Unlike him, though, I did have some  people who placed themselves in my company without being forced to. And I’d take that.

More bashing of Ramsay was prevented by the bell ringing, Zack and I calling byes that were obscured by the buzzing of the crowd, him going off to Spanish while I went to the gym. Ramsay and his many physical failures was, funnily, in my PE period. That class was always humorous.    

___

The productivity of my brain did not improve over the following hours, causing me to be slumped over a textbook, examining the corner of the open notebook on it, clueless as to what the numbers that I needed to date my work were. Maybe the internal stress on my mind was causing me to forget every somewhat important fact immediately after I learned it. That would make functioning difficult.