Rest Easy

Original Edition: iii. salvation

"Where's Tyler?" Ash asked Dudley, legs dangling off of the edge of the skating pool. Wallis was fooling around inside it, either doing pull-ups on the edge or trying out flips on his skateboard. Dudley sat down next to Ash, sparking up a cigarette.

"Probably with Tori."

"Fuck Tori, man. He was supposed to meet up with us a half hour ago." Ash frowned, running a hand through his hair. In Dudley's group of friends, there was Jamie Wallis, Ashley "Ash" Hugo, Tyler Harper, and Levi Evans. Wallis, Ash, Tyler and Levi. It was not like they meant for it to happen, but they were a fairly diverse bunch. Ash was the only white kid in the group; the others were either biracial or non-white. They used to joke about it at first—either sort themselves based on their likeliness to get a well-paying job, or divide themselves into the halves and the wholes. Ash was a whole; so were Levi and Wallis. Dudley and Tyler were the halves. Though he knew he'd have a problem if anyone ever felt the need to call him that, Dudley accepted it as a benign inside joke within the group. The Skittle Boys, as they labelled themselves in eighth grade. They revoked the name once they clocked onto the unfortunate double entendre (they were called The Gays by other kids for six months once their nickname got out). There was absolutely no homo here. Tyler was too busy balls-deep in Tori Richards for that to be possible.

"He's obsessed with her," Dudley said. "I wonder what that feels like."

"Don't sweat it, kid," Ash shook his head. "Heartbreak isn't unique. We've all been there."

"Who said I'm heartbroken?"

"I know you are."

"Let's move on. Back to Tyler."

"Oh shit, yeah. I actually remember something about Tyler! He told me last night."

"What?"

"That you had sex with Bailey the other day."

"Fuck you, Ash."

"So he wasn't lying." Ash laughed. Dudley hoped that Tyler had omitted the whole crying fiasco in his spreading of the news. Wallis stood in the pool, looking up at the two. He wasn't privy to this new information. That's what happened sometimes, with five kids in the group. News never travelled simultaneously. Sometimes things would have to be revealed twice or thrice, especially since they never really used the Facebook group chat for gossip; just to send each other stupid images and jokes off of the internet, or agree on a meeting place and time.

"Let's change the subject."

"Alright, alright. Back to Tyler."

They poked fun out of him and his newfound love for Tori, one of the mildly affluent preppy girls that sat on the steps outside the library on the school campus at lunch. There was a group of them, too. Tyler's twin sister, Amber, was a part of it, and that was how he got to knowing about Tori. Whenever Tyler and Dudley would cross campus before lunch was over to get to History class, they'd have to walk past the Girls. Tori, Amber, Jasmine and Evie. Sometimes Tyler would take a detour up to the steps to speak to Amber about something, and he ended up flirting with her friends in the process. Dudley figured that Tori was the one who ended up winning most of his attention. Ever since February, they had been having flirting matches that brought out the cringe in him. Their first date was during Spring Break at the end of March. A week and a half later, they went on their second one. It was to see a film that Tyler had originally agreed to watch with Dudley, but once he realised he had double-booked, he felt bad for leaving him out. So he came along. And Dudley still wasn't sure whether this was to either stop him from third-wheeling, or to make things ten times more awkward, but Tyler got Tori to invite one of her friends to accompany him. Platonically, of course—he was still with Vanessa at the time. She invited a new girl who'd just moved to Harlow from somewhere in Texas a few weeks back, and had started school on the first day of fourth semester. A girl who had just been taken under the Girls' wing. He was only told about this an hour before the date.