Sticks

Chapter 8. K-R

After Mrs. Rileys class I left the school early.
I had two classes only left for the day so it seemed pointless. I don't particularly like English and study hall.

I may get a detention for skipping, but that one will look like nothing piled onto the others. I never really provoke people to get detentions, only a few times has that happened. I mostly am late to classes or not there at all. The school has a weird policy about how many absences you can have so I have gotten friends of mine to do attendance for me on occasion.

I walked home from the school. I do have a car, but it's broken and I am learning to fix it from a local mechanic. The aspects of a car are surprisingly cool, I'm really enjoying it.

I have a bike too, not the one I want exactly. The "bike" I want is a Kawasaki ninja 650. There is nothing motorized about my mountain bike at all.

It's weird. It's weird that the first thing that popped into my mind while I snuck out the side door of our school cafeteria was the convenience shop. I hadn't seen Ryan at all today, I thought maybe he was at the shop. I decided against going.

He's a really confusing person, Ryan I mean. I just can't quite figure him out. He has this broody interrogative look to his face always. That is unless he is smiling...and showing me his unbearably charming dimples.

I have to admit, I don't really like the fact that I'm looking at him in any way like that. I'm not supposed to.

Queue the playgirl denial.

I wouldn't call myself a slut or something close. Mostly because guys come at me more than I come to them, and you probably would call a guy who gets a ton of play and girls that want him a slut.

Walking through my from door I hear cluttering in my kitchen. I walk into the room expecting, I don't know. A robber? Friend? Stray dog?

Dean.

"We talked about this Dean. All this food you're stealing is making you fat" I heckle him with a common joke we make with each other.

He is stuck staring at me with one leg up on the counter, the other flat on the ground. One arm is reach for a cereal box and the other is stuffing a marshmallow in his mouth. His messy blond hair falls over his ice blue eyes.

Wow. He really isn't moving, I don't think he is even blinking.

Unless I finally figured out how to stop time, which would be sick.

I walk up to him and push him so he falls over taking a moment to regain integrity of his once frozen pose before he hits the ground.

He catches himself and stands looking at me with a blank stare. I don't really get what is going on, he is wreaking havoc for no reason. He is raising my drawers of food and acting so weird.

I walk closer to him and his straight face to analyze more, he doesn't flinch or move his face for a second.

"How high are you?"

"Very"

I blow into his eyeballs and he flinches backwards and starts blinking rapidly. The first time he ever got high I did that and told him it would help with the redness so now it is ritual.

Why is he home and high rather than at school?

"Why so?" I inquire. He taps his head in a thinking way. He is always very animated under the influence.