𝐃𝐎𝐍'𝐓 𝐓𝐑𝐔𝐒𝐓 𝐌𝐄 • Matty Healy

- 001

Dylan's POV
16th November, 2009

I sighed as I stood at my bus stop. The bus was late, and I was gonna be late for sixth form, yet again. The deputy principal had warned me that one more tardy would put me on an attendance report, and I didn't really fancy getting a little slip of paper getting signed at the start of every lesson. Big embarrassing, really.

I was about to message my teacher, profusely apologise and make up some lame excuse. I'd used the fake bus excuse too many times now and, now that it was actually late, I was starting to feel like the boy who'd cried wolf.

I huffed, sitting down on the yellow bench as a car pulled up in front of me. My best friend, George, poked his head out the window of the drivers seat.

"Fancy a lift?" He asked, "Got candy and puppies in the boot."

I laughed as I walked over to George's car, getting in the passenger seat next to him.

"My hero!" I cheered, "One more late and they're gonna rain hellfire on me."

"Don't understand why you can't just wake up earlier, mate," George rolled his eyes.

"I'd much rather have an extra ten minutes of sleep than music."

"Thought you loved music."

"Love making it. Hate the lesson. Twat of a teacher, no room for creativity. Yawn."

I really did hate school. I was turning eighteen in three days and seriously considering dropping out, but I didn't know what I'd do with my life after that. Get a job down at the McDonalds flipping burgers for a living? Hey, maybe I'd become a manager.

"Excited for your birthday?" George asked, snapping me from my thoughts, which would have spiralled into a full blown internal panic attack about the future had he not interrupted them.

"I guess. I mean, I can get pissed in public, so."

"You do that anyway."

"Yeah, but now the pigs can't get on my back for it, can they?"

"Pretty sure being eighteen doesn't excuse you from a drunk and disorderly charge, Dyl."

"Yeah, but it excuses me from underage drinking, so I'd only be charged once."

"And that'll go on your record with the two other times you've been charged. Seriously, how aren't you in juvie?"

"Don't know. Reckon I'd be well cool if I did get sent there, though."

"Please, you'd be made someone's bitch right away."

"As if. I'd be the one making people my bitch. Makeshift whips and all. Clean my cell, bitch! Give me your food, bitch!"

"I'm scared of you."

"See? I'd run juvie."

I looked up, noticing we were approaching the road my sixth form was on.

"Can you just park up the road?" I asked.

"Why?"

"Cause all my mates think you're fit and it's proper embarrassing when I get out your car and they call you a FILF."

"FILF?"

"Friend I'd Like to Fuck. Don't know, they made it up, they're odd. Don't even know what they see in you."

"Oi!"

"Think it's cause you're older, even though it's only by, like, a year. They'd shag a lamppost if it was born before them."

George laughed as he pulled over at the end of the road and I got out the car, thanking him for the lift and jogging into college.

For the first time in my second year, I wasn't late. My music teacher was surprised to see me walk in before the bell went, even looked a bit disappointed that she'd have to put a big, green tick on my report. Bitch.

I managed to get through my first lesson without stabbing myself in the eye with my pen, although it was very tempting. I had a free period now, so I went to mine and mine, Ella and Eva's usual area in the park just outside the school.

That was my favourite part of being a sixth former, being able to leave the campus if I didn't have a lesson, watching all the year eights get fuming because they couldn't go and grab a quick chippy for lunch. That and the lack of uniforms, although I don't think people are exactly jealous of mine and my friend's style. We didn't care, though, we liked it, we looked cool.

Eva pulled out a pack of cigarettes from her pocket, looking around to make sure the teacher that patrolled the outside of the school wasn't there, making sure the sixth formers weren't getting up to no good and damaging the school's reputation. Not that anyone would even know we were from the school, we ripped our lanyards off our necks the second we stepped out of those gates.

"I've been proper gagging, you know," Ella said as she took a cigarette from Eva and lit it with her Union Jack lighter, "I think the homeless guy I get to buy my ciggies has like, got a house or something, he's never outside the shop anymore."

"Maybe he's dead," I shrugged. Eva smacked me on the shoulder, before handing me my own cigarette. I pulled out my lighter, one of those shitty neon ones you'd get from the gas station, lighting the cigarette up and stuffing it back in my pocket. I instantly coughed at the taste of it.

"Fucking hell, Eva, are they menthols?" I asked, scratching my tongue as if trying to get poison off of it.

"Sorry! They're the only ones I could rob out my mums purse, you know I've not got my own money."

"Don't say sorry, just- Give me a word of warning before I eat shit, yeah?" I held the cigarette out, "Anyone want this?" Ella practically snatched it out my hands and I laughed. "I think I'm gonna go up and see George."

"He's, like, twenty minute walked away isn't he?" Ella asked.

"Yeah, and?"

"Well, by the time you get there, you'll only have, like, ten minutes before you've gotta start walking back for Psychology. What's the point?"

"I'll just skip."

"Skip? You'll get put on attendance report."

"Can't check my attendance if I don't attend."

With that, I began to walked away, skip away, even.

"You're gonna get kicked out, you know!" Eva yelled after me.

I span around. "Not arsed, dropping out in three days!"

I span back around and walked happily down the road. My mind was made up, I was dropping out. I didn't really care if I ended up flipping burgers in Maccies or scanning meal deals in Tesco, I just wanted to be out of that god forsaken school that was draining me of all my creativity.