Wylan Van Eck is Not a Bad Kid

He's not a bad kid

Wylan Van Eck wasn't a bad kid. He kept his grades up, with the help of tutors and screen readers. He didn't go to parties or be irresponsible with his allowance. He didn't keep bad company, though he didn't have much company at all these days. He had a couple of friends, or at least people to talk to.

There was a girl in his health science class. She was nice to him, and if he was being honest, she made the class a lot less dreadful for him. She helped him with the class, and he helped her with her chemistry, and they both loved to express their distaste for the class. Wylan was in AP chem, and honestly, the class made him miserable, but he was good at it. The second person he talked to was in that class, and Wylan found him to be the most irritating person in the school. He was smart, but Wylan knew he was smarter. The only advantage that he had on Wylan was that he could read. Pure spite kept him in that class. There was also the boy that he sometimes talked to at church. He was kinda scary, and far more religious than Wylan was, but when he moved here, Wylan was one of the only people who spoke the same language as him. The boy made fun of him for it, claiming that ‘he spoke like he learned it from a classroom’. It was an accurate take, but Wylan was still embarrassed that he pointed it out.

Wylan Van Eck wasn't a bad kid. So when a kid from his school came up to him, asking him about his father, Wylan found himself caught off guard. He knew enough about his father, about the trading business he ran and what they owned. But it was odd that someone would ask him about it, especially out of the blue like this.

He found it even weirded how little it took for him to agree to give information about his dad to this boy. That didn't make him a bad kid, did it? He felt guilty for it at first, going behind his fathers back and giving information about him to a kid he barely knew. But greed was in his blood, and he didn't find himself feeling as guilty when the transaction became a trade,

Wylan would admit it, he was sheltered. His phone was practically useless besides the occasional calls hed get from his father and listening to music. His computer had countless safeguards put in place. And he was positive that his room got searched when he wasn't home. So soon he started to get things from giving this boy his fathers information.

It started out with small things, movies he wasn't allowed to watch, copies of audiobooks he couldn't find in the library or online. It felt a little bold to ask him for a phone, one with no blockers or safeguards, and he was relieved when the boy did not question it.

He did not question the boy that much, he knew better. He had a reputation, and even though Wylan didn't talk to many, he still knew about it. There were so many rumors surrounding him, that Wylan wasn't quite sure how many different contradictions could exist at the same time.

I heard he ran away. I heard he was in foster care. I think his parents are dead. Wouldn't be surprised if they just dropped him off, if he was like this as a kid I would too. I heard he broke his leg running from the cops. I heard he fell of a building. I heard he killed someone one. Just one?

If Wylan was being a little honest, it was a bit much for a highschooler to have so much mystery surrounding him, but he couldn't quite bring himself to care when the boy gave him things his father would never let him have.

The school day had just ended, and Wylan was rushing into the student parking lot. He had documents neatly tucked into a manilla folder in his bag. Honestly, he had no idea what they said. The boy had found out rather quickly in this arrangement that Wylan couldn't read, so he gave Wylan a list of key words and Wylan just had to fumble around through files trying to match up jumbled characters with jumbled characters. It was a slow process, but it worked.

He had to make this quick. The teachers had a habit of shutting and locking the doors early, and Wylan really didn't want to have to call his dad saying that he missed band rehearsal.