All The Small Things

188

Filler chapter <3 so sorry but I'm trying to decide what to do next still haha

[Jacob POV]

"Momma," I heard Luca call me. I was beyond confused. It was almost 7 AM, and I just got kicked awake by the man next to me in my bed.
"Huh?" I asked as I sat up, rubbing the part of my leg that just got assaulted. He whined and shifted, his eyes shut before going back to silently breathing. It took a second for my still half-asleep self to realize he wasn't awake. But I had absolutely zero clue what he was dreaming about.

[Luca POV]

It had been a few weeks since I'd remembered something while sleeping, so I wasn't  super surprised when it happened. But, I was surprised it was about high school and not elementary school. In high school, I was almost totally silent unless I was with my friends. But, freshman year, I hardly saw them. That one kid had gotten me started on self-harm, though. But I didn't know if me and them were officially friends or not. So, I mostly kept to myself. But there were a couple of guys who couldn't stand me. They'd known me through all of elementary and middle school and always teased me for being weird. But in 8th grade, they would start actually physically hitting me.

It was mostly pushing, but I still didn't like them touching me. Except for Payton. He was the one who did most of the bullying, and he always smiled at me when he did it. And I couldn't figure out if he was being mean, so I came to my own conclusion that him picking on me was to show his affection. I know it sounds odd, but I felt like if he was giving me this much of his time, then he had to have been interested in me. And it didn't help that I already thought he was attractive. So, in my mind, it was fine if he pushed me. But not his friends.

Seasonal depression gets really bad here for some reason, so since it was January, the school was putting on an anti-suicide event. And everyone was forced to go during their English class. That way not all students would be there at once, but everyone would go because everyone had to take four years of English. I was the third group of students to go, so the people hosting the events weren't super up-beat. I always felt depressed, and I didn't think it was obvious at the time, but a couple of the people at different booths handed me a card with the suicide hotline. And I think them doing that caught Payton's attention. A long with his friends.

I was just sorta roaming around. I wasn't standing anywhere for long before walking another lap around the auditorium. I was spaced out while walking one of those laps until someone grabbed my wrist. I instantly snapped out of it and was about to pull away before I noticed it was Payton. Does he think this is hand holding? I could hear his friends following us a few steps away and snickering.
"Hey, I just wanted to know what those people handed you. I mean, I don't think anyone else has gotten handed anything," He said before letting go and starting to walk with me. His friends were trailing behind.

"Oh, they just handed me a phone number," I answered honestly, handing him one of the hotline cards.
"Lemme write something," He demanded, pulling a pen from his pants pocket, flipping the card over, and holding it against the wall while quickly writing a note. It took him a little while to write it all. He handed it back to me and laughed at himself before walking out of the whole auditorium with his two friends. I shrugged his behavior off before reading what he jotted down.

'Hope u know ur a total waste of space with no purpose, u crack baby. hang yourself. Would do us all a favor :],'

I felt a hurt in my chest. I don't know why I thought he might’ve liked me, but I did. So, him writing this and handing it to me felt like public humiliation. Especially during a planned event. No teachers were even paying attention to if someone left or came in, so I walked out. I didn't have an idea on what I planned to do, but I saw the bathroom down the hall and figured I could skip the rest of the class there.