The Punk Boy

Evan would swear up and down that he had not participated in bullying. That is, he would have if his hands hadn't been sweaty and he hadn't felt the ever-familiar sense of dread, and he'd started crying. And now, (even though he didn't really like being made fun of) he couldn't sit with some form of familiarity(Jared) at all. He would be sitting with another kid. His name was...Connor? Evan couldn't remember. Now this kid, (as he'd heard from Jared) was the "next school shooter". Evan didn't want to make assumptions, but when someone says a phrase like that, it's kind of hard to look past.

All of this was running back and forth through Evan's head as he grabbed his lunch tray from the front of the cafeteria and looked around for an empty table.

It was a relatively small room, with around nine tables, two great big windows on one side, overlooking the downtown of their home city. He then noticed a silhouette blocking the window. A boy, slumped over his bag, holding a phone in one hand. Evan couldn't tell if this boy was as stout as he appeared, leaned over the table, because of the large, black, jacket draped over his form. He couldn't even make out this kid's face, but he was confident it was Connor. He was going to be honest, he only knew because of how empty the table was. Now, of course, this kid could be a major outcast, but since their school only had nine lunch tables, it was apparent that some kids had been squished onto other tables so that Connor would be sitting alone with Evan.

Evan swallowed the lump of panic in his throat and made his way over there. Connor immediately looked up and deadpanned, "Wow. Prison." Evan snorted a little bit and responded shakily, "I think prison lunches are better than..." He gestured to the jello cup, which had chunks of unknown fruit in them, "these hell-spawns." Connor chuckled a little. He stood up and said, "Give me a second." He walked away to the drinking fountain in the corner and Evan took a minute to let this boy's physical appearance sink in. He was tall and lanky as if stretched by a taffy puller, with tangled, curly, brown hair that fell to his neck. His jacket hung off of him like a foreign skin he wanted nothing to do with. Underneath that, he wore a band tee with a yellow smiley face decorating it, and some word written above it that Evan couldn't read from far away. Evan then knew this kid was probably some 'punk' when he saw the ripped, black, skinny jeans and torn, maroon Doc Martens. The shoes looked oddly large on him, like when you see a clown in his tiny car, or actually, Evan realized, probably the clown shoes themselves.

Connor made eye contact and gave this little half-smile and tucked his hair behind his ear and leaned down to drink from the water fountain. It reminded Evan a lot of a giraffe reaching down to drink water from a small pond in the the African Savannahs. Like that one documentary he used to watch with Heidi every Christmas break when he was younger.

Before Evan knew it, Connor was back at the table, seeming a little awkward, yet confident. "So Evan," He said in a humorous tone, "what do you like?" Evan panicked and said the first things that came to mind. "I..uh...Trees. Definitely trees, and um-uh-the periodic table..and um-bagel! Bagels, not uh, bagel. Because that's singular and I assure you I like all-MOST bagels, because that'd be weird if I only liked one bagel..in..exsistance." Evan slowed his cycle of rambling. Connor was genuinely smiling. Evan thought maybe it was because of Connor's previous demeanor of 'screw the world, I'm dying today' but he felt Connor didn't smile often. He felt proud to be the cause of this one.

The following lunch period consisted of many odd quotes taken out of context and too much laughter to manage.

"There's pea in my lung!"

"Wow, who knew Jello Cups were into BDSM."

"I swear, if I hear you say that again, I will threaten your eye sockets with cORN JUICE!"

And Evan's personal favorite, "Hey, we should totally be friends."