Dear Neighbor Boy,

Climbing Through Vents and Punching Walls as a Coping Mechanism

I looked at the hallway behind her longingly.

She paused in the midst of picking everything up and chuckled. "Go ahead and go get her, Asher. I can handle this hard task of picking my assignments up by myself."

I gave her a look that asked 'Are you sure?' and she shoo'ed me away.

I yelled out a thanks and ran off down the corner Hazel went through. I peered inside classrooms and saw too many teachers doing unholy things. Bleugh!! But we didn't talk about that.

I was about to catch up with her when an arm wrapped around my torso and spun me around. I felt a soft thud from my back hitting a locker.

It was Sheyla.

She traced her hands up and down my chest in what I guessed was an attempt to be seductive. I cocked my eyebrow and looked at her.

"Heyyyyy, Asher... I haven't seen you around lately. What's up with that?" She asked in a honeyed voice.

I grabbed her hands and slid them off of my chest, but she didn't let go of me. "Yeah, that happens when you ditch your boyfriend for some other guy."

She pursed her lips. "Well it didn't really work out, so what's the damage, right?"

I rolled my eyes and shook her hands off of mine. I pushed myself off of the locker and continued my search for Hazel.

From behind me, Sheyla yelled,"Text me!"

I picked up my pace to find Hazel, but I couldn't see her. I went in the general direction I knew she went in and eventually found her bouncing to the library. I ran after her.

A few kids in front of me were walking very slow and they took up the entire hallway so I couldn't go around them. I had to think of a different way to get to the library where Hazel was heading.

~~~~~~~

So it turned out, air vents didn't have much room for six-foot two, seventeen year old boys looking desperately for a girl. Who would've thought?

But I had to make it work either way.

I slithered thought the narrow vents and looked through all the rooms from above to find the library where Hazel was heading.

I finally found it and lucky enough for me, I saw Hazel making her way through the bookshelves right underneath me. I pulled my emergency screwdriver out of my backpack, unscrewed the vent's cover, and opened it.

I was thinking whether it'd be better to go feet first or not when what I guessed was either a raccoon, rat, or squirrel bumped into me and the weight of my backpack pulled me headfirst through the vent.

As I fell to the ground, I yelled out," You damn, Raquirrat!" and landed on my backpack.

"Asher? What are you doing??"

I looked up to find myself at Hazel's feet. I quickly stood up and brushed all the vent dust off of me. I almost did a double take when I noticed all of her injuries from last night were gone. I figured she must've covered it with makeup, so I pushed that thought away.

"Heyyyyy, Hazel. You know, casual morning vent hopping." I smiled as brightly as I could until my eyes landed on who was next to her. "Caleb."

"Hey, dude." He waved a hand and I nodded my head back. However, I made no effort to hide the annoyance in my face.

Hazel probably saw the awkwardness between us so she decided to fill it with talking.

"Ummm, we were just talking and I'm taking your advice, Asher."