☩ вяιтση ℓєνι нα∂ιηgѕ ☩
"Whoops! My bad!" one of the other boys called as they jogged past, snickering as Briton's knees collided with the asphalt below him. Knees bare in the first place, their flesh exposed by black gym shorts that ended a mere four inches above them, scraped into the rocky path which wound around the school solely for the inhumane purpose of forcing students to run around it until they collapsed. Briton of course, with such a lack of musculature, stamina, and on top of that, being an asthmatic, was, of course, typically the first to collapse anyway. This instance, however, wasn't a collapse of fatigue, but instead was cause by a moronic neanderthal crashing into him for no other reason than 'he thought it would be funny.'
Standing slowly - not for the reason of pain, but simply because he wanted to take his damn time getting the fuck up - he glanced down at the steady blood-flow trickling down his shins. It hurt - god it hurt - and it stung - it stung like a bitch - but his face was blank, and the expression upon it seemed only to say 'Welp, that stinks, I guess.' His stride was casual, as casual as it could be, as he made his way over to the gym teacher, who stood moronically unaware beside the doors to the gymnasium. He took merely a glance at Briton's skinned, raw knees, covered in small amounts of gravel and trickling blood steadily, and his eyes widened and his brows raised.
"Can I go to the nurse?" He asked plainly. His voice almost seemed to be bored, though perhaps it was merely tired. Tired of this bullshit class. Yeah, that was probably it.
"Shouldn't you be, like... crying on the ground right now?" The gym teacher asked, mainly baffled by the weakest boy in class holding a straight face through any injury, let alone having his blood being spilled. "Are you gonna yell out in pain any time soon or are you saving it for later?"
"Saving it for later," Briton answered, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. Disrespecting a teacher that could put someone in physical punishment hardly seemed the wise idea. "Can I go or what?"
"Can you tell me what happened first?" He continued to prompt. God, it was really just beginning to piss Briton off.
"You're the teacher. Shouldn't you know whats going on with your students?"
Briton simply walked past him. Blood was seeping into his shoe already, and the more he waited, the more blood he'd be dripping onto the floors. He didn't want to make a big scene, he just wanted to get this shit over with. Again, it crossed his mind whether or not the school board would notice if Briton hacked into the system and took himself out of gym class. Well, sure, they'd notice, but would they do anything about it is the question? He had a D in the class. A fucking D. Not an F, because how in honest hell can you get an F in gym, but not even a C, which is enough to slide by without questioning from anyone who took the time to look at his grades. Not his parents, of course, seeing as they rarely took interest in either of their two sons, but more so his brother, who seemed to feel the need to assume position as an irritating parental figure ever since a young age.
He stopped in the locker room first, grabbing his change of clothes - the outfit which consisted of skinny jeans and an OBEY brand t-shirt that he'd picked out this morning - and his back pack, seeing as he in no way intended to be returning to that god-forsaken class after visiting the nurse's office. He would have shuddered in the locker room, had shuddering been more his thing, at the memories of what had occurred earlier. Briton always made it a habbit to get to Gym early, so as to be changed by the time everyone else arrived, and risk less time being alone with any of them. Still, this left a little bit of time for them to harass him, and this time was hardly any different from any of the other times. Though, while it wasn't different, it was kind of... worse, today. Though the pain in his knees was enough to overshadow the soreness he still felt in his wrists from where the other boy had grabbed him, it was still there, and the darkened skin around the area - result of that behemoth grip - was proof enough. Grabbing wasn't the problem of course. Briton had been grabbed before, and even grabbed worse, but the problem... Oh god... was when that asshole thought it would be absolutely hilarious to try sticking his tongue down Briton's throat just for a couple of laughs. Briton had almost broken down at that, but still, he managed to hold it in somehow, squirming until the guy had let go and was off to joke about how Briton liked it with his buddies.
Morons. Assholes. Dicks. And yet, how was it fair that they would get to grow up and have normal lives with normal families? That they'd get to go to college and get jobs and leave this stupid little town? And what did Briton get? Sexual harassment and an imminent, early demise. How many times had he died now? He'd been remembering for quite some time, blame that perfect memory of his for even drawing in those memories from other lives, yet he'd never really bothered thinking about the number. There was the first time, of course... The second time, then, he fell... The fourth was was a rabid, stray mutt... And the other times were suicide. Not exactly a fun ride, and hell, not once did he even tell his friends a thing as far as coming out of the closet. No, he'd simply die again, a miserable, hiding little nerd, and possibly be the least important death out of the whole group. How he even maintained his relationship as their friend was difficult to fathom, but he supposed they'd just gotten used to him being around on a subconscious level. There were all pretty good people, after all, even if it was a trait that was very, very deep down in some of them. Sure, Briton trusted them, but not really enough to actually... tell them about anything.
Stuffing his clothes into his bag and slinging it over his shoulder, Briton quickly made way out of the locker room, down the hall, and immediately into the nurse's office. He paid little mind as she asked him to take a seat and quickly fussed about, cleaning up the blood with some cloths and spraying bitter, stinging anti-bacterial onto the scrapes. He couldn't take people fussing and making a big scene. What was getting injured like this as compared to anything else? It wasn't like his bones were sticking out, so why should he cry? Despite the nurse's prompting to stay and rest, however, as soon as she'd finished laying down the thick pads of gauze on his knees and wrapped them on securely, he was up, slipping into the bathroom to change into his regular clothes before walking briskly from her office without her even noticing enough to look away from the new patient who'd stumbled into the small room.
What do I do now, He mused, checking the time on his cell phone before stuffing it back into his pocket. Class was still far from over, but he sure as hell wasn't going back. The computer lab, perhaps? No, it wasn't really worth it. Who could say whether another class was in there or not, and after today's events, all he really wanted to do was go home. He skirted the halls for no more than a few moments before slipping out one of the side doors that exited into the parking lot, where his junk heap of a 1996 Camry sat idly. Might as well use it and get the hell out of here while no one was loo-
Briton pulled his cell phone from his pocket, opening up the new messages and biting his lip at the image on the screen. Milkshakes? Were they twelve? The more and more he thought about it, the stupider it sounded, too! He wanted to go home, to get away from people, but then again... He found himself hesitating with his hand on the car door for a while, shoving his phone back into his pocket and pondering the idea. Maybe it could get his mind off of things to at least hang out with his friends a little bit. Maybe they had something amusing to say that would make today's events pass into the back of his memory like all the other days. He couldn't forget, but maybe he could think about something else for a little while.
Sliding into the driver's seat of the car and tossing his bag into the passenger seat, he fished his keys out with no particular stress on the amount of time he was using up to do so. He was still on the fence. After all, he was just going to be sitting in the background with his friends, wasn't he? A little extra on the side lines that wasn't quite as important as everything else. Sure, he hardly minded being a background person, but was he really in the mood for it? And was he really in the mood to be all by himself, either... Sighing and leaning back in the seat, he stared at his phone again. There weren't any new messages, and he wasn't so sure he was interested in sending one back, but he wondered who else had decided to go, and who was already there. Maybe it was stupid to go. Maybe going home would be the smarter choice. After all, the last thing one needs for a good time is to bring the buzz-kill who can't keep up. They didn't really need him, did they?
Okay. So maybe he could just do a drive-by. Stop in and check it out, and if it seemed like he wasn't needed, he could just duck out of there, no harm done. Briton started up the car quickly, pulling out of his parking spot if not a little too cautiously. God he hated driving, but he supposed having it was more convenient than not. After all, where would he be if he had to walk everywhere? Well, perhaps he'd have built up a little more muscle or something, but that was certainly besides the point.
The drive down took barely a few minutes, what with how small this damn town was in the first place, and before long Briton was pulling into the parking lot. His friends' car was easy to spot, what with having seen it plenty of times before, and he promptly pulled into the empty parking spot next to them. Maybe it wasn't so much a good idea, after all. The knees of his jeans were starting to dampen and darken from the blood, having taken its time already to seep through the gauze, and it wasn't like he was going to be the life of the party or anything anyway. He turned the key, shutting off the engine while he looked down at the knees of his pants. They weren't too bad - the darkness of the denim hid the fact that it was blood - and it simply looked like he'd knelt down in a puddle or something. Maybe that had been why the nurse wanted him to stick around, but he didn't feel like it mattered. He'd just wanted to get out of there, go home. Why didn't I just go home? He wondered, slipping out of the car while he pocketed his keys. No need to lock it; no one was going to steal that junk heap, and he didn't care so much if they did. Today's been long enough as it is.
He wasn't really too surprised that when he entered the building, one of his friends, Amber, was already standing, saying something about going and asking Lacy if she'd help her pick out an outfit. What did she need an outfit for? But then again, Briton never really was well versed in anyone's reasoning for going out to parties, and that was probably what they were doing. Even if he wasn't, a good deal of his friends mingled with the popular people. Again, he wondered how he even maintained a friendship with any of them, but he supposed it didn't matter. At the very least, he could still call the people he'd spent all his lives with his friends.
"What? I miss the fun of milkshakes already?" He asked, eyes trailing the already standing Amber as he made his way over, grabbing one of the chairs from a neighboring table and dragging it to the end of the booth before plopping down and taking a look at the others around the table. Nathan, Violet, Charlie, and Lacy, though Briton was sure that Lacy would probably be leaving after Amber's prompting. No Cora, no Sam, no Paige, and no Oz. Briton felt his interest drop only slightly after the last one. "Can't say it's that big of a disappointment, but hey, hate to be late." He offered up a light smile, trying to make sure they understood the statement to be entirely lighthearted, as well as having come to the realization he hadn't even given them a smile yet. Yes, at the very least, it was nice to be able to say he had friends.