Tightrope

The Kindergarten Kids

Friday night was marked the first readjournment of the kindergarten kids since my accident.

This was brilliant for two reasons. Firstly, it meant that I got to spend the evening hanging out with my wonderful friends. Secondly, I had hated Jace Hartley in kindergarten and he was, therefore, not invited.

The thing about every friendship group is there are always tiers. With a group of as many people as ours, there was always a few bonds that weren't necessarily as strong as others. I mean, Jonah loved McKenna, but I couldn't imagine them ever hanging out one-on-one. And while Kaelin, Jace, Daria, Holland, McKenna and few others were now part of our friendship group, the kindergarten kids were the originals. The OGs. The Krisler boys, Jonah and I had practically lived in each other's pockets from the first day of preschool, and somehow had managed to stay close ever since.

Which wasn't all that hard, really, since they hadn't changed much. Jonah's favourite part of kindergarten had always been nap time, and while we were no longer allocated a period for sleeping at the age of seventeen, Jonah had seemingly ignored this fact. Cady had been stunning even in kindergarten—tiny and blonde and beautiful and fierce—and even then, she'd been the most popular kid in the class, despite her horrid disposition and obvious penchant for playing favourites. Alex had drawn a dick and balls in every art class, despite being a year younger than us, and his big brother Chance had flapped his arms in stress because he thought Alex would get them expelled from kindergarten for his doodles.

"Do you remember when Ryan peed in Lena's sandbox?" Cady asked with a snort.

"Oh, my god, that was Jace," I insisted.

Alex shrugged. "I feel like it was Ryan. You know he offered to pee on the end of my penis painting to make it more realistic. He was four."

"I remember when Ryan drew a butt with his own shit," Jonah offered.

"Man, Ryan was a nasty little guy, wasn't he?" Chance said pensively. "I wonder where he is now."

"Prison," Cady chimed in.

I frowned, thoughtful. "I don't know that you can go to prison for poo art. It'd probably be considered super revolutionary in the modern art world."

Cady shook her head. "I refuse to believe that. What he did was an entry-level crime. First, it's weird poo art, and the next thing you know, he's a crack dealer."

"Ah, yes, the natural progression."

Alex deftly shuffled the deck of cards we were playing with, before laying them flat five neat piles that we all picked up and examined. My hand sucked ass. But I wasn't going to let them know that. I smiled brightly. "I'm going to kick your asses, my dear friends."

"That's okay. At least I will die full and satisfied," said Chance, rubbing his stomach.

The perks of hanging out at Chambermore, other than the size of the thing, was the access to my chef, Natia, and her cooking. Natia was a goddess, and I loved her. While she proclaimed that my constant requests for nuggets were insulting to her abilities, she still regularly threw batches into the air fryer for us to nibble on. But, since she was an angel, and just couldn't stop herself, she'd also made platters and platters worth of food; bruschetta and dips and fancy homemade breads. I liked her more than any of my friends.

We played a few hands of cards, in which I didn't quite kick their asses, but acquiesced gracefully as Cady cleaned us all out of our spare change.

I threw a cracker at her. "Stop being so talented. You're already hot, this is a crime."

Cady took the coins from my hand with a self-satisfied grin. "I'm sorry that you're inferior in all things," she crowed, flipping her blonde her over her shoulder.