Explosion (Kellic)

Real or not real?

"Kellin if you have any questions ask, one of your classmates. This is supposed to be a group effort."

I nodded, and he looked back at his work, but I just kinda lingered. Slowly, I placed the packet on the corner of his desk, realizing that my hands were shaking, then stepped away. I didn't look back to figure out if Mr. Page had noticed. I went and sat at my desk, feeling a set of eyes on me. My back tingled, but I didn't want to seem obvious. Instead I turned towards my bag, forcing my eyes to stay down until I got what I wanted. My lyric book and a spare piece of paper. I let my eyes wander up. Vic was staring right at me, hunched over his own work. I caught a look of confusion on his face before it turned to a hard glare and he looked away.

Ooooookay . . .

I turned to my paper and wrote, 'What do I do now?' then passed it to Tony, who was just turning back to his own work.

He read it, looked at me in confusion, looked at my empty desk, "You finished?" His voice was too loud for the almost silent classroom and I felt everyone's eyes turn to me at once. Involuntarily my music turned up and I let it take over the one ear I had still plugged in. I just hoped no one else could hear it.

"You finished?" Mike and Jamie echoed at the same time.

I nodded, wide eyed. I hadn't done anything wrong, but I still felt a little scared. My hands were shaking. I felt a hand on my shoulder and nearly jumped out of my skin. I heard a slight chuckle from the center of the room, but it sounded to be only one person.

Mr. Page handed me my packet back. It had a red 100 circled on it. "Well since you missed our test yesterday," Mr. Page said, "perhaps you'd like to have this be your first grade of the semester?" I looked down from his smiling eyes, then nodded. "I uhh . . . guess you could just read or something." He turned to Mike, pointed, "No copying him. Do your own work." Mike just laughed, and then Mr. Page left, back to his own work.

I expected Mike to turn to me and ask for help but he just gave me a huge smile and a thumbs up. "You know that I hate you, though," he said, a serious look on his face. I frowned, but couldn't help that it was inevitable. I felt like I had to respond somehow, though, so I grabbed my paper and pen in front of me, starting to apologize or something. He was quick to stop me, though, placing his hand over mine. I tensed, but managed to let him keep it there.

"He's kidding," Jaime said before Mike could. And they all laughed at my expense. Mike drew away and I relaxed. They went back to their papers. I figured that was my cue to just plug in and zone out in my book. I scooted my chair back a bit, wincing as it scraped against the floor. I didn't think anyone noticed, though. I placed my book on my lap and turned the music up a notch, pulling both out to make sure no one could hear it. Then, I went to work, scribbling furiously across the page, word after word until the bell rang.

Mike, Jaime, and Tony did their weird pitch match thing and the whole class laughed as they packed up.

Wow, I'm terrible at keeping track of time.

"Hey," Mike said to me as I put my book away, "where's your next class?"

I pulled my schedule and an ear bud out, turning the paper around so that he could see it. "Awe you poor soul I hate her. She's a terrible teacher. It's just down the hall though, we'll walk you there."

I didn't know how I really felt about that, but I packed my stuff and went with them anyways. They chattered about some stuff, asked me what kind of music I was into. As an answer I just pointed to my shirt, a Bring me the Horizon umbrella. "Oh cool," Tony said. "I've only heard a few of their songs, though."

Yeah, me too, I thought to myself. I'm more into my own band . . . It still made me sad to know that we were apart. Would they find a new singer? Justin had mentioned sending some of our demos out, but I didn't really think anything would happen. Besides, a band without a singer couldn't get signed.

"This is you," Mike said, snapping me out of my thoughts.

Jaime gave me a sympathetic look, "Good luck man," he said.

"Yeah," Tony nodded, "good luck. And see you in music." They smiled, then waved and left. It was then that I noticed Vic was with them. It made sense I guess, for him to be hanging out with his brother. Still though. I didn't think he'd want to be near me. It was just a vibe I got from him. And maybe because of the way he glared at me as he went past.

To be honest, I was super confused that they were actually talking to me. It hadn't really occurred to me that they weren't just being nice until I walked into English and took my seat. And Mike had said that Vic would 'get used to me.' Did that mean they wanted me around? It made me nervous to have friends. There were a lot of things that I couldn't do. Secrets that I had to keep from them and on top of that, we couldn't even communicate like normal people. I didn't speak. Next was lunch and I decided to just spend it in the bathrooms or something like I usually did. It would spare Mike and the other two from being around me. I was pretty sure that they didn't really enjoy my presence too much. Especially after I finished that packet in math. It made me a little proud, though, to be doing so well in an advanced class. I had never been in any before but the school saw my previous grades and I guess they put me in there.

And then there was Vic. I was still pretty confused about him, too. Was he going to be my new bully? Was he even a bully, though or had he just been in a bad mood this morning?

I didn't know, but it also wasn't like I could figure it out anytime soon. I wasn't one to ask questions.

The bell rung and I felt the urge to match pitch along with it. I frowned. Mike and his friends were just being nice, I told myself. They seemed cool enough, but they for sure didn't want to be friends with me. The thought made me sad, but I just brushed it off. Did I really expect anything else?

The teacher, Ms. Perry stood up from her desk. She looked old, a little wobbly on her feet, but her eyes were strong. And from then on I learned exactly why Mike and his friends had hated her.