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Lance

Lance is stretched out on his bed, Lucy sprawled across his legs like an awkwardly-shaped bag of sand. His phone is in his hand, hanging off the side of the bed, screen blank. He chews on his lip, wanting to check the time but not wanting to move his head at all.

He feels funny, like he could stay like this forever and be content. It's not laziness--no, he knows what that feels like and it's completely different. He just doesn't want to move. His arms are comfortable in this cramped position, one wedged under his pillow and the other almost touching the ground. His legs feel nice like this, his whole body is kind of numb and he knows that if he moves, he'll ruin it.

It had been a bad week. It still is a bad week. And it had started out so well Monday morning. There had been just enough cereal left in the box for him and his siblings before they went off to school, which Lucas had insisted was a good sign. He'd gotten a B+ on his middle-of-the-quarter essay for Physics, which is more than he'd expected and definitely more than he'd deserved. And to top it all off, he'd been invited to a senior party that weekend--well, a party with seniors, but still--all because he's friends with Pidge and Pidge's brother is friends with the host. It should have been great.

Halfway through the day was when things started going downhill.

Lance closes his eyes and sighs dramatically, puffing his cheeks up, which disturbs Lucy. She sits up and jumps off the bed and out the door, ruining his perfectly uncomfortable position. Groaning, he rolls over onto his side and begrudgingly switches his phone on, shaking the pins-and-needles feeling out of his hand.

There are several message notifications from the group chat, most of which seem to be between Hunk and Pidge. The last one, from nine minutes ago, reads: "look, if Lance thinks that he's so great, then we shouldn't bash him."

Perfect punctuation and only proper noun capitalization. Of course it's Pidge. And of course she's talking about that. The whole school is probably talking about it at this point. Lance rolls over again, groaning, and unlocks his phone to read the rest, although he just knows he'll regret it. He scrolls to the top of the new messages and scans them quickly, knowing how fast new messages come in on the group chat.

3:58 pm

Hunk-a-saurus: Lance buddy you OK?

Hunk-a-saurus: You kinda high tailed it out of class again today

Hunk-a-saurus: You're missing Drama club for the second time this week!

Hunk-a-saurus: Also you forgot your homework again, too

pidge: well, I mean, yeah.

pidge: so would you if you were in his situation.

Hunk-a-saurus: Okay but it wasn't that bad?

Hunk-a-saurus: And it's been a day, shouldn't it have blown over by now?

pidge: Lance, we're going to the library.

Hunk-a-saurus: Pls come Pidge won't leave me alone about my presentation

Mattt: haha i wdnt go anywhere either after that shit show

Mattt: id becom a hermit

pidge: shut up, okay?

pidge: we're all younger than you, be nice.

Mattt: i m nice

pidge: Lance, it's not that bad. he probably forgot already.

pidge: actually, he might not have even heard us.