Candy Gram ✓

chapter two

Though I have my reservations, I can't help but text the number. Even though there's probably nothing good in doing so. Even though it's probably just some soulless prank. Even though I know they can't possibly mean it, because these kind of things don't happen to me. Not like this.

There's something about it, though, that's incredibly endearing. A secret admirer? For me? If I lived in a world where such thing happened, I'd probably be a much nicer person. (It shouldn't surprise anyone when I say I'm kind of awful around people.)

My phone stays painfully silent all the way to fourth period, where, thanks to Kendall Strom's vomiting on the floor, I have to wait even longer than usual to receive my lunch. I'm literally dying of hunger, though there's nothing I can really do about it. (Besides really, really, really want to punch Kendall for being so sick. She probably caught whatever it was that Squawky Sadie had.)

Then, right as I'm finally at the front of the line and am grabbing a tray, my phone buzzes in my back pocket.

I don't think I've ever rushed so much; I'm talking grabbing Max sticks instead of greasy pizza, then having to go back and grab the greasy pizza, because A) You can't put food back, and B) Max stick suck, and there's absolutely no way they actually hold anything of value. I grab two cartons of milk and nothing else. I just need to sit down.

My lunch table is filled to the awkward brim with an odd grouping of thespians and band nerds. (And Missy Stevens, who's a hard-core viola player. Or violist? I don't even think she knows.) At a table meant for a tight-packed eight, we somehow manage to fit thirteen. (I mean, it helps that Christa usually sits on the lap of her girlfriend, Sirina, but not by much.)

They're all laughing at the apparently-hilarious candy grams they sent one another when I sit down. I doesn't surprise me that I didn't get one. It's not like I got them anything, either. I'm barely attached to this group. The guys often seem to think I'm checking them out, even though they swear they're cool with me, and most of these girls – my other friends, except for Missy and Sirina, have a different lunch – just want me to be a stereotypical best-gay-friend to them. Which I find to be just as insulting as I should – your sexuality should never be your defining factor. (Hence the reason I don't really hang out with these people on my own time.)

I nestle myself among the pretentiously snarky throng, watching as they cackle amongst themselves, like I'm in a separate world from them. Josiah Richmond plops down right across from me, his shy grin never waning. "Did you get any grams, Nick?" is the first thing he says – not because he wants to make fun of me, I know, but because he's genuinely curious. He actually cares, unlike what I suspect of people like David.

Like, okay: Josiah – despite wearing the light pink cropped-sweatshirt-thing and white denim Daisy Dukes of a (reserved) Cupid – is a real nice dude. We went a couple towns over to perform our One-Act play for competition, where somebody (or someones) cut my clothes up and tossed them into a trash can. We still have no idea who did it, though I'm fairly certain there are disgusting people who know.

Anyway, on the ride back from the play, wearing my character's pants and one of Edward's many sweatshirts, I couldn't keep it in anymore. You get sick of people messing with you after a while, y'know? Josiah sat with me then, holding me and stroking my back till we got home. After, he took me out for pizza. Josiah's just an all-around cool guy – and, let's be honest: That top totally works for him.

"Actually, yeah," I say quietly, somehow managing to keep strong eye contact, stronger than I've kept all day. Even with Edward – because even Edward didn't come to comfort me back then, or ever really. And we were together at the time. (He was like, "Here's a sweatshirt that smells like dust. Imma go brood now.) He's always let me down in that regard.