Because You're Different ✔

71. Stickers

Sam

"Oh, no, man, that's disgusting! You could get arrested for that, seriously."

I laughed, clutching my stomach, the others around me doing the same. Chí was sitting across from me in the grass, squinting his eyes at his phone, which he was holding as far away from him as possible. Next to him, Brandon was eagerly preparing for the next attack, rapidly tapping his own screen, looking for something that would outdo the sticker Ezra had just sent us in the group chat. SpongeBob, showing his ass to Octo. Nasty, but too hilarious.

I focused on my own phone, already grinning at the thought of what was to come. "Ah, shit, that's not healthy!" All of us groaned, taking in the sticker of a fire-breathing dick. Man, if that'd been real, it would hurt like a motherfucker.

Immediately, Ezra followed it up with the one of an inflatable sex doll strapped onto Brandon's head. That one was a classic.

"Yo, Brandon, is this Photoshopped, or do you keep that thing under your bed?" I asked.

He picked up a soda can, held up a finger while he chugged the last contents, and threw it at me. "It's your mother's, you douche," he shouted, and all of us burst into laughter again. "Speaking of your mother, do I really have to be yours? Didn't you say you had class in fifteen minutes?"

Oh yeah, he was right. It was a good walk there too, and I didn't want to miss anything. Up until now, the computer lab seminars had been my absolute favorite: graphic design was the best thing about my major. I almost couldn't imagine that I'd been so stressed out a year before, not knowing where I wanted to go to college or what I even wanted to do as a job. I'd always been so focused on not ending up as a lawyer, or not being good enough to become a writer, that I'd never really thought about what I did see myself doing.

And then, one glorious afternoon, Hayley announced on her Instagram page that she'd applied to Environmental Sciences at a few different colleges. Even though we weren't friends anymore, I was curious about the program, mainly because I sarcastically wondered if you had to be vegan to be accepted. I wasn't sure how it happened, but a few clicks further, I'd found myself at an info page on Urban Planning. It wasn't as if it'd been some big hallelujah moment, though it'd been the first time I didn't aimlessly scroll through the list of courses. Seeing how I didn't really have a better idea, I'd decided to go for it. Nathan had told me he thought it fit me, and that he'd help me finance it, but that if it turned out to be not for me after all, it'd be okay if I switched majors.

No matter how many times he said it hadn't been my fault, it made me feel extra guilty about forcing law school down his throat. I'd even suggested he'd go back to college too, do something he actually enjoyed — to my surprise, he'd claimed he was happy being a lawyer. The dude must've been brainwashed at Stanford.

"Wait for me!" Chí called, hastily hoisting up his backpack and almost knocking his glasses from his nose in the process. "I have a lecture there too."

We waved goodbye to the others, then set out for our classes, Chí enthusiastically recounting our last Dungeons & Dragons session on the way. I used to think that game was for geeks until Brandon took me with him one evening and I could see with my own eyes how cool it was. College was extremely different from high school. Here, I'd gotten to know other guys who read books for fun. As a result, I read more myself too, constantly swapping novels and recommending each other the fine stuff. I'd been dreading living so far away from Palo Alto at first, but it turned out to be pretty okay. Though I did miss having my brother there.

Thinking of Nathan, I pulled out my phone, selecting the fire-breathing dick. Should I send it? Nah, he was too weird to get the humor in it. Instead, I screwed up my face and took a pic. Nice and ugly. Perfect. I'd been trying to teach him how to make funny selfies, although he was so bad at it that his clumsiness kind of made him a natural. I'd made plenty of stickers of his dipshit head. He could do with a bit of fun in his life.