How to Fail at Being a Teenager

Begin Game: "It's Carlo, You Absolute Dickhead"

"Shoot him, dumbass!" Shauna yelled, leaning into the game, even though it wouldn't help.

     "I'm trying my best, jeez," I replied, chewing on my lower lip. It was kind of hard to concentrate on the controller when Max kept knocking it out of my hand. "Max! We're on the same team!"

     Max flicked his wrist again, making my controller fly halfway across the room. "Not in my head we're not." He joked.

     I groaned and grabbed my controller from behind the couch, watching as the depressing block letters appear across the screen, my little character fading into the background. Game Over.

     I clambered over to my seat and shoved Max in the shoulder playfully. Half playfully. "Damnit, you made me lose."

     Max took a long hit from his cart, wincing as it burned the inside of his throat. "C'mon dude," he turned and blew a billowing cloud of smoke into my face, "you were gonna lose anyway."

     Max, Shauna and I had been friends since the beginning of time. Okay, maybe not the beginning of time, but it sure had been long enough to consider us inseparable. I met Max in first grade, when I was nothing but a nerd who hid behind his thick-framed glasses and Harry Potter books. Max tried his best, but as a freshman I was still just a nerd with thin-framed glasses that took a hit every now and then. Nothing special. It was Shauna who really changed me. I remember the first time we met. The way my heart stopped and forgot everything I was supposed to say. It was perfectly awful.

     It was the first day of ninth grade, and I was looking like a total mess. I was walking around with my hands shoved in the pockets of my black hoodie- an Anti-Social Social Club one, of all things- and the insides of my khakis turned out. Normally, I wouldn't have even bothered to leave the house like that, but it was the first day of high school, and I was already ready for a trainwreck as it was.

     I didn't know anyone really, except for Max, of course. Not that he was in any of my classes anyway. So I walked into Mr. Donahue's math class with my hood over my head, a pair of shitty headphones jammed into my ears, and my eyes fixated at the floor.

     I didn't even notice when he started to take attendance. The only thing I actually ended up hearing was, "Carlo's right there, sir."

     Upon hearing my name, I pulled out my right earphone, looking around. Everyone, I mean everyone was looking at me. Even Shauna. Her hazel eyes locked with mine for a split second, a small smirk crawling across her face. I'm pretty sure she mouthed something to me at one point, but I was too dazed to notice.

     When I finally managed to pull my eyes away from hers, everyone was still staring at me. I cleared my throat awkwardly. "Yes?"

     Mr. Donahue pulled his glasses down to the tip of his nose like an old, judgy librarian. "Carlo Monaghan?"

     I tried to laugh it off, but it just came out as more of a scoff, so I stopped. "Uh, yeah?" I asked, like the dork I was.

     Mr. Donahue pressed his lips into a thin line, glaring at me as if I was supposed to know what to say. It was a solid thirty seconds before he actually said anything again. Thirty seconds of eyes burning into the back of my neck, and thirty seconds of trying as hard as possible not to look at Shauna. I couldn't see her, but I could hear her snickering from a few seats over. I even remember where her desk was. Two desks to the right, one to the back. Much too far.

     Anyway, the point is that those thirty seconds felt like thirty years. And over my not saying here during attendance! Couldn't he have just marked me present when some kid said I was here?