pump up the volume » original

✧➴FOUR

┌────── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──────┐
FOUR
catalyst
└────── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──────┘

HENRY'S PARENTS WEREN'T as upset as he thought they'd be.  He'd never seen them upset with him before but most mistakes he made were minuscule.  Nothing had ever been as big as this.  He honestly hoped nothing would ever be as big as this again.

Adam had grown up down the street from him, only moving away a few years ago when his father was engaged to Mrs. Oliver, Jordan's mother.  Though they drifted apart after the move, the entirety of their summers were spent in each other's backyards.  They would lay on Adam's trampoline (Henry always wanted one but his parents refused, claiming they were "lawsuits waiting to happen"), turn on some music, and cloud gaze.  Sometimes they'd invite Tatiana West who lived only a couple houses down from Adam, and she would bring Catalina and Maeve Czerny along.  One day, Tatiana rigged Adam's hose above the trampoline, where it hung unsteadily on a tree branch, and turned the setting to shower. They spent the sweltering afternoon jumping in their own personal rainstorm, watching droplets leap with the movement of the trampoline.

It was that same trampoline that Adam and Henry had watched the Fourth of July fireworks together, the day Henry admitted he felt a strangle bubbly feeling in his chest whenever he was around Adam, the day Adam explained he didn't feel about boys that way. The day Henry realized he did.

As per usual, Henry arrived to school the next morning exactly at 7:30 AM.  Henry's worst fear was being late and making the teacher feel as though he didn't care about their class.  If he wanted to pass with flying colors, getting on the teacher's good side was key.

The Camaro came to a rumbling stop in Henry's designated parking spot.  The parking lot was relatively empty, despite school starting in just thirty minutes.  He knew in less than ten, this place would be a nightmare.  It was only last Friday afternoon he'd nearly been hit by a swerving car, Jordan Oliver behind the wheel with a poptart in his mouth, Adam clutching the roof handle for dear life, eyes as wide as saucers.

Adam.  Henry gave a bitter laugh out loud, staring blankly through the windshield.  It always came back to Adam fucking Sheridan, didn't it?  He shook his head a few times, as if it would completely rid himself of the thought, and exited the car.

It was a short walk from his car to the main entrance.  He tilted his head up to see the bold blue words CHESTERFIELD PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL a few inches above the main doors.  This year, the administration had cemented the letters to the side of the building as the previous September, some of the letters had been stolen and rearranged to spell SHITSTERFIELD PUBL C HIG  SCHOOL.  If anyone had ever been caught, it never got back to the students.

The moment he stepped into the high school, he felt watched.  Every hair on his body stood straight up, and his mind flashed back to the river for only a brief moment.  He didn't let it do so longer.  You're being paranoid, Henry, he thought to himself.

Though, the farther he went into the school, the more he came to realize that wasn't true.  He passed a group of freshmen chatting amiably by the vending machine but the moment they saw him, they quieted down, shamelessly staring at him with an emotion he couldn't quite pinpoint.