Don't Change The Way You Think Of Me

The mornings after the parties were always the worst. This morning was no exception. I groan as I try to lift myself up, my self-induced hangover throwing every one of my senses off. I stagger up and off the bed, trying to search for my boxers. I find them, thrown off to the side, and put them back on. I guess I got really lucky last night. Once I have all my clothes back on, I decide it's best to leave the house silently and unnoticed, but once I walk out of the doorway of the guest room, I hear Butch and Seward talking.

“Well then, congrats on losing your virginity, cuz!” Butch pats Johnny on that back, and I can't believe my ears. They’re cousins… and he was a virgin? I back into the room but Johnny notices me, and look back at the cum-stained sheets. What if? No, we couldn't have. I'd never let that happen. I'd never tap him in a million years. That's just wrong.

I end up waiting around for a few moments, trying to think back to last night, and when the others left. I don't even remember them leaving... But that was probably because I was in bed with someone. While I'm thinking to myself, the shower is turned on and off in the span of ten minutes. I bet on it being Johnny and decide walk into the kitchen, hoping to scare him when he comes in. But, sadly, he’s already there, taking something from the fridge and I sneak up behind him. He backs out with an apple, almost crashing right into me. I smirk.

“What do you want?”

“You… dead, and my girlfriend back.” But I know that’s never going to happen because she’d kill me after she found out. I grab the apple out of his hand and sat down across the island from him. “So, I heard you lost your wimpy v-card last night? I thought you were just a man slut who tried to get with anything that moved, but you're just a pussy.”

Suddenly, he fires back in my face, saying that I sucked as a boyfriend. Excuse me? I get up off the stool and slam him into the nearest object, the fridge. “Shut the fuck up! You don’t know anything about us!”

“You just don't get it, Matt!”

“Just because you’re saying that doesn’t mean it’s true! I swear to God, if you weren’t her best friend, I’d beat in that pretty little face of yours!” Wait, pretty? I slap him across the face, shocked with myself, and not wanting to have him go to Val with another bruise on his face.

---------------- One weeks later.

“Zacky, where are you going,” I ask. We were supposed to go out and grab something to eat at the local pizza parlor today after school. “We” included Brian, Jimmy, me, and Zacky. Zacky, however, claims to have other things to do.

“I have to go to tutoring. It’s Wednesday, remember?” I growl, because he seems to always have to go to tutoring now. Isn’t it when you get better at the subject, you have less of it, and not the other way around?

“You never used to have tutoring Wednesdays. Why now?”

Zack shifts his weight from one leg to the other, pulling his backpack strap back up his shoulder. “Because we have that huge physics test soon, remember?”

“The Energy test? That’s in two weeks, dipshit.” I cross my arms, waiting for Zacky to come up with some other brilliantly lame excuse to hang out with Johnny.

“Yeah, well, I still have to go. The teachers already said it’s mandatory. I’ll see you guys later.”

As he starts walking off, I scoff. “Fine, go have fun with your boyfriend over there.”

Zacky throws up his middle finger and mumbles a 'fuck you', and keeps walking. If he wasn’t my closest friend, I’d kill him right now.

Brian sighs and puts a hand on my shoulder. “Come on, man, let’s just go without him.”

I shrug him off. “Yeah, whatever, come on Jimmy.” Jimmy silently walks beside Brian and me, almost bouncing. There's always a spring in his step, no matter what. It almost gets annoying.

At the pizza parlor, Jimmy and Brian are talking about music, making plans to get together at Jimmy's house to do a small little jam session between the two of them. I’m off thinking about what Zacky did today. How the fuck could he do that? Pick Johnny over us, seriously. He has a lot of nerve doing that, because he knows we all hate that shrimp. I have to think of a plan to get rid of him. A big one. Right now, I don’t care about what Val thinks anymore. I just want to be done with him.

“Matt? Are you okay?”

I snap out of my daze, my eyes meeting with Brian and Jimmy's confused ones. I take the last slice of the pizza and take a bite out of it, not even finishing the piece I had started on before. “Yeah, I'm fine, why? Just thinking.”

“About? Please don't say about getting Val back.”

“No. About Johnny.”

Brian grins evilly and I return it, discarding my unfinished pizza onto my already full plate. Jimmy just shakes his head and sighs. “Oh, dear.”

The next day in school however, I got the shock of my life walking down the hallway towards lunch.

Brian nudges my side with his elbow, hard. “Oh my God, Matt, you have to see this, look!” He points over towards the end of the hallway.

I'm about to say what the hell and ask where, but then I see it, or rather, him. Holding hands with Aaron Blake. We exchange looks of pure shock. My blood starts boiling.

He’s smiling, holding hands with Aaron Blake, of all people. Aaron is the sly type who just screws ‘em and runs and Seward actually looks genuinely happy for once. The thought makes me sick to my stomach. Then, Aaron says something that makes Johnny laugh. I restrain myself from going over there and punching them both out. Instead, I hit Brian's arm a little harder than I should have.

“Ow, hey man, what the fuck was that for?”

“Let's just go eat, I'm hungry.” And I start walking towards the cafeteria, full speed walk pace, Brian yelling at me to wait up.