Love Drug

“Hey Benji…listen I’m really sorry about yesterday.” Jadeyn begins to cough violently, trying to disperse the smoke around me with his hand.

I sigh, the smoke exhaling through my mouth and rising. Jadeyn frowns at the sight of the cigarette between my fingers. Normally, I wouldn’t smoke so openly around here. I don’t want William catching me and telling the judge, which will make me stay here longer.

But I don’t have any alcohol and hardly any crack left. I need something, anything that’s toxic and deadly to my health. I’m craving it, and the best thing I got are these cigarettes.

“You know that can kill you.”

“Your point?” I glance to the boy at the my side. He squirms under my gaze and mumbles under his breath.

“You shouldn’t do it.”

Rolling my eyes, I finish off the cigarette and toss it to the ground. Jadeyn glares at me, probably for littering or whatever, but he doesn’t say anything as I crush the thing beneath my foot. Not even seconds later the bus rounds the corner and rolls to a stop in front of us.

Jadeyn gets on first and me slowly after him. People stare at me as I make my way to the only empty seat I see. Throwing my legs up on the seat I sigh and lean my head back against the cool glass.

This is going to be pure hell. I can just feel it.

~

They call this a school? It looks like just another barn…

Looking up at the school before me I groan. My school back home was huge with buildings scattered all across campus. This, this is only two stories high and can probably fit 400 kids, at the most, and from what I can see it’s a mixture of middle school and high school.

There’s fields and cows on either side. Is this really a place to have a school?

I follow the crowd inside. People are staring, probably because it’s so unusual to have a new face around here. I’m not surprised, what young person would want to live here anyways?

I find the office easily since the place isn’t that big. When I step inside there’s an elderly woman on the phone. She smiles at me and holds up a hand, signaling for me to wait, which I gladly do. The longer she takes the more of first period I miss.

I glance around the officer to see trophies from back in the day for things like sports and high standards or whatever. There’s a few newspaper clippings of kids in the newspaper for doing things like the science fair. Back home the only time you really saw kids in the newspaper was when they did something bad, like get sent to jail.

“What can I help you with sweetie?”

Tearing my eyes from the clippings I look at the woman with graying hair. She has a huge smile on her face as I reply, “I’m new. My name’s Benjamin Huntington.”

“Oh ok.” She scurries to her desk and digs through some papers. Cheering, she grabs what I assume is my schedule along with a small agenda book and a lock. She hands the three things to me and fills me in on what they are. “You can’t leave class without that agenda book and your lock is to be on your locker at all times. That is your schedule and don’t be scared to come back if you need any help.”

“Right.” I nod, slipping out of the office and down the hall. I glance at my schedule and find my locker number, easily slipping the lock on, but not fully closing the locker.

I stare at the schedule strangely. There seems to be classes on here I don’t really need, but whatever. The easier they are the better.

I find my first period class without trouble and slip inside. The teacher is the first to notice me.

“Do you need something?” She asks curiously, probably noticing that she’s never seen me before.

“I’m new.”

“Oh, are you Benjamin Huntington?” I nod and tell her that I prefer to be called Benji. She smiles and nods her head. “All right, Benji, I’m Mrs. McCreary and this is the packet we’re working on.” She hands me a packet of papers. “ You can take a seat where ever you wish.” She gestures to the empty seats in the room.

It’s strange to be in a class with only about 13 people. That means if I do anything wrong she’ll notice me easier. Damn. I hate this school already.

I take a seat away from everyone else and I begin to think I won’t be bothered, but I’m proven wrong when there’s a tapping on my shoulder. Sighing, I turn to cuss whoever it is out, only to shut my trap when I see Jadeyn looking at me with his big blue eyes.

“Can I see your schedule?”

“Why?” I snort, shoving my hands in my pockets. My fingers play with the edge of the schedule while I wait patiently for the boy to answer.

“I want to see what other classes we have together, duh.” He laughs, nudging my side childishly. “Come on, show me, please.”

I groan and with a roll of my eyes I hand him the paper. He reads over it quickly and when I see him smile I know what he’s about to say and I silently curse whatever supreme being is out there for hating me so much.

“This is awesome, we have all 8 classes together.”

“This is terrible.” I grunt, but Jadeyn just laughs at my pessimistic attitude and hatred towards him.

“You’re such a grouch.”

Frowning, Jadeyn turns in his seat and sighs. “Jerk.”