What Do You Want From Me?

“Dude, smoke this.”

Matt looked over at Zack, who was holding out an already lit blunt and blowing smoke out through his nostrils.

“Nah, man, it’s way too fucking early for that shit,” Matt replied, gesturing toward the clock on his radio that read 6:30.

“Well, I’ve gotta have something to keep me sane in order to spend my day at this place.”

Zack retracted his hand and took another hit of the drug before tossing it out the open window and rolling it back up. Matt sighed and leaned his elbow against the car door, resting his head in his open palm. The day had barely begun, and already Matt was feeling strange about it. All he wanted to do was go back to bed and sleep and never wake back up. These weren’t odd feelings for him, wanting to sleep and never wake up again, but what really got to him were the motives that were causing them.

“What’s wrong?” Zack asked. Matt looked over at him and saw his best and oldest friend was looking at him with sensitive eyes.

“Nothing; why?”

“Matt, I’ve known you for how long now? You can’t hide anything from me and if you try I usually eventually find out.”

Matt rolled his eyes and grinned at the other. “It’s nothing, Zack, really. I’m just not feeling myself today.”

“Well, that’s why you should have taken a hit before I threw it out. You know that always helps to lessen the stresses of school days.”

“It’s not that. I mean, it’s complicated. I don’t really feel like talking about it and if I did, you’d probably knock me out or something.”

Zack laughed a little and shook his head. “Come on, it can’t be that bad. I’m your best friend, remember? Nothing would make me want to do that; unless, of course, you’re gonna tell me you fucked Brian or something, then we might have a problem.”

“Oh God,” Matt gagged exaggeratedly. “I’ve told you so many times not to fucking give me mental images like that! Now I’m going to be haunted with the thought of me butt-fucking another guy. Thank you so much.”

Zack kicked his head back and roared with laughter. “You’re ever so welcome; but we’re getting off topic here, so let’s be serious. What’s bothering you?”

“Dude, it’s a long story and I honestly don’t even want to think about it and talking about it will only make it worse.”

“Okay, fine. You keep it to yourself and, instead of telling me right here and now what the problem is and keeping it between you and me, I’ll just keep hounding you and tell Brian about it and make him hound you too. That sounds like a good deal, right?”

Zack smirked and leaned over to switch on the radio. He sang softly to the music playing with the smirk still etched into his features. Matt scoffed and switched the music back off.

“You’re such a brat, you know that?”

Zack giggled and nodded. “That I do.”

“How does Bri put up with you? I would have fucking dumped your ass after the first day.”

“Mm, I’m sure you would have. Now onward with the story.”

Matt took a deep breath and blew it out through his nose as he pulled into the school parking lot and quickly found a parking spot. He shut off the engine and glanced around the general area to make sure there was no one around to overhear.

“Come on, man. Brian’s going to be waiting for me,” Zack urged, succeeding in making Matt remember that Brian had arrived to school early that day with his father as request from the Principal.

“Okay, well, yesterday when I was on my way over to Brian’s to meet you and him, I kinda…” Matt paused and lifted his hand to smooth over his shaved head nervously.

“Kinda what?” Zack persisted.

“I got in a car accident,” Matt began, looking over at Zack and readying himself to continue before Zack could break in with words of concern. “It was nothing major, as you can see because I’m fine, but that’s what the cut was from on my head that you saw.”

“Dude, what the hell? Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Like I said, it was nothing major, and that’s not even the point of the story.”

“Well, what the fuck else could be the point?” Zack was close to seething at his friends lie.

“It’s not about the accident in itself, it’s more about who was in the accident. The other driver was that girl, Jessica. You know, the one with the red hair who goes out with that douche?”

Zack squinted his eyebrows for a moment in thought, before his eyes lit up in remembrance. “Are you serious? Dude, that’s crazy. What happened?”

“Well, I was rolling a dutch and I wasn’t paying attention and she barely escaped the hit and swerved out of the way so I crashed into a tree. It was nothing major because I hit my brakes before anything bad could happen, but yeah. It was quite an experience.”

Zack alternate between nodding and shaking his head as Matt spoke. He scoffed when Matt finished talking and was ready to exit the vehicle, thinking the talk was over, when he remembered there had to be more to tell. “Go on.”

Matt sighed and continued rubbing at his head. “Well, we talked, me and Jess, and I just…I don’t know, man.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s just, we talked, and it was kinda nice, ya know? She was a totally different person than what I expected her to be.”

“So, what’s your point?” Zack asked dumbly.

Matt shook his head and scoffed. “My point is that I can’t…I can’t--”

Matt groaned loudly as he didn’t know just what exactly to say. Zack sat patiently and waited for him to get his thoughts together. It was true that Brian would be waiting, but he also knew that his best friend was in a predicament, so his boyfriend would just have to wait.

“I can’t get this broad out of my damn head! Ever since we talked, I just can’t stop thinking about her. I know it’s weird and totally not right but…yeah.”

Zack hummed softly in understanding. “So, what do you think this means?”

“I don’t know. I was hoping you could maybe give me some advice since it’s your best friend duty and everything.”

Zack chuckled and nodded. “You want my honest opinion? I think it’s just the nerves. I mean, you two were involved in the same accident where you both could have been seriously injured. That’s something that’ll be on your mind for quite a while; and since it seems that you were the cause of it, I understand you’ll also feel some sort of protectiveness over her. It’s not uncommon, and it probably won’t even last for too long. It just happened yesterday, correct?” Matt nodded. “Exactly; so it’s going to be in your system for a bit, and you might even feel it’s something more, but I highly doubt it is.”

Matt took it all in and looked out the window next to him, sighing softly. “You may be right. I really hope you are. It just feels a little different is all, but it’s probably just what you’re saying.”

“Matt, she is a very pretty girl. I get that, and I also get that you might be sort of attracted to her, but be real here. Look at who she hangs around with; look at them and then look at us. What are the chances of her feeling anything for a hoodlum like you?”

Matt gasped in mock shock. “Hoodlum? How dare you, Zachary? I’m hurt.”

“Oh, I bet you are,” Zack laughed. “But seriously, just try and take my advice. Wait a week or so, and if nothing changes, come talk to me again and we’ll see what happens.”

“All right,” Matt nodded and smiled at his friend. “Thanks, Zack.”

“No problem, man. You can talk to me about anything. But promise me that you’ll talk to me about it again if you need to.”

“I promise. Now, you promise me that you won’t say anything to Brian about this. It’s bad enough that he has to go through what he does living with his Richie parents and I know he hates those ‘in crowd’ kids. There’s no doubt in my mind he’ll try to plummet me or something.”

Zack chuckled. “Don’t worry about it. My lips are sealed.”

Matt smiled and leaned over to open his car door, he and Zack both exiting the vehicle.



Matt grunted as he gnawed fiercely at a strip off beef jerky, desperately trying to bite a piece off. Brian and Zack both watched with matching looks of amusement as they chew on their own pieces.

“What the fuck!” Matt exclaimed as a piece finally tore off and his head flew back and hit the tree behind him.

“Dude, I think beef jerky is just not for you. Maybe you should try a piece of fruit,” Brian said, he and Zack laughing.

“Man, shut up. This shit is tough as hell.”

Matt swallowed the piece in his mouth and continued his attempt to finish off the jerky, Brian and Zack laughing at his troubles all the while. He gave up, finally, after a few minutes and threw what was left of the shred onto the ground.

He reached forward to grab his bottle of water, opening it and knocking his head back to take a long swig of it. His eyes drifted around the lunch yard as he drank, trying to be subtle as he searched aimlessly for the girl who’s been invading his mind like the plague. His heart thudded loudly when he finally found her sitting at her usual spot and reading a book. He took the Aquafina bottle away from his mouth and placed it back down in front of him, leaving nothing else in his way to watch and study her.

She looked smart, smarter than any of the girls she hung around with and definitely smarter than the guys. It made Matt wonder even more just what in the hell she was doing with that group. He shook his head a little, just enough for himself to notice, and continued to watch her.

He’d secretly been hoping that she might, by chance, look up and see him. It was almost like a test, in the sense that he wanted to see how she would react; whether it be to smile or wave, or do just what she said she would yesterday and ignore him. He watched her carefully, as she lowered the book and reached for the bottle of unknown substances. She struggled with it, as Matt could clearly see, and he had to hold back the laughter that was begging to be let loose.

It was then, though, that her gaze lifted from the beverage and over toward where Matt and his friends sat. Matt couldn’t be sure if she was looking at him; she could have easily been looking at someone or something else. But just the fact that she was looking in his direction made Matt’s stomach jump to high distances. He looked back, his eyes staying trained and holding contact for as long as possible. His lips turned up into a small smile, just in case she was showing the same gesture, to which Matt couldn’t be sure of either considering she was on the other side of the yard.

After a few moments of this, she looked away and back down to the book she’d previously been reading. Matt looked away too and took a deep breath to steady his heartbeat. He made quick glances to both Brian and Zack to make sure they hadn’t noticed his brief period of silence, and was relieved to see they were both caught up with flirty eyes and hand-holding declarations.

Matt looked away from the two, not even caring that they were being all ‘couple-y’ in front of him, and looked back down to the ground. He realized, thanks to the undeniable ache in his chest, that this just made things ten times worse.