Sucker Love

It was English lesson, and the teacher was going on about Shakespeare being a…something something. Brian hadn’t been listening, quite obviously, as he’d been staring out the window all lesson. He didn’t care for the glare of the teacher hitting the top of his head, the class having gone completely silent. He could feel their eyes, every single pair.

“What!?” he yelled, getting up with haste. His chair made an ugly noise as it screeched and collapsed to the floor. His eyes caught the surprised ones of Stefan’s and he calmed down a little, realising that he probably wasn’t being picked on for once.

“Uhh…w-what is the predominant theme in the scene I just described?” the teacher asked, not wishing to upset him further. It was just a question, she’d thought.

“I don’t fucking know.” Brian gathered his books and shoved them into his bag before running from the classroom. He couldn’t take it anymore. This whole day had been one big horrid thing so far, and he just wanted it to end already. He wasn’t sure as to why, but he’d been wishing all his days would end as of late. He knew he wasn’t right.
Brian sat himself beneath the seating stands out on the oval. The metal bars were starting to hurt his ass, but he didn’t care. He needed a place to sit and smoke quietly until he could go home and pretend yet again that he’d had a productive day at school. Going to light up another, he was startled as someone whacked the lighter from his hand from behind. This someone had red on their nails. Brian knew those nails.

“Hey sweet, I thought you had Biology?”

“I do.”

“I thought you liked Bio?”

“They were going over test results and I couldn’t be fucked.” Brian nodded once before going to light his smoke again. He hated how she’d do that.

“It’ll kill you.”

“Maybe I wanna die,” Brian said without thought. He received no reply for some time. “Listen, Heidi…”

“Don’t say shit like that Brian. Just don’t say it, okay?”

“Okay.” He felt bad now. She’d faced away from him, and he could imagine the tears in her eyes.

“I don’t understand you, Brian. You have it easy.” Brian scoffed before taking another drag.

“Hun, you don’t know the half of it…”

“You have a loving mother and a reasonable father…” Brian swallowed his words, for he knew they’d only get him in trouble. They’d had this conversation before, and he regretted letting himself get into it once again. “I have no mother and my father, well…”

“I know.” He sighed as he stubbed out his smoke, suddenly not in the mood for it. He reached for her hand as it hung limply from her side, holding it tightly within his. “I’m sorry.” Her head was resting against his all of a sudden and Brian felt himself become a little warmer, despite the obvious outlook of rain coming soon. “Hey, we’re gonna get wet here.” He could hear her sobbing now. Brian was never sure what to do when people were upset. “So, I was thinking of going to that party this weekend. You know, just for a laugh…” She brought her hand up to wipe away her tears, wishing Brian had the initiative to do it for her. She swore he never had a clue. Heidi let herself calm down as Brian had another smoke, her breathing having finally returned to normal. She hated to cry in front of people. It always made her feel weak, and she’d always considered herself a pretty tough kid.

“I might go,” she replied. “I mean, I’ve nothing else to do if you’ll be there…so I may as well…”

“I’ll meet you at yours first, okay? We can go together.” Heidi laughed.

“Safety in numbers, ey?” She nudged his side playfully.

“Something like that.”

“Hey, I gotta go. Bio’s over in a few minutes and if I skip Math again Mr Gregory will kill me I’m sure.” Brian smiled just lightly.

“Alright. I’ll see you tomorrow, love.” He pecked her on the lips before she got up and half ran across the oval to get to class on time. Brian figured he should probably have made an effort to go to Math too, but he really couldn’t be fucked.

Stefan was wandering around as he did, pretending he was out practicing to those that bothered to ask where he’d gone to. He didn’t feel like sitting in the cafeteria listening to the garbage talk of his peers. It didn’t help that most of it was about Brian today and how unstable he was. Stefan knew there was more to him; that Brian wasn’t as simple as that. He spotted him again sitting beneath the seating stands on the oval, wondering if he knew there was a match on today. He wasn’t usually there when there was, not that Stefan had payed that much attention to it. As he walked past in no particular hurry, he heard that placid voice call his name from behind.

“Stefan?” He turned to see that it was indeed Brian that had called for him, not that he could have mistaken him for someone else.

“Uhh, yeah Brian?” He willed himself to remain calm, to not act like the fool he knew was to escape from him any moment now.

“Is there a game on today? I uhh…I forgot…”

“Yeah, it’ll be starting in about a half hour.”

“Ahh.” He stood there awkwardly for a moment, hoping either one of them would talk some more. “So how are you?” Brian pulled the last smoke from his pack, grunting in distaste as he realised so. Stefan didn’t know he smoked, but it didn’t surprise him.

“I’m okay, I guess.”

“No, I mean really. You’ve been walking around aimlessly by yourself for a while now,” Brian commented. “Not that I’ve noticed. Just, you’re pretty tall.” He wasn’t even looking at Stefan as he spoke, but Stefan was returning the favour way too well to have noticed.

“Well I guess I just wanna be home already, you know. Practicing bass or something–”

“Ohh, you play bass?” Brian’s head snapped back to his. “Do you play well?”

“I’m not too shabby.”

“I play guitar.” Stefan already knew this. He knew a lot about Brian, probably more than he should have. “I sing, too. Though I’m not sure I’m cut out to be a singer…” Stefan didn’t know he could sing. “We should jam sometime.”

“That’d be cool, actually,” Stefan said a little too fast. Brian hadn’t been paying enough attention to notice.

“You free tonight? I’ve shit all to do,” Brian suggested, and Stefan felt himself smiling.

“Yeah, do you wanna come around?” Brian nodded, inhaling his poisons deep. “What time?”

“I’ll find you after school, ‘cause I don’t know the way. Later man, the team’s here.” He threw his smoke to the floor and disappeared from Stefan’s sight, which was probably a good thing. The grin across his face was something to perhaps worry about.