Chex Mix

I hadn't noticed before, but one of the boys from that day in the nurse's office is in my chemistry class. It's strange, really, to know that someone you'd never even talked to before had told you their deepest darkest secrets; it's strange knowing this boy wanted to die, but not knowing his name.

I'm staring him down, thinking that if I look at him long enough, all his past will just explode out of him and I'll know why he wants to die. Or I could just become friends with him and ask him myself. But that would require actually talking to him, which is something that I'm not good at. Talking to other people, that is. Not just him.

And the next thing I know, the fire alarm is going off and the whole class is getting the hell out of the building, along with the whole rest of the school, even though it's probably just a drill. Of course, the one time I think it's a drill, it's not, but that's not the point.

Once outside, we all just stand there a while. And the teachers do their routine thing with the clipboards and the green and yellow and red laminated pieces of paper. So, to pass the time, and to amuse myself, I muster up the courage and walk up to the boy from the nurse's office.

“Hey,” I say softly. “Remember me?”

He looks up from the ground and stares at me blankly for a moment, then almost looks angry.

“From the nurse's office?” I continue. “I want friends, remember?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I remember.”

It's quiet a moment.

“Uh... I'm Ry,” I say, shoving my hands in the pockets of my jacket because I'm freezing out here in the cool winter air. Surprisingly enough, though, it has yet to snow.

His brow furrows and I can't tell if he's angry or not. “...Owen.”

I glance over at the grass a couple feet away from us, then look back at him. “Care to join me for a spell?”

A spell? I haven't heard that one before. Ever.

Owen breaks out in what I guess is his version of a half-hearted smile. “Sure.”

So we sit and we don't talk much except about how cold it is and how I don't have friends, which doesn't give too much meat to our conversation. And suddenly, four kids, two guys, two girls, bust out of the school and head straight for where Owen and I are sitting. Which means, of course, one of them has to trip over me.

The one who tripped over me, a scrawny boy with a very small goatee, turns out to be Seth, from the nurse's office as well, face-first in the dew-covered grass. He mumbles something unintelligible into the grass and rolls over onto his back to look up blankly at the sky. He hits the ground with his fist and sits up to look at everyone surrounding him. First at Owen, then at the three other people who came out with him, then finally at me. He groans and plops back down to the ground.

“Seth?” I ask stupidly, even though I know it's him. I look at the other three people, who are standing, panting from shortness of breath from trying to get out of that building, I would assume. One of them is Asian boy from the office, another is Barf girl, also from the office, and the third is, of course, the unconscious girl from – the office. Shocker, eh?