Required

“This fucking sucks.” Matt stated bluntly as he stared down at the sheet of paper in his hands.

“What?” Brian asked, looking over his shoulder as he dug through his locker.

Matt just shook his head and crammed the piece of paper into the pocket of his jeans with little care. His hazel eyes sparkled with annoyance, a seemingly permanent scowl adorning his full, soft pink lips. He leaned restlessly against the wall of lockers, staring at the random things that Brian had hung up on the inside of his locker door. Though he was looking at them, he wasn’t really seeing them. When Brian slammed the locker, Matt tumbled back into reality, resting his eyes on his friend, who looked at him with a questioning gaze. Brian knew him all too well for him to be able to hide something.

“I’ll tell you later, man,” Matt grumbled sourly, pushing himself off the lockers, backpack (though it was nearly empty) slung lazily off of one single, broad shoulder. “For now, let’s just get outta here.” Without any questions, his brown-eyed friend complied, trailing behind him as he began walking down the hallway, which was now nearly empty and clear of students.

The two exit the school in complete silence, until they reached the parking lot, where they were greeted with the sight of their friends, Jimmy and Zacky. Zacky, as usual, had a cigarette tucked between his lips, black hair in his piercing green eyes which were staring down into the pavement. Jimmy was looking bored and restless, looking around with little interest in anything.

“‘Sup, guys?” Brian was the first to speak, nodding at Zacky, who instantly picked up on the hint and tossed him his pack of cigarettes, and then a lighter. Without hesitation, he placed it between his lips, lit and inhaled, sighing in relief as he handed the lighter back to Zacky. “Been fucking needing that all day.”

“No shit, man,” Zacky laughed in agreement. He raised his eyes to Matt, and noted with curiosity his bitter expression. “What’s he pissed off about?”

“I don’t know,” Brian blew a puff of smoke out from between his lips, closing his eyes before looking back to Matt, who had jammed his hands deep into his pockets. Man, if looks could kill…

“Community service,” Matt grumbled callously. “I need to do it for my Senior Survey class so I can graduate.”

“That doesn’t sound that bad,” Zacky stated with one eyebrow arched, watching as Matt pulled a crumpled, nearly destroyed piece of paper from the pocket of his dark jeans. “Makes me glad I’m doing that shit second semester. Why’d you pick first semester anyways?”

“Yeah, thought we agreed to do that shit later in the year so we could work together.” Brian chimed in.

Matt shook his head. “I didn’t pick first semester,” he grunt, trying to burn a hole through the paper with his intense hazel eyes. “My class did a random draw, and you couldn’t change unless you had an actual excuse, which I didn’t have. But fuck I tried.”

“Shit that sucks,” Jimmy laughed, stretching his arms over his head as he let out a loud yawn.

“It’s only like 20 hours though, right?” Brian asked, another train of smoke pouring out from between his lips as he tried to look at the paper in Matt’s hands.

“What did you even get stuck doing? Could you pick that at least?” Jimmy piped in, leaning against the silver truck which was Matt’s.

“Kinda yeah, kinda no,” he murmured, handing the paper to Brian for him to look at it. “We got to go up in alphabetical order, so by the time I got up there, the pick was pretty…shitty. I feel bad for the people in the Z’s though. Their picks must’ve sucked so fucking hard.” Brian nodded as he looked it over, his brown eyes darting over the paper before he pulled his cigarette from his mouth, handing it to Zacky for him and Jimmy to see. He shrugged his shoulders as he flicked his cig to the pavement of the parking lot, mashing it under his beaten shoes before looking back to Matt with a sympathetic look.

“Huntington Hospital? That’s where you’re gonna be stuck at?” Zacky looked at Matt. Jimmy snatched the paper from him and looked it over himself, furrowing his eyebrows.

“Even better,” Jimmy smirked. “Matt will be workin’ with a little kiddie or something. See? ‘Pediatric Floor Room Attendant, Room 513’.” Jimmy pointed to the words on the page as he held it out to Brian and Zacky. Matt, at this point, had nothing to say, and just let his eyes wander, resting anywhere but on his friends.

“What the fuck is a room attendant?” Brian laughed.

This time Matt spoke up, looking at them now. “I asked that, too. Mr. Jacobson said I just gotta visit this kid once or twice a week until I get my 20 hours done.”

“So you’re just gonna sit there and talk to some kid you don’t know for like an hour a couple times a week? That’s kinda…weird.” Brian raised both of his eyebrows at his friend, who shook his head and shrugged his shoulders, taking the paper back as Jimmy offered it to him.

“It didn’t even say who I’m gonna go and talk to or visit or whatever,” Matt stated as he crammed the annoying piece of paper into his pants again, moving towards his truck and unlocking the doors. He quickly got into the front, Brian taking passenger seat while Jimmy and Zacky settled in the cab. “The least they could do is, like, tell me if it’s a boy or a girl. I pray to God it’s a boy. They’re way easier to tolerate than girls.”

“You’re just saying that because you had to babysit my little sister once or twice,” Brian laughed, almost hysterically. “And it always ended up with you missing eyebrows.”

“Not my fault,” Matt glared over at Brian before starting his truck, music blaring. He turned it up even louder, and rolled down his windows, savoring the hot California air. It was summer time, and school had just recently begun about three weeks before that. As the music blasted, Matt kept his eyes forward on the road, leaning back into his seat, one hand on the steering wheel, the other resting on the window of his door. Any discussion of his future suffering had been ended, which he was pleased with.

Right now, all he wanted to do was get home and practice…and NOT think about having to entertain some little kid at the hospital every week.