Asked to Compromise

I spent all of Sunday with Eric. We talked a lot more on things that’d been going on, and he told me a little bit more about the school. Things could get bad here, or so he said. I just hadn’t experienced it yet. He reminded me that we were all pretty much equal here, we were all here because of whatever problems we had. That was basically a warning from him not to start any shit here because we were all on the same level. I dared someone to mess with me here.

I really missed him. Aside from my small crush on him before he “moved”, he was also like an older brother as were Max, Adam, and Charlie. They were always the ones to be there for me, to pull me out of fights, to help me no matter what. There was that connection between all of us and we always kept a tight knit group, mainly because no one else bothered to be with us. When Eric left, we all said our goodbyes and tried to keep in touch. It was rough, having one of your closest friends transfer to a school across the country. We kept in touch until it faded to talking every few months. No one forgot about him. We checked in with his parents all the time. They didn’t bring him back to Batavia over the summer unfortunately. He was again sent to Florida to stay with his relatives. We were mostly just waiting for his “sentence” here to be over and for him to move back.

“You don’t really want to get in trouble here, but I guess you already have,” He said quietly from beside me.

We sat together in the grass outside. It was warm and sunny out, so why not. We’d been out here for almost an hour and a half just talking and laughing about things. He told me more about the teachers and the people here.

“You keep telling me not to get in trouble here, but what trouble have you gotten into?” I asked, pointing my finger at him. “Keeping that from me, huh?”

He laughed and leaned back into the grass, supporting his body with his elbows and crossing his feet. “Uh… a lot when I first got here. Let’s see…” He thought about it while I watched him.

“I was high as a kite when I first got here. That was so fucking bad. I knew I was screwed when they saw me. Got high two more times, and I regretted it. How did people even sneak weed into here, I have no clue. Definitely got punished for that,” He chuckled. “And the first time me and some other people came back on a Friday night wasted, that was hell. I can laugh now because that was last year, but I thought it was never going to end. I did some dumb shit, but I’ll do better this year. I don’t get high anymore, I don’t drink--”

“Because you can’t,” I cut him off.

“You’re right. If I could, I still probably would. Who knows what’ll happen as soon as I get out of here? I might go back to it, I don’t know. This place changes people. I mean, that’s what it’s meant to but still, you know.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I shrugged.

“I’ll show you to some people tomorrow, maybe at breakfast or during dinner or something. You can sit with us. You’ll like them,” He said. I told him how he was the only person I really knew and talked to.

“Cool,” I nodded.

We talked for a while longer until I spotted the one person I hated looking over at us. I groaned and rolled my eyes, realizing he was walking over to us. He looked normal today, in a t-shirt and cargo shorts.

“Do they ever go home?” I thought aloud. “Where do they live anyway?”

“Eh, no one really knows. They live around here somewhere,” Eric shrugged. “You should give the dude a chance.”

I scoffed as soon as he got to us, standing in front of us. His sunglasses covered his eyes and his black hair was down straight.

“So you do know each other?” Haner asked, letting out a chuckle.

Eric looked confused for a minute.

“I lied, so what,” I shrugged.

“Okay,” Haner looked from me to Eric sternly. He looked like he was giving some sort of signal to him. “I assume you will keep her out of trouble and not act with her?”

“Yes, sir,” Eric said quietly and nodded, looking up at Haner.

“Good to know, I’ll see you guys in class tomorrow then,” Haner said, one hand into the pocket of his lose shorts and walking away slowly.

“What was that all about?” I asked Eric and all he did was shrug.