Melodies

I stare at Courtney while she makes incoherent noises at me and flaps her hands around. Elizabeth gives her a look of what looks like disgust and fear. Kell looks aghast. The rest of the room has a mixture of expressions, ranging from amused to annoyed. Mr. Fuentes clears his throat loudly, making Courtney shut up and look at the front of the room. He looks at her pointedly and says, "Thank you," before starting attendance.

Courtney attempts to get me to lean over so she can whisper stupid things to me, but I pretend not to notice, even when she throws a pencil at my face. After a minute, she leans over, steals her pencil back and starts to scribble something on a piece of paper. She throws it over on my desk, so I shove it down to the bottom of my bag, to find only at the end of the year when I dump everything out, and not a moment sooner. The bottom layer is pretty much Courtney's layer. I have hairclips down there and everything.

She hisses, "Read it!" when she sees what I've done with it. I ignore her.

Needless to say, she's unbelievably pissed at me by the time class is over. She won't even talk to me in the hall when I keep bugging her and laughing at her moodiness. Thankfully, Alex and Ashton are in computers with us, so it's not like I'll be without anyone to talk to. Kim and Elizabeth are in there too, as is Brittany. Kell has another class, but I'm not sure what.

Class goes by pretty much uneventfully. Alex plugged his keyboard into Ashton's computer, successfully getting him to believe that his monitor was possessed. Courtney still refused to acknowledge me. Kim and Elizabeth flirted a ton. Brittany fell out of her chair multiple times. The teacher ignored our section of the classroom completely, and we accomplished nothing. That's our average Computer tech class.

AE sucks, surprising no one. Everyone who was on academic team in middle school gets grouped together in what is essentially a study hall. We have the option to go to an SAT prep session in another classroom, but I usually don't. Kim and Kell usually do, leaving me with no one I even kind of know. Until today, when Elizabeth chooses to stay.

That surprises me. I thought she'd go with Kim. When I ask her about it, she shrugs and tells me she's really lazy and doesn't feel like doing stuff for the next half hour. I think, at first, that maybe I'll have someone to talk to for once (I never remember to bring in a book or anything, so I'm always bored out of my mind), but that hope is shot down when she spends the entire time texting under the table, and I end up staring at the clock.

I'm probably the only person in our entire school that actually likes gym. Alex and Ashton don't count as people, because they're so ridiculously moronic, but they do like it. It seems like Kim hates it, but she's pretty athletic, so I don't see why. Kell always looks miserable, but that's understandable, because he's always getting run over and hit with the ball and stuff like that. I don't see how people don't see him, I mean, his hair's practically yelling at us, but it still happens.

Elizabeth follows Kim around when they arrive at the gym doors. It's pretty unclear where she still stands with everyone, because it IS just her first day and all, but I think she'll end up with Kell and them.

The way everyone functions is weird. There's kind of one huge group, and then two different sides. The whole group knows each other, and they talk and they can sit together at lunch, but not everyone goes over to everyone else's house. Then there's the two subgroups, one being me, Ashton, Alex, and Courtney, and the other being Courtney, Kell, Kim and Brittany. Each subgroup interacts more intimately, with the house trips and such. It's confusing to talk about, but easy to understand once you get used to it.

I change quickly, just pulling on a pair of basketball shorts and putting my shoes back on, leaving my bag by my locker. I notice Kell in the corner of the room, near his locker, trying to be discreet while changing shirts. It's kind of adorably pathetic how he tries so hard to be unnoticed that you can't help but notice him.

Some guys who walk in as I'm walking out are shoving each other around, being loud and obnoxious. One of them bumps into me hard, then looks at me like I did something wrong.

What I would have given to have had one of my cigarettes with me at that moment. Nothing pisses people off like having smoke blown in their face.

Mrs. Payne's at the table near the bleachers, taking attendance as people walk by her. I go up to the third row to sit by Elizabeth, since Alex and Ashton aren't here yet. She makes a little motion of acknowledgement, but I don't get much more than that.

She's still in her street clothes, understandably. I'm guessing she gets to sit on the bleachers today, which makes sense. I can see Mrs. Payne demanding she participate anyway, but she seems like she might be in a good mood today.

Kim and Kell walk up together, talking about something. Kell sits next to me, Kim following his actions. I notice he's holding his arm, up near his shoulder, like he got hurt or something, but I don't ask. It would certainly explain his sour expression though.

Eventually, Alex and Ashton come bumbling up the steps, sitting in the row behind the four of us. Ashton puts his feet up on one of my shoulders, crossing his legs. Alex does the same, except to Elizabeth. She turns around and stares a hole through his face until he moves them, leaning down to whisper to me. "She's scary. Who is she?"

"New girl, Elizabeth. Weren't you paying attention last period?"

"No, and she freaks me out."

"You're the dumbass that put your feet up on her shoulder. And you should get used to her, Kim likes her."

He thinks for a minute, before brightening up. "Do you think if we hang out with them more, we'll get to see some lesbian action?"

I push him back to Ashton. "You're such a pig."

He shrugs, and starts a conversation with Ashton about lesbians. I choose to ignore them and instead attempt to talk to Kim and Kell. "Something happen to your arm?" I gesture to where he's holding it.

He quickly moves his hand down. "Um, no, I'm fine." I can see that it's red where he was holding it, though.

Kim snorted. "Bullshit. He has a heart tattooed on his hip, and one of the guys in the locker room saw it and decided to hit him for being a 'faggot.'" She shook her head. "I'm sick of this guy picking on you, Kell, something needs to be done about it." She looked at me again. "Apparently this guy, whoever it is, he won't tell me, has been doing stuff like this all year."

Kell shrugs. "It's not that bad, I'm not really hurt or anything."

Kim scolds him, "Maybe physically it isn't that bad, but this kid's getting at you mentally, too! I wish you'd tell me."

He glowers at her. "No, because then you'll do something about it and get suspended or whatever."

She rolls her eyes. I sit silently, because I dunno what to say to any of that. I know I need to stay out of his business, but I'm super pissed at whoever's doing it. He's almost completely defenseless, really, it isn't fair to pick on him.

"Have you told Mrs. Payne or anyone?" I'm a little surprised to hear my own voice talking to him. He looks surprised too, when he faces me to answer.

"No, it really isn't that bad. I exaggerate when I'm pissed, so Kim gets the blown up version and takes it too seriously. Besides, that's what I get for being open and all, I mean." He kind of stumbles through the last sentence hesitantly, smiling in apparent embarrassment.

I shake my head. "It's still not fair to you. I'm open, and you don't see people coming at me, do you?"

"I...I meant being out. Like, um, I'm gay."

"So did I." He blushes a little at that, in the most adorable way.

"Well, you're bigger, and you're not so flamboyant."

"The point still stands, it isn't fair to you."

He just shrugs and bites his lip, looking down and kicking his feet. The fact that he's acting like he deserves that kind of treatment only makes my anger worse. It's so bad I completely miss that Alex is laughing a little too loudly when Kell's going on about how he brought it on himself for being out, and that Ashton is trying to shut him up.