Slow Conversations with a Gun

“Class, let me be the first to say, I know you guys don’t want to be here. You’re juniors and it’s the first day of school. But this is art class, you guys are the lucky ones,” said our art teacher,”I’m Mr. Bokan.”
He went to his desk to call roll or something. I turned to Jaime with my art notebook out.
“So uhh…” Jaime started.
“Blane,” I answered,”Like plane but with a ‘B’.”
“Okay, BLANE where’d you come from?”
“I’d rather not talk about it..”
“Why not?”
“Because it brings back bad memories and no.”
“What?” Tony cut in,”You lived a hard life?”
“Yeah nigga, I lived a thug life. I didn’t chose the thug life, the thug life chose me.”
They both laughed, and I couldn’t help but think that I wanted to make Vic laugh. I wanted to make him feel good. Then I felt a poke on my side, and I jumped violently.
“Nooo, no, that’s a no no. Don’t do that,” I said to Jaime.
“What? This?”he poked me again. I jumped again.
“Hime-Time, I’ll destroy you.”
“Oh yeah?” I heard Tony. He poked me and they both started poking me. I got up so quick, and people were staring at me. I sat back down.
“Look, faggots. I will destroy you both.”
“Ha, that’s funny. You’re too short!” Tony teased.
“Am not, I’m like…5’2. Oh god, I am short.”
“You’re as tall as Vic,” said Jaime. I softly smiled, and pictured him smiling at me. I didn’t want to talk about him, I just met him and I didn’t want to sound…stupid.
“Earth to Plane,” I heard Jaime.
“Dude, it’s Blane, and no. I’d rather be on Naboo.”
I saw Tony’s eyes grow wider.
“What the fuck did you just say?”
“I uhh said I’d rather be on Nab-“
“Holy shit you like Star Wars? I like Star Wars lets be best friends.”
“Don’t be afraid, Tony just lov-“ Jaime started to calm me while Tony fangirled over Star Wars.
“Oh my fucking God I love Star Wars too! Let’s be best friends!”
Tony smiled and high fived me, this was the first time all morning that he smiled. I felt kind of good to now that I made him smile. The rest of the class period, me, Tony and Jaime, just talked and goofed around.

~~fast forward to fourth period, the period before lunch~~

My fourth period classes was probably the worst. Not because it was Honors History, or because the class it stupid. No. I had a bully in that class. What are we, in third grade? Or he at least thought he’d bully me.
It was a guy. He was cute in features but he hated me for no reason. He had dark really short hair, and a beard to match, and he wore black plugs. I wasn’t sure what his name was because when I tried to ask him, he responded,”My name’s go fuck yourself.”
“Wow, that’s a weird name,” I replied as I got up to move. I sat in the seat in the back and whispered,”You don’t have to be an asshole, you couldn’t just like..not answered.”
The teacher introduced himself, and sat at his desk. I had my head down when something hit me. It was a balled up piece of paper. I opened it and it was a note.
It read:

Dear Whatever the fuck your name is,

I hope you realize that you are stupid and irrelevant. Everything about you is ugly and everyone hates it. I bet you don’t even have any friends, I mean how could you? I bet your stupid and-

Okay, I stopped reading and wrote back: Aww it’s so nice of you to give me a letter. Anyway, dude telling me that I’m ugly; my confidence is already at an all time low, it doesn’t bother me anymore-you lose. And *you’re
-Blane (since you have some minor problems with spelling my name)

When the bell rang to leave, I put the letter on that dude’s desk and walked off. As I walked out the classroom, I saw Vic standing in the doorway and my heart almost jumped out my chest. He smiled and so did I.
“Hiya Vic, you got this class next?”
“No, I actually have lunch next, I’m just waiting on my friend, Jeremy.”
“Can I wait with you, I need a lunch buddy since I don’t actually eat school lunch.”
“Sure, here he comes,” he said. The guy that walked turned out to be the asshole.
“Of course,” I lazily blurted. The guy, well Jeremy, looked at Vic then at me.
“Oh naw,man,” he mumbled. We all started walking to the cafeteria.
“You two no each other?” Vic asked.
“Oh yeah, we’re grrrrrrreat friends, aren’t we Jeremy?”
“How do you know my name?”
“Well, no thanks to you being an asswipe, Vic unknowingly told me your name,” I sarcastically added. We sat down at a table with Tony and Mike headed our way. I sat across from Vic and I saw Jeremy shooting me meaning glances. They didn’t bother me though; if looks could kill, he would’ve died at least five times.
“Hey Blane,”Vic tapped the table in front of me,”you wanna like walk around or something.”
“What about me?” Jeremy asked. I smiled, Vic’s leaving the asshole for me.
“There’s Tony and Mike, talk to them.” He grabbed my hand pulled me through the crowd. He let go once the hall was calm enough.
“What’d Jeremy do for you to hate each other?”
I scuffed,”I didn’t do anything but ask his name. He’s the one that sent me a hate letter.”
“‘Hate letter’,” he chuckled.
“You know like a love letter, but ya know, meant to make you feel bad. It said shit like,’I hope you realize that your ugly’ or some shit. He didn’t even use the right you’re, he used Y-O-U-R. That’s what I hated the most.”
He laughed,”I hope it didn’t phase you.”
“It didn’t, but I wrote back and gave it back to him. If he didn’t throw it away you could probably see it.”
We walked in silence for a while. We were so close next to each other that my hand could feel his hand's presence, and I wanted with everything just to grab it and not let go.