I Don't Mind If You're Overrated

It was finally the day I had been waiting for. Kellin’s birthday. The celebration we had planned gave us an excuse to get our minds off the whole running away thing. The more I thought about it, the more I had realized what a bad idea it was. I was scared, and this was fucking overdramatic. But now that Kellin had his heart set on it, I knew he wasn’t going to change his mind. I tried to focus on his birthday, and the party type thing we had planned for tonight. It wasn’t exactly a surprise party, since it was only his friends, but he didn’t really know it was coming. Jesse had helped me plan it last night and on the way down to breakfast. The only thing he didn’t know was the fact that I had ordered a cake, and I was keeping it in his closet. It’s not like he hung his clothes up anyways.

“Hey, guys.” Kellin said. He was walking towards our table at breakfast, with another tall guy trailing behind him. “This is Michael, my new roommate.” He introduced us. I knew we were all looking him up and down, judging his ability to be in our group. I supposed he didn’t have too much of a choice, but we could always just ignore him. However annoying he may or may not be, I inwardly breathed a sigh of relief that I wasn’t the new guy anymore.

“Call me Bohn.” He said, extending his hand to shake all of ours in turn. He was tall, with dark hair and dark eyes. He had a bit of stubble on his chin and good sized plugs in his ears. He looked older than a sophomore, but maybe he had failed a few grades and his parents had just paid a shitload of money for him to come here. I had a feeling you could do that, even if this was a college prep school.

“He’s a junior, but I was the only room they had open.” Kellin explained. We all nodded in an understanding manner; it wasn’t an uncommon occourance. The school seemed to be a place where parents shipped off their unwanted or troublesome kids, and administators had caught onto it. They at least tried their best. According to Kellin, they had relaxed on a lot of the rules once they figured out the majority of the kids here didn’t follow them. They still attempted to keep us under control, but clearly it didn’t always work.

I watched as the rest of the group questioned Bohn in the same manner they had when I had arrived, except this time Kellin joined right in. I guess this was why they were confused when he didn’t join in on my interrogation, but Kells had told me that he had immediately knew there was something special about me. Bohn was both pretty funny and very sarcastic, definitely fitting right in.

“I’m gonna use the bathroom.” Kellin said, pushing his chair away. The second he was out of earshot, I filled the rest of the group, mostly Bohn, in on my plans for his birthday.

“Okay, so today is Kellin’s birthday. Tiny surprise party, you know. I got a cake, it’s in Jesse’s closet.” The look on our ginger friend’s face was hilarious. There was nothing really crazy we could do without risking our places at the school, even though we’d all like to. We didn’t have a solid enough plan.
“Can we get a stripper?” Bohn asked casually. We all kind of stared at him. This wasn’t his first boarding school, as we had learned from the questioning, but that may have been why he was kicked out. Clearly my first assumption was right; he seemed like a bit of a burn out.

“Seriously? This is a boarding school, we’re not in college or in our own apartments or something. “ Matty said uncomfortably. Bohn just shrugged, seeming unphased.

“C’mon, Vic. Don’t be boring. Let’s sneak out.” He said, looking right at me. I clenched my teeth, wondering if Kellin would in fact like that better. I looked at Jesse, who other than me, knew him best. Jesse gave me a small nod, making my stomach churn.

“Where would we go?” I asked. Jenna and Matty both gawked at me in horror, while Jesse looked at his hands. I knew he was secretly excited. Gabe didn’t bother holding in his excitement, letting a rather loud “Hell yeah!” escape his mouth. A sneaky smile spread across Bohn’s face.

“I’m from around here, so I’ve got a few ideas…” He started to speak, but was cut off by Jenna as she saw Kellin crossing the room to come back to our table. “We can plan right after school.” He decided. “Library.” I wasn’t sure where he was going with this, or if he could be trusted. Probably not, but what’s life without a little adventure?

I told Kellin I was going to lay down after school. He knew this was a lie, because clearly we were planning something for his birthday. He seemed happy enough to go back to his room and work on song lyrics or homework or something. I walked into the library to see Jesse already plotting with Bohn, revealing his excitement. Jenna wasn’t a party girl, so Jesse didn’t get out as much as he’d like to. I put my stuff down next to them, plopping myself down in a chair. I used to party, but before… the accident, I had gotten way too into alcohol and drugs. It started out with occasionally smoking pot with Mike, but that went to everyday, and pot turned into acid, LSD, and literally whatever I could get my hands on. It was yet another reason I was ready to end it all. I was scared to go out again; I hadn’t in months. But I was sure that I could control myself. At least, I hoped so. We held off talking about the plan until Gabe joined us, but we didn’t really bother to wait for Matty and Jenna.

“So, what’s the plan?” I asked quietly. Jesse and Bohn had clearly already been brainstorming.

“We’ll kidnap Kellin basically. He’ll come back, think it’s a little get together- yes, we can eat your cake, Vic- and then we take him out. Michael knows a club that doesn’t really check for ID, so it’ll be easy. But he does have a few fake ones, one of which Kellin will use, since he looks like a 12 year old.” Jesse explained. I rolled my eyes, even though it was true. I was excited, and so were my friends. It was gonna be a hell of a night. Jesse summarized what he told me in a short text to Jenna and Matty, who both unwillingly hopped on board.

Jesse and hung out in our dorm together, anxiously discussing the plans. I was sure that he caught onto the fact that I was nervous, but like always, he said nothing. Basically, we were all coming up to our room after dinner. Jenna would have to sneak, but that had been done plenty of times. I decided not to even go down to dinner, seeing as my stomach was churning with nervousness. I sat on my bed, writing lyrics that all ended up being about Kellin. After what seemed like an eternity, I heard the sound of the door opening. I jumped to the floor, grinning in anticipation. The night was really about to begin, and Kellin had no idea.