Disasterology

Kellin sighed heavily as he walked through the halls. Everyone else was headed in the opposite direction, towards the front doors, eager to go home. He wasn’t much different. A headache was pounding at his skull, and he felt like his head was just going to spontaneously explode if he didn’t do something about it. All he wanted was to go home and lay down in his dark room and hide from everything that might make it worse, but instead of going home, he had to go to detention.

He supposed getting two weeks’ worth of detention was getting off easy. He had honestly expected at least a suspension for fighting with Vic. Actually, he wished he had, because anything would be better than spending two weeks’ worth of detention with someone who hated his guts right now. Vic had made no effort to hide the fact that he blamed Kellin for this whole thing, he was the one who threw the first punch so in Vic’s mind, Kellin was the one who started the fight. Kellin begged to differ though, Vic was the one who started the whole thing when he tried to take advantage of him.

Detention wasn’t the only consequence they had to face for their actions though. Vic couldn’t attend soccer practice, since it coincided with detention, and Kellin wasn’t able to attend band practice. Of course, it wasn’t that big a deal for Kellin. While it was better to practice with the whole band, he could just as well practice by himself at home. Vic on the other hand, while he could practice a few things by himself, wouldn’t be able to play at games for as long as he wasn’t attending practice. It was only two or three games, but when they were this close to the end of the season those two or three games really mattered.

Kellin glanced around the detention room when he arrived, noticing he was the only one there. He really hoped more people were going to show up, but with his luck it was going to be just him and Vic. Speaking of the devil, Kellin glanced up from the desktop he had been tracing patterns into, his eyes meeting Vic’s cold gaze. He quickly looked back down, already feeling that same anger that had compelled him to hit the other boy in the first place. If this was how the rest of detention was going to go then it was going to be a long couple of hours.

“Fuentes, Quinn,” Coach Cottrell, the PE teacher, barked as he entered the room around five minutes later. “Go to the Custodian’s office and grab some buckets and sponges, you’re going to be cleaning the bathrooms today.” Cottrell was possibly one of the meanest people Kellin had ever met. He had had him his freshman and half of sophomore year for the year and a half of PE that the school required students to take in order to graduate. He was a tough gym teacher (Kellin had nearly failed his class both times he had taken it) but other than that, he really loved talking down to students. Kellin would need an extra hand if he were to count how many times that man had called him ugly alone.

Kellin had to do all the talking once he and Vic finally reached the custodian’s office, the older boy standing in the background with an annoyed expression plastered on his face. He carried both buckets to the nearest bathroom, filling them up with warm water and soap before practically forcing one of them on Vic, tired of doing all the work already.

Vic didn’t look too impressed by his actions, but Kellin ignored him as best he could, going into one of the stalls and lowering the toilet seat and sitting before dipping his sponge in the bucket and starting to scrub off the sharpie marks that littered the cubicle walls. They worked in silence, or at least, Kellin assumed Vic was working. He hadn’t heard anything out of him the whole half hour they had been there so for all he knew Vic could have left to do something better.

There was one thing that had been on his mind for a while now, well since he woke up the day after the party. Out of everyone he could have had (very willingly, might he add) why would he choose Kellin, who definitely wasn’t as willing as everyone else in the school to get the captain of the soccer team into bed? Kellin wasn’t anything special. He was short, pale, skinny, and he was practically a worm on the social ladder. Despite how mad at Vic he still was, he wanted to ask him, but he really doubted he would get an answer, not a nice one anyway. Before he could even comprehend what he was doing, his mouth was opening and a single word was spilling out into the quiet bathroom.

“Why?” As soon as it slipped out he wanted to take it back, and now he was really hoping he was alone in the room.

“I’m not going to talk to you Kellin, so just shut up.” Of course he wasn’t.

“No Vic, tell me.” Now that he had opened his mouth once, he found he couldn’t stop. He wanted answers and he wanted them now.

“I thought I told you to shut up.” The reply only fueled his anger towards the other boy.

“No Vic, I won’t. If you think you can just get whatever you want then you’re sadly mistaken.” Kellin didn’t realize the duel meaning behind his words until after he said them, and he was a little surprised at how much animosity they held.

He didn’t hear a reply from Vic, and he thought it was over, that the other boy was just going to ignore him now and they could continue on with detention in awkward silence. You can imagine his surprise when the door to the cubicle he was currently in opened and a bucket full of soapy water was suddenly covering him from head to toe.

He really hated Victor Fuentes.