Painting Flowers

I awoke with a start as my alarm honked from beside my bed. Slamming my hand aimlessly down at the dresser and shutting the awful drone up, I managed to drag myself up and out of my bed. I rubbed my eyes, yawned loudly, and gazed at the blue sky outside. I frowned at the brightness which was pouring into my room, and sharply turned to get ready.

Once I deemed my clothes acceptable, I threw my backpack over my shoulder and slunk down the stairs. Swinging into the kitchen, I grasped May's piece of toast (earning a disapproving glare from her) and yelled a, "Bye!" to everyone in the kitchen. Joe waved half-heartedly, and everyone else ignored me, but I ran down the steps, slamming the back door behind me as I stuffed the toast into my mouth and attempted to dance into my dirty trainers.

I managed to finish my not so substantial breakfast, get my shoes on, and catch the bus as it was about to drive away. I clambered onto it, panting, and nervously sat down on the second seat from the front, trying my hardest to appear unfazed by everyone stares and laughs at me.

I grabbed my ipod out the front of my bag and plugged in my headphones, immediately drowning everyone out with some Green Day. I smirked as the intro of F.O.D. came blasting into my ears, and I smirked, sitting back a little in my seat.

I stared out the window at the passing houses, my mind drifting off to think about Alex, and a scowl instantly crept on to my face. I dropped my gaze to stare at my feet, cracking my jaw and sighing as I remembered what had happened last night. It was such a shame that, although we liked mostly the same things, Alex was a massive asshole. I absentmindedly mouthed the words along to the song, my fingers threading together.

After only a few minutes, the bus screeched to a halt outside the school, and I made sure that I was the first one off, stuffing my hands deeper into my jeans pockets. I made my way towards the brick red school, frowning at the sidewalk, my mind still racing with thoughts.

"Jack!" a voice yelled, and I snapped my head up to look around. I carefully took my earphones out and gazed around at the mass of people.

"Jack!" the voice called again, and this time I recognised it. Seething, I turned and marched through the school doors, blanking Alex's calls.

~

I sat down in Mrs. Byrn's class, choosing the seat next to the window I'd been allocated yesterday. I scratched my cheek, looking around the empty room and wondering if I'd gotten my timetable mixed up. Just then, however, the door opened, and a group of buff guys walked in, laughing at something one of them had said. I shrunk back in my seat, twiddling my fingers together as they sat behind me.

"... Yeah, the Ravens are so gonna win this season. I can feel it," one of them said, and I raised my eyebrows slightly, my ears pricking up to listen in on their conversation. "Imagine being at the Super Bowl final and the Ravens were playing. Holy shit, how awesome would that be!?"

"Hi," I said, spinning around in my seat to face them, and they all stopped their conversation to frown at me. "Uh... I couldn't help but hear you talking about the Ravens..."

"Yeah?" a guy two rows behind me said. "And?"

"Um, my uncle is one of the coaches for them, and he let's me go in and watch them all train," I said, earning a few amazed whispers from the guys. "I'm pretty close to them all."

"No way," the guy directly behind me smirked. "Woah, really? That's awesome! Sorry, uh, what was your name?"

"I'm Jack Barakat," I said, smiling around at the awed and shocked faces. "So, uh... What's your names?"

"I'm Danny," the one I'd been talking to previously said. "This is Matt, Vinny, Rian, James, and Tony." He gestured around to all his friends, and I grinned at them.

"Hey, Jack, d'you think your uncle could let us watch the Ravens train as well? That'd be fuckin' rad, man," the one named Vinny breathed, his eyes wide.

"Uh, yeah, probably," I shrugged. "He lets me go and watch whenever I want."

"Damn. If I were you, I'd never fucking leave the stadium," James smirked, and the rest of us laughed. "Hey, Jack, you're actually alright. You should hang around with us."

"Really?" I smiled shyly. "That'd be awesome, seeing as I don't have any friends yet..." I pushed Alex to the back of my mind.

"Aw, no, dude, come with us," Danny said. "You get free beer! And parties! Aaaaaall the time! Plus, the cheerleaders are all over us."

I grinned widely, nodding. "Sure. Yeah, awesome!" I received hi-5s from them all, before turning back to face the front of the classroom.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Alex frowning at me from across the classroom. I chose to ignore him. Again.

~

At the end of the school day, I walked out of the building with Rian and Vinny, discussing how the Ravens needed to win the Superbowl this year. Truth be told, I honestly didn't care much for football. I just wanted to have some friends for a change.

"We'll see you tomorrow, dude," Rian nodded, giving me a knuckle touch.

'What the fuck is this...' I thought, blinking at my hand and glancing up to the guys, who just shook their heads at me.

"Later, Jack," Vinny laughed as he and Rian turned away from me and began to walk in the opposite direction to get on their bus.

"Okay! Bye guys!" I called, waving. I smiled slightly at the site of my retreating friends (friends? friends!) and found my bus, clambering on to it and finding a seat by myself in the middle. I found my iPod stuffed into my jeans' pocket and pulled it out, immediately shoving my earphones in and blasting some Blink.

This was a time to ignore everyone.

For five minutes.

But then, all too soon, the bus was rolling to a stop outside of my house, and I had to do the walk of shame down the middle aisle so that I could leave all these assholes until tomorrow. As I stepped down the steps and on to the grass of my front yard, I let out a relieved sigh and walked up the patio steps, opening the porch door and wandering inside of my home.

I kicked my shoes off, dropping my bag to the carpet and headed for the kitchen, murmuring "hello" to May and Joe, who were able to take their cars to and from school, and so managed to get home earlier than me and steal all the good food.

"There's crisps in the cupboard," May said through a mouthful of chocolate. "I dunno if they're in date, though."

"Great," I sighed, sticking my nose up. "Where's mom and dad?"

"Don't know. They weren't back when we got home," Joe said. "Probably at 7/11 or something."

"Okay," I said. "I'm going up to my room."

"When are you not in your room?" May asked.
"Right now," I said, rolling my eyes.

"It was a rhetorical question, you dumbass," she said. "God, not everything needs to be taken seriously, Jack."

"Whatever," I sighed, taking the packet of crisps anyway and opening them as I headed up the stairs to my room. I slammed the door shut, collapsing on my unmade bed and began to shovel the crisps into my mouth, counting the guitars above my head again.

I got to 36 when I faintly heard somebody talking. I sat up, looking around to see if the voice was coming from my room, or maybe outside. After a few seconds, I managed to deduce that there was definitely nobody underneath my bed, but the voice was coming from outside somewhere. I forced myself up, staggering slightly, and looked out the window to see the rather unextraordinary sight of the cul-de-sac, a lot of neatly trimmed grass, and- wait.

Alex had his head stuck out of his bedroom window, and he was calling on something. I fiddled with the lock on the pane and brought it up, frowning at him and the warm air that hit my face, squinting to see what he was looking at.

"Jack! About time, I've been calling on you for ages," Alex said loudly. "Can you come over? I want to talk.

"Why?" I said shortly, and Alex blinked at me.

"Well, it was about what I said yesterday... And I was gonna apologise and stuff..." Alex said, rubbing his neck, his t-shirt riding up his stomach a little.

"Right, I'll come over," I said, and I took one final crisp from the packet before I ducked my head under the window, sliding my legs out after me so that they were dangling across the windowsill. I glanced up to see Alex biting his lip, but stepped over on to the tree which stood directly between our two houses. I slowly and carefully traipsed across the branches, trying my best and succeeding at not falling twenty feet to the ground. Alex opened his window fully as I approached his room, and held out a hand for me to take and slide myself in. I ignored it, however, still not having totally forgiven him for what he said yesterday.

"Hi," he said.

"Hi," I replied, folding my arms and having a quick look around his room. It hadn't changed at all in the twenty four hours since my first visit; the same dirty clothes were lying in a heap beside the door, and the poster of Sum 41 was falling over slightly due to lack of tape. "What did you want?"

"I just... I really wanted to say I'm sorry," he sighed, sitting down on the edge of his bed. I remained standing up. "It was totally uncalled for, and such a totally shitty thing to do, but I really want you to forgive me, 'cause I don't have any other friends... and I thought maybe you'd be my friend, since we talked in school, but I fucked everything up."

"You didn't fuck everything up..." I muttered, feeling a little bad for totally blanking him today. "I mean, yeah, what you said was really rude, but I can't hold a grudge very well."

"Can you forgive me, then?" he asked hopefully. "I could barely sleep last night 'cause I just felt so bad about what I said. Honest, I'm usually a nice person, I just get a bit pissed sometimes."

"Nah, I understand," I said. "I forgive you, just 'cause I'm so nice."

Alex smiled, his eyes lighting up and dimples denting his cheeks. "Thank you, that's, like, a massive weight lifted off my shoulders, haha..."

"You know, you really are an awesome guy," I said, glancing around at his posters. "You like some rad bands."

"'Rad'?" Alex laughed. "This isn't the 90s, Jack."

"Well, cool bands. Good bands. Your music taste isn't exactly as perfect as mine, since I spot a Spice Girls CD in your collection-" Alex's cheeks went pink, and he tried to mutter an excuse, but I shook my head. "-it's alright, I won't judge you or anything. Everyone's got some guilty pleasure, just so happens yours happens to be five hot british ladies. That's totally fine."

"What's yours?" Alex asked.

"My guilty pleasure?" I questioned, and he nodded. "Hmm... I dunno, actually. S-Club 7 are good. And Britney. And Madonna."

Alex snorted. "Wow, I didn't expect a punk rock guy to like shitty pop bands."

"The punk lifestyle sometimes gets too difficult," I laughed, sitting down on Alex's bed. "I often find myself resorting to that satanic genre known as pop, just to numb my thoughts down and lose some brain cells."

Alex sniggered (properly sniggered, I didn't think people did that in real life) and grinned at me. "You're really funny."

"Thank you, I pride myself in my humour," I smirked. "You're alright, too. I'm sorry about being an asshole yesterday, though, I'm never usually as mean to people as I was to you."

"It's fine, just forget about it," Alex said, waving his hand.

And I did.