Collide With This Guy

I bit my lip, frustrated, as I scribbled quickly onto the paper that was in front of me. My handwriting was messy, and if anyone had been watching me as I wrote they would have thought I was crazy. I wasn’t crazy, though. I was angry.

I was angry for many reasons, and I didn’t feel like talking about any of them. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, so I had entered this habit of coming straight home from school, locking myself in my room, and writing down everything that came to my head in the form of song lyrics. This was what calmed me down.

“Vic, mom says it’s time for you to come down for dinner!” I heard my younger brother, Mike, call loudly as he banged on my door. I groaned in frustration, losing my train of thought.

“Tell her to bring it up, I’m eating in my room again,” I called back to him. I crumpled up the paper that I had been working on and tossed it behind me. It wasn’t a good one, anyway.

“No, she says you have to eat with us tonight,” he responded, which only irritated me further. I hated feeling angry at everyone, I really did, but I honestly just didn’t know any other way to feel.

“Why?” I whined, going to the door and reluctantly swinging it open. Mike shrugged at me when I opened the door.

“Apparently they’ve got company coming over,” he explained. I rolled my eyes.

“God,” I said, annoyed. I just really didn’t want to do this.

“Vic, come on,” he said, “Just man the fuck up.”

And then he turned from me and went back downstairs. I hated when he talked to me like that- I really did. However, as much as I didn’t want to go to dinner, I would have taken that any day over listening to my mom bicker later about why I wasn’t there.

I turned the light off in my room and reluctantly made my way downstairs. I was shuffling into the kitchen, but I noticed that was where my mom and dad were talking to the family that had just walked in. There was a mother and a father, and a boy that I had never seen before. Who were these people anyway?

I was about to turn to leave when my mom noticed me and insisted that she introduce me.

“Oh, honey, come here, I want you to meet our new neighbors,” she said, which just made me cringe even more. Neighbors meant that we would be seeing a lot of these people. “This is my son, Victor. Vic, this is Mr. and Mrs. Quinn, and their son Kellin.”

“Oh, nice to meet you, Victor, you look about the same age as Kellin, here,” he said, heartily, slapping his son on the back. I scanned my eyes over the boy and probably made some sort of weird face. I highly doubted I was going to like this kid at all. He had wide, blue eyes and this smug little grin on his face like he was just amused with everything. Not only that, but he wore this bright blue polo and a pair of fitted, khaki-colored shorts with Sperry Top Siders. He was clean-shaven and unfortunately pretty cute.

“Nice to meet you,” he said, his voice high and perky. Great, he’s cheerful, too.

“Hey,” I mumbled, looking away from him and down at my own attire. I was dressed in black skinny jeans and a baseball-style shirt. This was why I hated people who always looked put together- they made me look like shit by comparison. Whatever, maybe I was just a bitter asshole.

“Kellin’s a junior in high school this year,” his mom said, as if she was proud of him for that. There was nothing special about being a junior. Junior year fucking sucked.

“Vic’s a senior,” my mom nodded in response when she noticed that I wasn’t planning on saying anything anytime soon. “Mike’s a junior too, though.”

“Oh, that’s nice, maybe he and Kellin can be friends,” his mom replied cheerfully, then laughed before adding, “I thought Mike was the oldest, my mistake.”

I groaned.

“Let’s eat!” Mike said, enthusiastically. It annoyed Mike that I was always so bitter, but I knew he was always trying to avoid me getting angry if he could. In this situation, he was trying to smooth over anymore awkward small talk. My parents agreed and we exited the kitchen into the dining room, where plates and food had already been set out.

Dinner was mainly our parents talking to each other as I ate in silence and Mike tried making conversation with Kellin. I didn’t understand his deal, though. This Kellin guy looked confident in the way he carried himself and the way he seemed to look so innocent and smiling. Yet, at the same time, he was quiet as fuck.

Whenever Mike asked him a question, he kind of mumbled the answer as if he was shy. Who knows, maybe he really was.

“So you play any sports?” Mike asked him.

“Um, no,” he mumbled, looking at his plate of food.

“Any instruments?” Mike asked.

“No,” he said, quickly. I rolled my eyes.

“Leave him alone, you’re being annoying,” I said, in a bored voice. I could really care less if he annoyed this kid or not, but the fact that I had to listen to it bothered me.

“You’re being a prick,” Mike snapped.

“Boys! Language!” my mom scolded, breaking from her conversation with the Quinns, then muttering an embarrassed apology when she returned to them.

“So what classes are you taking?” Mike asked, and I rolled my eyes. I wasn’t a bit surprised when he started listing what sounded like a million Advanced Placement classes. Every question he answered just confirmed my suspicions that he was a goody-two-shoes.

After what seemed like hours, Kellin and his family finally left and I was free to go back into my room and shut myself in for the night. I threw myself down on my bed and let out a dramatic sigh. ‘Well that could have been worse.’

I pulled out my phone, checking to see if I had any notifications. I had another Facebook message, so I opened that. I knew what it was going to say before I opened it, because in these past few weeks they had all been the same.

“Fag”

I turned off the phone and let it drop to the floor. I was really ready for people to stop being immature. I wasn’t sure how much more I could take before I snapped. Honestly, my anger was all in this tiny little bottle, and I felt like I was going to explode at any minute.