Collide With This Guy

The next day at school, I was able to avoid Rian and Jaime in the morning, and I hoped they would just leave me alone for the rest of the day. I was especially hoping they’d taken the day off when Kellin marched over and sat down right next to me during lunch.

“Someone’s being ballsy,” I commented as he sat down. I earned a frown from him, which just made me laugh. The faces he made were just priceless.

“Where else am I going to sit?” he pointed out. I shrugged.

“Didn’t you make any friends yet?” I asked, then immediately felt like a hypocrite. I didn’t exactly have anyone to sit with at lunch, either.

“It’s only my second day,” he said, pulling out his lunch box. I took a minute to look at what he was wearing. He was wearing a short sleeve button down shirt with a matching bowtie. A fucking bowtie.

“You know, that’s not going to help keep people from making fun of you,” I teased, earning yet another glare.

“What did I do now?” He whined.

“Bowtie,” I said. He sighed and set his sandwich back down.

“I like it, so it doesn’t matter what other people think,” he said, stiffly. I wasn’t buying it.

“You’re mom made you wear it, didn’t she?” I challenged. He studied me for a minute, his eyes narrowing, but I held my gaze until he finally gave in.

“Yes,” he muttered under his breath. “She insists on buying clothes for me.”

“I mean, at least you don’t have to pay for them,” I pointed out. Having parents buying your clothes was a good thing, wasn’t it? Unless, of course, he wasn’t allowed to pick out what he wore.

“True, but I don’t get any say in what she buys,” he sighed. Nailed it. “But it’s okay, I like the clothes she buys.”

“No you don’t,” I chuckled.

“I know,” he said, defeated again. Then, he looked back up at me, “Doesn’t your mom get strict about things?”

“No, not really,” I shrugged. “She’s nagging, but she’s pretty lenient. So is my dad.”

“Oh,” he said, taking a bite of food. He looked down at the table. I felt a little bit like I was getting on to him too much, so I decided to lay off and change the subject.

“So why’d you guys move here?” I asked. That was always a good question, right? Whatever.

“My dad’s job transferred,” he said, “Nothing exciting.”

“I see,” I said, as the conversation kind of reached a lull. We ate in silence for a few painful minutes until Kellin finally broke the silence.

“Can I ask you something?” he asked quickly.

“What?”

“Um … do you know why they pick on you?” I assumed he was talking about Rian and Jaime, and I really didn’t want to tell him.

“Yes, and I’m not telling you,” I snapped, maybe a little too vicious. He looked a little taken aback. “I’m sorry, I just don’t like talking about it.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry,” he said, quietly. I just brushed it off and moved on. I changed the subject to asking how his classes were going, and I suddenly found myself actually enjoying talking to him. He was timid, but once he got past that, he had a pretty normal sense of humor, and was a bit quirky.

—-

Later that night, I found myself shut in my room once again, trying to write. I felt weird though, like I couldn’t get lyrics down on paper like I normally could. Usually I just let my anger out on the paper in front of me, and things just happened. However, this time I just didn’t have my heart in it.

I had a lot to be angry about, but I wasn’t necessarily in a bad mood. I had actually had a pretty good day for once. Nothing happened, but a good day to me usually just meant that I didn’t get harassed at school. On top of that, I did have a pretty friendly conversation with Kellin, and thinking about that actually made me smile.

I frowned again, pushing the thoughts away. I needed to stop thinking about him, it was getting weird. I had only just met this kid, and he’d already worked his way into my head. I was randomly finding myself thinking about how big he smiled when he laughed, or how it was almost impossible for him to make a genuine angry face.

I moaned and threw myself onto my bed. This was not good.

I was still dealing with the consequences of the last time I thought I liked someone, and it was like a living hell. That person was actually Jaime, AKA Rian’s best friend. There was a point in time when we were actually all cool with each other, and it was great, until one of them decided to play drunk truth or dare at a party.

“Okay, okay, it’s Vic’s turn,” Rian chuckled, as the game had worked its way around to me. I was so far gone that I didn’t even remember why or how I ended up choosing truth over dare, but I did. The most dangerous thing about choosing truth while under the influence, was that I wasn’t even thinking of the consequences.

I had been having these intense thoughts about Jaime in those past few weeks, so they were at the forefront of my mind, which is probably why I was so quick to spill my guts when I was presented with my question.

“If you could … If you could do anyone at school, who would it be?” Rian asked me, his speech slurred at as he laughed at how entertaining he thought his question was.

“Jaime,” I chirped, without hesitation. That was probably when my entire world sort of came to an abrupt halt.

“Dude, what?” Jaime said, making sure he’d heard me right. I should have just stopped talking, or at least told them I was joking, but nope. Drunk Vic had zero common sense.

“I just really like you, is all,” I shrugged, accompanied by a really lame giggle. Jack was in our circle too, shooting me warning glances that I didn’t catch.

“That’s fucking gay, man,” Rian spat, disgusted.

And then I didn’t remember anything past that, because someone had punched me in the face or something. Since then I had never been able to live it down, but my stupid crush on Jaime faded pretty quickly.

I absolutely refused to develop anything remotely close to a crush on this Kellin kid, because who knew what would come of it? I highly doubted I would ever find him near alcohol, but I still didn’t want to risk getting hurt again. With how conservative and straight-laced his family was, I had no doubt in my mind that they would be homophobic too.

I was about to just call it a night and go to bed, when my phone rang. I picked myself up from the heap that I had become on my bed and went over to check the caller ID. I wasn’t surprised to see that it was Mike, as it was a Friday night and he had probably snuck out again.

“What?” I said quietly into the phone as I answered.

“Open your window, I’m coming up,” he said. I rolled my eyes and went over to open the window. My room was on the second floor, but there was a tree by my window which made it easy to climb up. He ended up coming in this way when he’d sneak out with friends so he didn’t have to open the front door and potentially wake our parents.

After I opened the window, he climbed through, stumbling onto my floor when he got through. I sighed and shook my head.

“One of these days, you’re going to fall and break your neck or something,” I told him, as he held himself on the corner of my bed to try and get to his feet. He was so shit-faced it was ridiculous. I wasn’t sure how he even managed to climb it.

“Shhhh, you stop,” he said, in a slurred whisper, then something on my bed caught his attention. “Hey what’s this.”

I watched in horror as he snatched up the paper that I had been doodling on as I had tried to come up with lyrics.

“Hey, stop,” I said quickly, snatching it away from him.

“Why does it say Kellin,” he asked, I cursed under my breath.

“Shut up, it’s nothing,” I snapped. He threw his hands up defensively.

“Stop, okay, bye,” he said, stumbling out of my room. Luckily I didn’t think he would remember anything in the morning, so I let him leave without saying anything more on the subject.

I looked down at the crumpled paper. It was just a small scribble in the corner, but it was definitely Kellin’s name. God, I was ridiculous. I didn’t even know this guy, and I was already giving into the temptations of a crush.

I ripped up the paper furiously and threw them away. This was not going to happen. I was not going to let myself get close to Kellin Quinn.