Drunk.

Lunch definitely would have been easier if I had sat alone.

Most of lunch consisted of everyone at the table asking me far too many questions about myself. I only told them the things that they deserved to hear - "My name is Kellin, and I'm from Grand Rapids, Michigan. My parents are divorced, so I only live with my dad. He wanted to move here because we've lived in Michigan all our lives and he wanted a change of scenery. I'm into music and art, and I'm not into sports and most likely never will be."

I didn't even have to think about the lie regarding my home life, it was just an easy thing to say now. It's gotten to the point where I've begun to believe the disgusting lies until I would come home every day and face the harsh reality of beer bottles and trash littering the floors, my father passed out on the living room floor with a spilled can of beer next to him as I run upstairs into my rooms, still unprepared to face the demon who I used to think of as my father.

After an awkward and quite boring twenty minutes of being interviewed by complete strangers, Mike, Tay, and I began a small conversation about music. This time I didn't tell a single lie. I told them both how I enjoyed to sing, and how when I was little, around nine or ten, I wanted to learn how to play the guitar but never got the chance to. I learned that Mike played the drums, and that Tay sang and played the guitar, and was even willing to teach me, which was super nice of her. Lunch would have honestly have been just fine if it wasn't for Vic.

Vic was in a conversation just like I was, but he didn't seem to pay attention to the people around him. When he first saw me, he was just shocked, but not even five minute later, he spent the entire lunch mumbling one word answers to his concerned friends and watching me with hatred in his eyes. I tried to not look at him and just focus on Tay and Mike, but with a look like that burning into you from across the table, it's damn near impossible for you to not pay any attention to it, as if a force is slowly pulling your head to meet his gaze. I could tell everyone was confused as to why he was glaring at the new kid time entire time, but no one asked.

By the time lunch ended, I was right out the door, practically running up the stairs, not even knowing where I was going. All I wanted was to get away from Vic's eyes. All I wanted was to ask him what I had done to him to make him despise me this much, but I knew I couldn't. Living with my dad, I was used to empty threats, but something told me that his threat from Mr. McKinnon's class was anything but empty.

I pulled out my schedule and saw that I had art, which definitely lifted my spirits after what happened at lunch. I also happened to notice that it was held in room 632, which I was grateful for, as I had passed the room this morning on my way to English class.

---

I'm pretty sure art was the only class I wasn't late to that day.

As soon as I walked in the door, I felt a thousand pounds lift off my shoulders. Vic wasn't there, which made me feel better alone. On top of that, Tay and Mike were both there, and Mike was tapping the seat next to him with his hand. I sat next to him, with Tay on my right in the next group of desks over. I also noticed that Jaime and Tony were sitting together two rows in front of me. Basically, all of Vic's friends were here, except for Vic.

The class went by pretty slow. I wasn't introduced to the class like every other class, as the teacher assumed everyone knew who I was already, which I was happy about. Vic never showed up the entire class, so my assumption is that he doesn't have the class, or there is a chance that he skipped, but I don't think he did that.

The entire class just consisted of me zoning in and out and just drawing in my sketch book for forty-five minutes. By the time the class ended, it took me a minute or two to recognize the fact that everyone was out the door and that Mike was waiting for me with his bag over his shoulder.

As soon as I saw him, I scurried to gather all my things and rush to meet him at the door.

We had a few minutes until the final bell rang, so we slowly started to walk towards my locker so I could grab my bag, starting conversation every once in a while.

"So.. I was wondering if you wanted to hang out today?" Mike blurted out, quite fast might I add.

I froze in my spot, and moved only to turn and look at him, my mouth slightly agape and my eyes filled with surprise. That was such a rare question for me, the only time I was asked to go to someone's house was with my one friend back in Michigan. However, it took a year to even get to that point. The other time I was invited to an end of the year party in tenth grade, which ended up to be a total prank, resulting in everyone throwing a bucket of food on me, throwing me into the pool, and laughing at me.

And hear I was, on the first day of school in a brand new school, in a new state, and I'm going over to what I hoped would be a friend's house.

"Yeah...Sure. Yeah, I'll come over."

We walked over the main exit of the school so we could avoid the crowd when the bell rang as Mike informed me that we would be walking to his house, which was not that far away, due to the fact that his parents were out and his brother had to stay after school for a little while. I debated asking him who his brother was, but I decided against it, as it wasn't too important, and not to mention I most likely wouldn't know him.

And as the bell rang, and we walked out of school, I realized how smart Mike was to wait by the front of the door. I turned around and almost burst out laughing at the sight. Kids were crammed into the door, shoving others out of the way to get out, while the kids who actually managed to get the door unharmed were sprinting to their buses or their cars, as if they were running a marathon.

"Is it like that every day?" I smiled, laughing in between almost every word, my right arm clutching my side. Mike was smiling too, but he didn't find it as amusing as I did, probably because he was so used to it if it did happen often.

"Not really, only sometimes. It's mostly on Fridays and the last day before a break."

I didn't bother with a reply and just nodded at him as we continued to walk down the long driveway of the school. He told me that he lived quite close to the school, about a fifteen minute walk once you got to the end of the school's driveway, which made me feel relieved. We went a few minutes in an awkward silence which I tried to kill.

"Hey Mike? What's up with that Vic guy?"

Mike turned to look at me, debate clearly shown in his eyes. I heard him mumble something under his breath that I couldn't really make out, something along the lines of 'I wish you hadn't brought that up,' but I didn't know for sure.

"I'm not really sure. He looked like he knew you from somewhere. Do you know him?"

I nodded slightly, slightly confused at the drastically higher tone of his voice, I knew there was something going on that he wasn't telling me. But I just brushed it off and continued the conversation.

"Has he ever talked about me or anything?"

Now it was Mike's turn to shake his head, his face slightly more red than it was before we had started this
conversation. None of this made any sense, so I came to a conclusion, which was a complete excuse, that Vic was just a plain asshole, and that's all there was to it. But that little voice nagging me that there was more to it just kept pushing me to ask more. However, I didn't listen to the voice in fear that I would ruin a blossoming friendship that I hadn't had in years.

A few minutes had gone by and we approached Mike's house, which was very nice. It was two stories, not including what looked like a basement. It was quite large and stretched out far along the plush green backyard. The white paint looked fresh, as well the dark tan door. There were three front steps leading up to the door, and I could clearly see a porch and an in-ground pool in the back yard. There were no cars parked in the open garage, but I assumed it was because Mike's parents weren't home, which Mike said was the reason we had to walk to his house.

"Nice place."

"Thanks."

He walked inside, me following him like a lost puppy. The inside looked ten times bigger than I thought it would. It was about twice the size of my house, and I liked to think that I had a bigger than average sized house.

"Just a question, what do your parents do for a living?"

Mike chuckled to himself, probably at my unneeded attempt to be polite.

"My dad is a doctor and my mom works in programing."

After that, any subject regarding his parents, or even Vic for that matter, were dropped when we went up the stairs into Mike's room.

I looked around the room in shock. It was way bigger than my room, for starters. The walls were painted white, but you could barely see the paint through all the posters of various bands (that I happened to listen to, making me positive that we would always have something to talk about), movies, and tv shows. In the far right corner, he had a large unmade bed that had a black comforter and various blankets thrown onto the only sheet covered matress, along with multiple maroon pillows. He had a desk in front of the window, which I honestly doubt he used, with a blue lamp, Macbook laptop, and many notebooks and lose sheets of paper scattered across the wooden top. He had a flatscreen television on the wall direction in front of his bed, which was next to a closet and a bathroom. On the ground, plugged into the television was an Xbox and multiple game cases stacked on top of each other.

"How often do you leave this room?"

"To be honest, only to get food and go to school."

Laughing a bit at his response, Mike turned on the television and motioned me over to look at his collection of games. After selecting one, he handed me a control as the game menu flashed on the screen.

"I hope you're ready to get your ass kicked Kellin."

"I can say the same to you Mike."

We continued to play multiple video games until I could say that Mike had officially kicked my ass. As soon as we had finished, I heard the door open downstairs and a voice shout, "Mike! Are you here?"

Mike looked a bit panicked, but yelled back a hello and told me that I had to leave. I was confused at first, but then realized that the voice in my head fron earlier had been right.

"I'll walk you out. I can use my brother's car and drive you home." Mike shut the television off, got up, yanked me up and walked out the door. I followed him downstairs and and we were almost out of the house when I heard a voice from the kitchen.

"Hey Mike, do you know where..."

The voice cut off as we made eye contact, and at that moment I wanted the earth to turn into a black hole and swallow me.

Vic was staring at me with that same anger from lunch, the same kind that makes you want to run thirty miles with no hesitation.

"Can I have your keys? Let me just drive Kellin home and then we can talk," Mike pleaded, far too fast than a normal person. Vic didn't have to think about pulling the keys out of his back pocket and throwing them to Mike, but not before giving me a glare.

We rushed out of the house quickly and into Vic's car, my heart racing.

"Mike, why didn't you tell me?!"

"I'm sorry, I didn't know how to tell you. And I thought that if you knew you wouldn't want to hang out."

I sighed, knowing that he was 100% correct. If I knew that Vic was his brother, I would have made an excuse to avoid going to Mike's house.

"I guess you're right, but can you please just give me the truth? I know there's something else you're not telling me about him hating me," I tried to explain, although I knew I sounded pathetic.

"Look, Vic does talk about you. A lot. I do know what happened between the two of you, but he made me promise not to say a thing. All I can say is that although he threatened you, I know he the weight of the world would be lifted off his shoulders if you talked to him about this and figured it all out. Oh by the way, what's your address?"

I told Mike my address and was silent the rest of the ride, my mind filled with thoughts to last me a lifetime. And if I was curious before, I was dying now. But the one thing I just couldn't seem to wrap my brain around was; if Vic wanted to talk to me about this so badly, why would threaten me to scare me into even walking into the same classroom as him? None of it made sense, so I just decided to stay clear away from Vic until I got my thoughts in order.

We pulled into my driveway a few minutes later. My dad's car was in the driveway, so I knew I was fucked. Last time I came home late I couldn't move my arm for three days, and that was only an hour. The very thought of being four hours late sent shivers down my spine.

"Hey Kellin? Can I see your phone for a second?" Mike asked, my guess to give me his number.

I nodded and grabbed my phone out of my pocket, handing it to him. After a minute he gave it back to me and proved my thoughts. His name was in the contact with far too many emoticons and his number plugged in. I smiled at him and sent a quick text so he would have my number.

Dumbass - Kellin :)

I set my phone down in my lap and waited for his own phone to go off, and when it did, the look on his face was the best I had seen all week. He gasped and put his hand to his check in a mock hurt, making it even more funny. But after a few seconds he burst out laughing with me, and then put my phone number as a contact.

"I'll see you tomorrow Kellin," Mike smiled as I opened the door and exited the car. I didn't reply, just shut the door and waved to him before turning around and walking to the house. But before I could even open the door, my father beat me to it. It took me not even a second to recognize the alcohol on his breath.

"Where the fuck have you been!" he roared, grabbing my wrist so tight, I could have sworn my wrist almost broke. He started to drag me insids by the wrist when I realized something.

I didn't hear Mike drive away.

I turned around quickly and saw that Mike's car was just leaving my
driveway. And the windows were down.

He saw. He heard. He knows.

My dad didn't seem to give a shit though, he just slammed the door and started. He kicked me in the leg, hard, causing me to drop to the wooden floor and cry out in pain.

"I said where the fuck have you been!"

"I-I was at a friend's house."

He let out a bitter laugh before roughly kicking me in the ribs, moving his head to meet mine.

"Go upstairs, I don't want to see you for the rest of the night," he muttered before kicking me once more. I scrambed to my feet as fast I could without hurting my ribs and rushed up the stairs, thankful that was all he gave me.

I ran into my room and locked the door, my back sliding against it until I was sitting against the white door, my head in my hands. All I could do was cry. I jusg didn't understand why.

Where did I go wrong? What did I do to deserve this?

And the one explanation I could come up with was whatever I had done to Vic must have been pretty fucking horrible.

I didn't know how long it took to calm down. My hands were still shaking when I stripped out of my clothes and slipped under my covers in only my boxers. I looked over at the clock to see that it was 10:00; I had gotten home four hours ago.

And as I fell asleep that night, with tears stained to my cheeks, I was reminded of the words of my only friend back in Michigan, Austin.

We were in his room smoking (something we rarely did) and I ended up asking him if he believed in God.

"I don't know," he said, but not before taking a drag of his cigarette and blowing out the gray smoke.

"There might be a God. Maybe there's three Gods, maybe there's a million of them, or maybe a force. Maybe there's nothing at all. I just hope that whatever is out there is good to us."

I thought of his words far too often than I should, not in attempt to remember, but that maybe there is hope for my fucked up life. But one of us is dead and the other is lost, something that tells me that whatever God is out there isn't good to us at all.