He's Been Damaged, He's Been Misused

Ricky had ended up spending the entire weekend at Carter's house since he wouldn't take him home, and Ricky didn’t wanted to walk home anyway. It wasn’t too bad, Ricky had decided. Of course Carter yelled at him a couple times and faced his punishment like Carter had promised, but other than that, Carter treated him real sweet.

Carter had told Ricky earlier that he would have Ricky over on weekends and would let him stay home on the weekdays, unless Carter was at Ricky’s house on those weekends. For short, the two would be together every weekend, no matter where the location was. Ricky didn’t even consider protesting, he didn’t wanna face the consequences. It wouldn’t be too bad anyways, he could have the weekdays to himself.

He is currently in lunch, the only time he could be alone with Kevin and Chris without Carter. It was as if Carter didn’t think this through, or did he not know that he usually sat with the two during lunch? Either way, he was sitting with them.

“So, how was your weekend, Ricky?” Kevin asks as he focuses his attention on his smaller friend with a smile. Ricky doesn’t look up at him but shrugs and puts on a smile anyways.

“It was pretty good,” he somewhat lies, somewhat tells the truth. He did enjoy his weekend, other than the fact that his body was hurting after receiving his punishment for his wrongdoings.

“That’s good! What did you do? Actually, I already know. You hung out with Carter?” Kevin was still smiling and asking his friend questions about his weekend. Ricky only nodded.

“What about you, Chris?”

“I had a sleepover with Devin!” Chris says happily, pulling Ricky’s mood down quite a bit. Of course he was with Devin, his new best friend. The smile Ricky wore crumbled and fell, leaving a scowl on his lips instead. He was being replaced by Devin Sola. Well, he didn’t need Chris anyways! He had Carter!

Chris looks to Ricky, noticing the frown on his face. “Ricky, you alright?”

“Yes.”

Ricky is clearly pissed, so he decided to just leave him be. He knows not to bother him when he’s upset like this. Kevin and Chris talk until the bell rings, and Ricky quickly left the scene to get to his new class.

“What’s wrong with Ricky?” Kevin asks Chris as he watches the sophomore push through the herd of people clogging the doorway.

“I don’t know, man. I’m just gonna leave him alone for a bit, give him some time to cool down. He’ll text me when he does like always,” Chris answers him.

“Alright. We gonna stand here and wait for the crowd to die down or are we gonna follow Ricky's lead?"

"The second option," Chris suggests as he grabs the smaller boy's wrist and pulls him through the students.

<><><>

Ricky didn't wait for Chris like he usually did, Chris realizes after a whole of leaning against the wall next to the entrance of the school. Chris sighs and sits up, but a voice caught his attention before he could go anywhere.

"Chris!" Ghost called out to him when he approaches. Chris smiles when he steps in front of him. "Ricky not here?"

Chris shakes his head and shoves his hands in the pockets of his hoodie.

"Oh."

"He's in a bad mood, is all I know, though," Chris adds. Devin nods as they're left in silence, but it wasn't too awkward. They stay like that for a few seconds.

"I'm supposed to be staying after school, bye!" Devin waves before walking back into the building. Chris chuckles to himself a bit, that kid walked out here just to say hey to him. with that thought lingering in his mind, he begins walking home, alone.

While Chris was doing so, he had to stay after school too. Ironically enough, it's the same exact classroom Devin had to stay back in. Devin notices Ricky sitting in the back and heads that way, stopping in front of Ricky. Ricky notices a presence standing before him and looks up to glare at the person, still in a bitchy mood. Seeing Devin doesn't make him feel better at all, but Devin smiles at him.

Devin means no harm, you know... It's not his fault Chris wants to replace you with him, Ricky thinks to himself as he softens his gaze, allowing him to smile back.

"Hey, wanna sit?" Ricky offers, nodding towards one of the empty seats next to him. Devin nods shyly and sits down.

Devin wanted to ask what was wrong, remembering his glare he had as he approached, but he seemed a bit better now though, so he let it be. They didn't speak anything else, though, just sat there quietly as they waited for their teacher to come back in and bring them back their tests they were supposed to be working on.

Their teacher finally came in after a while in a rush. He quickly apologized to the few teenagers in the room as he searched through his papers, handing them to his students. When Ricky and Devin finally got theirs, Ricky notices that Devin only had a few more questions left to answer.

He himself, had over the entire packet.

Devin notices Ricky's lack of progress, but doesn't say anything, just pities him. He didn't think the test was all that hard, and there's also the possibility of Ricky having to stay until closing time. Man, that sucks. He remembered having to do that once. Let's just say the walk through the school and all the way home wasn't very pleasant.

Ricky worked quietly and as fast as he could, desperate to get home. He didn't give a shit about his grade at the moment. So, he finished in about five minutes, just as Devin finished.

"You're done already?" he whispers as he notices Ricky closing the packet. Ricky nods. "Did you guess?" Another nod. "Ricky, this is a test! You can't just guess through it!"

"But I really wanna get out of here!"

"But Ricky, I don't want you to fail!"
"Then you're gonna have to get over it!" Ricky whispers, very irritated now. Devin's expression saddened. He didn't want Ricky to dislike him, let alone be mad at him. But he also didn't want him to fail this class, like he said before. Devin came up with a risky conclusion as he switches his packet with Ricky's without anyone noticing.

"What?"

"Just make it look like you're checking your work," Devin whispers as he looks through Ricky's test. In the end, Ricky got half of them wrong. Devin purposely left some of the wrong answers the way it was so the teacher wouldn't be suspicious, but corrected his work enough so he couldn't get any lower than a B. Devin gave Ricky his packet back and instructed him to go ahead and turn it in to the teacher. Devin would waits few minutes before turning his in.

When Devin finally got out, he sees that Ricky waited for him in the hallway. He smiles at him when Ricky turns to look at him.

"Thanks for that, Devs," Ricky thanks him.

"You're my friend, friends are supposed to look out for each other."

"Even if they may get in big trouble?"

"Yeah."

Ricky chuckles before waving bye, turning and leaving. Devin makes his way home too.