The Locker Wars

William was well on his way to getting over Adele. Well on his way, meaning that he had gotten over the depression and gone onto some other stage. Or so, he liked to tell himself.

“Jason,” he whispered to his friend during Creative Writing class, “Yo. Tell everyone to meet at lunch.”

“What for?” Jason questioned. He was used to William just scribbling down some depressed poetry for this class. And now William just started talking out of nowhere.

“Nothing.” William toyed with his pencil in his hands, not looking up. Jason only looked back down at his work.

* * *

William’s behaviour was weird. None of the group had expected this, some sort of immediate 180 from sad and gloomy to all of a sudden busy and... Still quiet, but there was an odd sparkle in his eye.

“Bill,” Jason waved a hand in front of his friend’s face. The rest of the group was getting restless, just sitting while Bill himself stared off into space. “Isn’t there something important that you wanted to tell us?”

“Yeah.” William bit down on his lip. “Okay, well, I was thinking of planning an attack.”

“I thought the war was over...” Mike murmured curiously.

“It is!” William cried suddenly, and everyone flinched. This was the most emotion that he’d shown in weeks, and it definitely scared the rest of the guys. “This way, Adele won’t see it coming.”

“What about the rest of her group?” Butcher questioned.

“Fuck that!” William threw his hands up in the air as if he’d already succeeded. “This war needs to be won, and it was never finished. I say that we finish and we win.”

Michael folded his arms. “And how exactly are we going to do this?”

William grinned, surveying his friends. “You’ll see.”

* * *

Adele was walking home with Riley after school. She’d seen William and his friends snickering at her as they walked towards Riley’s, but she ignored it. At least some things had gotten back to order, because she hadn’t been stared at so intently by that group since the war was still in progress.

“So,” Riley sighed in dramatic tone, “You still going out with Skyler tonight?”

“Yeah,” Adele shrugged. “I mean, the other day, he was being an asshole, but I figured that I’d just give him another chance, you know?”

“Why was he being an asshole?” Riley questioned.

“Well... he was like... you know... being all... guy-ish...” Adele shrugged.

Her friend eyed her suspiciously. “That was an awful lot of pauses. What happened?”

“He was... you know... touching me.” And with that, Adele’s cheeks flared red, and she tried to look somewhere else.

“The fuck! He seemed like a nice guy... did he ask you to sex him or something?” Riley was wide-eyed.

“No, but, I mean, it was there.” Adele bit her lip. “Seriously. I told him off though. I don’t even know what got into him. He usually is nice.”

“So? Like, all guys want the same thing,” Riley giggled. She pretended to check out Adele. “And I know why, damn!”

Adele pushed her friend and they giggled before continuing on home.

* * *

“I don’t think I can let you do this, Bill,” Jason sighed in confrontation with his friend. William looked behind Jason, and the rest of his group was standing on his porch, telling him that he couldn’t go through with an attack.

“One of the rules was that we couldn’t attack just one of them,” Butcher sighed. “You’re just going way too far, man.”

“What do you mean?” William asked in a shocked voice. “You’ve... you’ve got to be kidding me. Don’t tell me that you’re about to abandon me, in my time of need!”

“Don’t get all dramatic.” Mike rolled his eyes. “But this is totally bogus, William. Bogus.”

William’s eyes widened. Never, in the history of the almost-twelve years that the War had been played, had anybody told him what was wrong and what was right. He’d been able to do what he wanted. Nothing had even been separated as ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. The rules bent around what he wanted. It hadn’t ever been changed.

“I—” William’s mouth trembled. “What are you talking about? I’m not individually attacking her.”

“Sabotaging someone’s night is attacking someone personally,” Jason smirked. “Come on, Bill, we’ll talk about this. We can just work it out, you know...”

“What, are you breaking up with me?!” William cried. “Never mind. You know what, I don’t need you guys.”

“Well, we don’t need you,” Mike sneered, and then William shut the door, and they all left.

And William slammed his palm onto his forehead, thinking about how fucked up everything was.