4 Things John thought about after Francis left the bathroom

1. Francis remembers the fight. He has to. Maybe he just doesn't care. It was a pretty awful fight. John had said some nasty things he didn't mean, and Francis had done the same. They hadn't talked for two weeks before school ended and hadn't talked at all over summer. Which was fine, since Johns family had gone out on vacation during that. And then John had gone back to summer camp, which he had been doing since the time he was around seven. So maybe it didn't matter.

2. John was increasingly becoming aware that he smelled like cum. Gross.

3. Francis is the only one that's ever liked him. Like liked him. People liked John. He wasn't exactly unpopular. He played football and all that, but he could be very quiet. He hung out with 'popular' people, but more just lingered than hunt out. John hadn't exactly understood it when girls had started to come over and sit by him, and put their hand on his thigh, and whisper, "Do you want to come to my place tonight?"

4. John is gay. For real, no getting rid of it, forever he would be like this. He knew he couldn't really change it. It was hard to wrap his head around the fact that he, out of all things he could be, out of all people he could be, he was John. And he was gay. And he had just jizzed in the bathroom with his 'best friend'.

8 Things John thought about in class.

1. John would really love some ice cream right about now. Last year, he had lunch and his prep period right next to each other. So he'd fool around with Francis and then go to the cafeteria and get lunch. If he paid an extra dollar, they would give him ice cream. Not shitty, old ice cream that his elementary school would give out. Nah, this was top notch stuff. Cookie dough was in it, with chocolate chips. It was so good. He usually had it on Fridays. But with how today was panning out, he could go for some ice cream.

2. How is Eleanor doing? Was staying at home all day boring? He assumed it wasn't the best time of her life. John knew she liked working. It must be scary for her. Maybe that's why John was afraid to come out. Or at least one of the reasons. John didn't want her to go through anything else more scary. How scary it must be for her. He couldn't do that to Eleanor. That'd be cruel. Imagine that. Having cancer, an finding out your eldest son is gay. Johns stomach twisted queasily.

3. What's Eleanors favorite type of ice cream? Probably strawberry.

4. If a person had a foot long dick, how would it fit in their pants?

5. John decided he already didn't like this teacher. She was condescending repeatedly. This would be a long year. Or maybe it wouldn't be, if he, like all other juniors, gave up and came to school high off something everyday. Maybe he could curse at the teacher and get sent to the office. Have his father sternly go, 'John Laurens, apologize.' And John would scoff and call the teacher an ass.

6. He could never do that to a teacher.

7. John forgot how to do subtraction over the summer. Are the numbers supposed to be stacked like that?

8. Math is fuckin gross.

8 Things John missed from sophomore year.

1. The cafeteria got rid of popcorn chicken. That and the ice cream was the best things that they sold. John used to eat the popcorn chicken when he walked home from school. He learned his love for that food at summer camp. They had these little things of popcorn chicken that John loved. So when he went back to school, he had checked if the cafeteria sold it. And sure enough, they did. But not anymore. The poor freshman would never know what the cafeterias great popcorn chicken tasted like.

2. Art class. They had stopped letting kids take art because last year, there was some problem with one of the male models that came in. John had heard the rumor that the male model fucked the female model. He wasn't sure how accurate this information was since it was coming from John André, and André had a habit of making things more than they really were. So now John had to take theatre instead. He wasn't loving it. He was probably going to find a way to be a teachers assistant.

3. As much as everyone complained about them, John missed the beginning of the year survey. It was this survey that everyone got from eighth to twelfth grade. The survey asked how the kids felt about their teachers and peers and all that. John had kind of liked being able to anonymously share his opinion about people. ..How anonymous is that survey?

4. Easy homework. John had homework the first day of school. Granted, it wasn't really homework, but John still didn't want to do it much at all. He had to get his parents to sign some papers saying he was allowed to watch movies and all that, and that he was allowed to go on the laptops.

5. Having his schedule synched up with Francis'. They used to have every class except adversary together. They always found a way to hang out during adversary though. The days that they had it, John would have to prepare himself to be tired for quite a bit. Since that probably meant they were going to fool around at least twice that day.

6. Adversary. They had gotten rid of a whole fucking class period and replaced it with Homeroom. They already had homeroom, but now they had it as a for real class. A for real, twenty minute class. He had his homeroom teacher on the second floor, had to walk all the way downstairs to chemistry, and then all the way back up because his homeroom teacher was also his Language and Literature teacher.

7. Being allowed to use his phone through passing period. They had gotten rid of that too and put a rule in about not ever being on the phone. It sucked balls. John knew that rule wouldn't be enforced whatsoever. And if it was, a lot a people would complain. If he actually cared, maybe he might go complain too.

8. Francis being nice to him. Even though Francis still talked to him, he wasn't nice at all. He was so mean. To be frank, it hurt Johns feelings.

1 Text message John received from Francis after school.

1. F.Kinloch:> I still like you. In case you were wondering.