Alex pov~

Bud rides. Always my favorite thing. Especially when I'm stuffed next to Burr and his girlfriend (who's actually pretty nice) while they chatter away about some drama at their school and Burr gives the stupidest of advice. 'Talk less, smile more, bleh bleh bleh'.

I turn to Theo and grab her hand (It's chill, we're friends, I ain't tryna steal her).

"You know what you need to do?"

"What?"

"Set up secret cameras. Everywhere. And voice recorders. Then you'd know everything and never have to listen to gossip again."

"Isn't that a bit excessive?"

"Excessive?! Aren't you willing to pay any price for the utter domination of hallway gossip? I know I am and I've given myself an idea."

"He'll do it. He's proven capable." Burr interjected.

"I am capable." I nodded proudly and Theo laughed.

"I'm sure you are."

Well if there's one nice thing about burr is that when we first met (before I'd come out) he 'misgendered' me and kept using he/him pronouns for me, which I was very much chill with. I dunno where this memory came from, it just kinda popped up.

"Yo it's your stop, hurry." I shooed them off and leaned back against the glass.

It's time for the super long and really boring trip where I just blast my brains out with a playlist all my friends and family question my sanity for. Apparently one isn't supposed to mix one's mcr with one's mxmtoon or one's dear Evan Hansen with one's Taylor Swift. I dunno what they're talking about, I think its convenient to have everything in one spot. I have other playlists where I separate them but sometimes I'm in a wacky, I-want-to-listen-to-emo-music-and-showtunes-and-indie-music-simultaneously mood so I just hit shuffle and voila! all I want in one, 7hour 9minute playlist. 🤠👍

I watched the scenery fly by and opened docs, fingers hovering over the tiny little iPhone keyboard while my brain scrambled for a good way to end the sentence. The dilemma was basically something like this: comma or no comma? Cause it completely changed the meaning of the sentence, you know? And it's an important sentence. Actually, I'm scrapping the whole sentence. Stupid sentence. Ok but now what? ........I gotta replace that stupid sentence. Damn. With what? Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I dunno. Ahrajyswgvaahklnmfgnssfnkfgkesrnswavikkdawyjneqvjtwgwhjegj. Perfect.

That's all the writing for this bud trip. It's now time to lean against the window and close my eyes and try to convince everyone
I don't exist.

"Alex!"

I failed.

"Hey bastard how are you?" I opened my eyes to see who it was despite already knowing who it was.

"Hey flamingo." I paused my music and hooked my headphones around my neck as Thomas sat beside me, someone I didn't recognize squeezing in beside him, which led to him scooching to make him space which led to me being squashed against the window. Why'm I always the one squashed against a window?

"You seem grumpy." Thomas pointed out.

"Why thank you Sherlock, you really are an astute being." I snapped back.

"Is he always like this?" Unknown Person asked.

"Actually, he's kinda in a good mood right now."

"Macaroni, I can hear you." I pointed at the guy I didn't know. "And who's that?"

"New kid."

"More than halfway through the school year?"

"Um, you can't judge."

I grumbled, which is basically my way of admitting he has a point: I did kinda show up out of the blue a few weeks after Christmas break.

"Fine. What's your name?" I looked at the guy.

"James Madison. Nice to meet you." He held out his hand for me to shake and I took it, frowning when he recoiled. "Your hand's cold."

"Oh yeah?" I turned to Thomas. "You picked up someone of your own intelligence. I mean, I didn't think there were any buy here we are."

"Can you not pick on everyone?"

I scoffed, and I'm pretty sure that was the answer he was expecting.

"James moved here from a school on the other side of the kingdom."

Now I'm interested. I leaned over Thomas to get closer. "Why? Did you do something? Did they kick you out? What happened? I got kicked out for 'being too disruptive'."

"No... it was a work thing."

"You work?"

"My mom."

"Oh. Ok, you've lost your interest. Tom, tell me when we reach out stop." I put my headphones back on and unpaused my music.

You know, there's a whole trope for 'depressed jerk face kid' and I think I've fallen into it. I mean, what'm I supposed to do about it? You start acting reclusive and wearing dark clothes and people start to give you looks you can basically feel. It's not like you can avoid the trope. Doesn't help when you also have a reputation for being 'disruptive' or whatever. Like, if I were to suddenly start wearing pastels and dresses or whatever (dresses are nice) people would still see me as strange, instead of just another one of them. I've found that once you've gained a label you just can't shake it.

"Did Burr catch a ride?" Thomas asked, taking my headphones of my head.

"Yeah, with Theo. Can I have my headphones back now?" I tried to grab them but he's tall (at least compared to me) and I'm short so that went pretty unsuccessfully for me.

"Well now you're all emotional, you'll break them with your magic cold hands." He's tssked. "This is why I tell you to wear gloves, Alex."

I grabbed his wrist and, as he accurately pointed out, I was emotional and frost-handed, so he yelped and tossed me my headphones.

"Fall elves." I grumbled, aware he could hear. "So sensitive."

"It's our stop." James interrupted and I groaned, putting my headphones on and pocketing my phone.

We got off and walked to school, mixing with the crowd of kids also doing just that.

It's a miracle Thomas is still my friend. Well, friend might be an exaggeration, but we get along pretty well most of the time. The dude is persistent though, he very pointedly sticks by my side even after huge blowup fights. He's magical. A magical magenta-wearing macaroni.

—~•~—

Chapitre deux.

It probably sucks but it was just an idea I had so..... we'll see I guess.

Right now we're doing the I-just-started-a-book-so-I'm-gonna-publish-constantly routine, but it'll slow down later.

Oh, and this is lams, not jamilams or jamilton so don't get your hopes up/despair.

Sincerely,
Starii🌼