Fletcher didn't like people, so he never made an effort to make friends.

Well, after middle school that is. But that was because he was young — naive and maybe a little less damaged than he was now — and had only experienced heavy rain, not thunderstorms.

In the seventh grade, his best friend was Sam Gibbins. He was short, but few inches taller than he was; had chocolate-coloured skin and the wildest curls Fletcher has ever seen. Sam wasn't much of a talker, so his words came in the form of rough sketches and uncontrolled paint strokes. Regardless, he kept Fletcher company at school, back when his only problems were fitting in.

They don't talk much now though. Not after Fletcher pulled away, slowly towards the end of school as his household began to create more lighting, each one greater than before. Suppose that was when Fletcher realised all good things didn't last, so it was either save yourself the trouble or endure it all.

Fletcher Greenly already had enough trouble as it is.

So it wasn't a surprise that he loathed every second he spent with Thea Banks.

Thea Banks was the annoying type of person — someone that Fletcher couldn't stand above all. She laughed too much, smiled too much, and talked too much. She was a human version of a sunny day in California, with sunflowers painted into her eyes and roses drawn onto her cheeks.

She was everything that Fletcher wasn't.

Happy.

And Fletcher couldn't stand the things he couldn't have.

"Don't you have anywhere else to sit?" Fletcher scowled, gritting his teeth as he watched Thea look up at him and flash him a smile.

She shook her head. Her golden perfect locks playfully clapping against her cheeks. "Nah. I like sitting here."

"Don't you have any friends?"

There was a slight pause, as she chewed on her sandwich, but when she swallowed she perked up and said, "Yeah. But I'd rather hang out with you."

Fletcher groaned. "And why is that?"

"Because you seem lonely." Thea shrugged. Once again, she looked at him right in the eyes and smiled. "Thought you might like some company."

"I don't like company."

"Then what do you like?"

"Peace and quiet," Fletcher frowned, gripping his tray tight before getting up from his spot. "So leave me the fuck alone."

And without another word, Fletcher left the cafeteria, leaving Thea Banks utterly speechless and utterly alone.

—

The thing about disliking people was that you can never escape them — because they're always there, wherever you go.

And Fletcher had a class filled with them at the end of the day.

His chemistry class had a total of thirty-four people — the most number of students compared to all his other classes. He's been in high school long enough to know that at the end of the day, everyone was out of it.

The lab was divided into three sections: the front row were all the attentive people, those who nodded along to whatever the teacher said because it made the class end faster. Then there was the middle row, who were dead silent because their minds either shut down or wandered about. Finally, there was the back row, which were filled with students who gave absolutely no bullshit and bickered so much that they drowned the teacher out.

That was where Fletcher sat.

In retrospect, the noise wasn't unbearable. He was used to drowning people out. The only real problem was — he couldn't stand being around these people.

"I honestly could not give less of a damn about oxides," a boy to Fletcher's right mumbled — Wayne, was it? — as he buried his face in his hands. "Shoot me."

Gladly, Fletcher thought.

"Then flunk it. It's not like you need Chem anyways — you're taking engineering, right?" The kid to Fletcher's farther right — Kyle from sixth grade — nudged. He looked too calm and relaxed for a junior. He was probably the type to take things too lightly and callously throw his future away.

His friend shook his head. "Does that matter though? My parents would freak if I get a bad mark on any of my classes."

Fletcher turned to them, only briefly, and wondered how it was like. For their parents to care too much. It was weird — the prospect. It just seemed so normal. An emotion without screaming it out loud, something Fletcher never knew.

He didn't realise how much his mind wandered until the bell rang. Fletcher blinked twice, trying to put his vision to focus, then shrugged it off like usual. On the way out, Mrs. Bonham handed each of them out notes for their next test. Fletcher took his quietly, head down and glasses slowly falling down along the bridge of his nose.

About to push them up, two kids rushed passed him, colliding against his shoulder hard enough for Fletcher's glasses to fall to the ground, but too soft for them to notice or hear the glass shatter as one of them stepped on it on the way out.

"Shit," Fletcher swore under his breath. He picked them up slowly, carefully examining them. But, even through the blurriness, he knew they were a lost cause. So he sighed, tucked his now broken glasses into his pocket, and silently went back home.