I'm running late for school so I cut through the high rises. Old buildings tower around me with deteriorating grey brick and laundry hanging from every other balcony. This is where the poor kids live. The buildings guard the forest park to the east, and to the west, they cast ugly shadows over the houses of the rich white kids – the cool kids at school, the fuckboys. They are a new level of douche. The Justin Bieber look-a-like douche. The OVO douche.

Passing the last building I reach the street in front of the school and I wait by the curb beside another kid wearing his Catholic school uniform to the tee, with creases in his grey pants, his white button up polo tucked in, his navy blue tie tight around his collar. There's an opening in the passing cars and I let him cross first so I don't cross with him. People might think we're friends.

My white button up is untucked and unbuttoned, showing off my sarcastic Sriracha t-shirt underneath. A leather Indian Jones fedora hangs low on my brow, concealing my eyes. My long bangs hang down from under my hat, like Johnny Depp's bangs in the original 21 Jump Street, hiding my cheeks and framing my wide nose. I hate being seen, that's why I hate being so tall. I'm wiry and taller than the average high school junior, that's why I slouch when I walk.

From the looks of it, you wouldn't think much of me. Even Mr. P was surprised that I ran faster than most of the jocks in gym class, and overpowered almost all of them in wrestling drills. Mr. P asked me to try out for the football team in grade 9, and I would have, except that I fucking hate sports.

There's another gap in the passing cars and I dart through it. I cut through the grass lawn in front of our school. All around me, the plaid kilt girls and grey pants boys are congregating towards the two-story red building, most of them staggering in solo then joining other stragglers as they move closer to the same point, forming pairs and groups, sticking together like colliding atoms.

I turn the corner and see Maddox, Bart and Tristan hanging out next to the dumpsters at the edge of the parking lot -- three dumpsters occupying three parking spots. There's broken glass all around. There's a faint smell of piss that protects the prime smoking spot from other cooler kids. A dented grocery cart sticks out over the rim of one dumpster. Another dumpster has yellow graffiti spray painted on its side, anonymous names like "Loony", "Doublez" and "Madman", names that mean something to someone, but anonymous tags to me. All graffiti is anonymous, like the fake names in the comment section of a YouTube video.

Maddox, Bart and Tristan's neckties are stuffed into their back pockets like Crip flags. They smoke cigarettes in their bitch circle, backs against the world around them. Not nerd, not cool, and not belonging to any clique. They are actually the worst, and I'm one of them.

I lower the fedora on my brow and join the circle, "What are you guys saying?"

"Chillin'. Chillin'." Maddox is blonde and the whitest person I know. He's an only child who eats the same ham and cheese sandwich for lunch everyday and secretly listens to Taylor Swift, but he speaks and acts like he listens to 21 Savage. The best thing about Maddox is you can convince him to buy anything. The trick is to convince him to buy something he won't use then you can buy it form him later at a discount. That's how I got my Bose headphones.

Bart is telling a story to Tristan who is yawning, only half listening. Bart is Armenian and shorter than all of us. He has stubby, hairy arms and wears an ugly Stitches button up. It's ugly because it's from Stitches.

"Julie Gautreau," says Bart.

"Bullshit," Maddox moans.

"It's true. I gave her the lizard."

"The lizard?" says Tristan.

"Yea, like this," Bart sticks out his tongue and flicks it up and down rapidly.

"That was gross what you just did," hisses Tristan. "Don't fucking do that again in front of me."

Tristan's black hair is tied up into a top-knot. He keeps swiping right on his phone, sometimes not even looking, while sipping on his Red Bull.

A niner stumbles by and asks us where the gymnasium is.

"Get the fuck out of here!" barks Tristan and the kid scurries off.

Another kid approaches, older, probably in grade 11.

"Shit, is that Gerald Pulver?" says Tristan. "Okay, good. It's not." The kid passes us.

Every ten seconds or so, Tristan would talk about how he beat up some kid who looked at him wrong, or kicked some guy's ass for talking shit to him. Hashtag bullshit.

"Tristan just taxed a Hillside kid," Bart says to me, swaying side to side on his stubby legs, one of his many annoying fidgets.

"You know how it is," Tristan tips his Detroit Tigers cap up implying he copped it from some poor Hillside Academy kid. I'm sure there's a $39.99 price tag in a garbage can in his house somewhere.

"Nice rag," Tristan points at my fedora.

"Thanks."

"My grandfather has one just like it," Tristan smirks. Click fuck you.

Tristan is always giving backhanded compliments like that, anything to one-up me and everyone else around him. I beat Tristan in Street Fighter II once and he never spoke to me for a week.

"Hey guys, did you know that rapper Inkyy? His last tweet was 'Drunk as fuck, going one twenty, drifting corners. Fuck it, you only live once'. A few minutes after that tweet, he crashed up his car and died," I say. But none of them are listeining. I shoot a look at Maddox, and it's like he's not even there. Probably in his bedroom, dancing to Shake It Off.

"Alright, I'm gonna dip," Bart raises his closed hand and I give him daps, bumping my fist to his.

"Where you going," says Maddox.

"I gotta do some runs," says Bart. He's implying that he's going to sell drugs. All the fuckboys sell drugs, mostly just a bag of weed or Xanax here and there, not for the money, but so they can say they're drug dealers. The only problem is Bart isn't a fuckboy. Just a wannabe. A stubby virgin who stutters when he talks to girls. He doesn't lie either though, ever, so he probably is doing his runs--selling a dime to some nerd in grade 9, probably.

Everyone smokes weed now. Even nerds. Except nerds talk about how much weed they smoke, but cool people don't talk about weed at all. They just smoke it.

"Runs my ass," moans Tristan once Bart is out of listening distance. He's notorious for talking behind everyone's back. I can only wonder what kind of shit he says about me when I'm not there. "He's probably selling a dime to some nerd in grade 9."

They remind me so much of myself I can barely stand them.

"You see that monkey Tobias? Dude shaved his head, he looks like a fucking Raisinet", Tristan laughs. He's jealous that Tobias is popular now and doesn't hang out with us. We all are, I think, but with Tristan, you never hear the end of it. We're like crabs in a bucket, holding each other down, and Tristan is king crab. God forbid one of us climbs out, gets a girlfriend, gets invited to an actual cool party. Must be nice, Tobias.

"So what you saying Friday? I hear Renna's poppin'," says Maddox. Maddox is the closest thing we have to a cool friend. For one, he lives in the rich area. Also, he's not half bad to look at. Lauren Morro had a crush on him in grade 7, and even Cathy Samoa once asked him why he hung out with us, and right in front of us, too. Why do you hang out with the weirdos, she asked him. Fuck her. She doesn't know what it's like to be unwanted. She gets offered sex ten times a day. Every time a guy lends her his pen. Every time a guy offers to drive her to school in the morning. Maybe if we had some balls we'd tell her to fuck off for calling us weird. Maybe if Maddox had some balls he'd smush Cathy, and Lauren, too. That was all our problem. Hashtag no balls.

"Who's reachin'?" says Tristan.

"Asics, Henry, Ortiz."

"Is Michelle Singh? You know that bitch is still stalking my ass. I'm trying to avoid her," says Tristan. Number one, Michelle Singh is too hot to stalk anyone, let alone Tristan. Number two, he wishes. There's always some thot stalking Tristan, according to Tristan, of course. Shawna, Heather, Meg, he likes to drop the names of girls he allegedly fucked before -- keyword 'allegedly'. "Who else?"

"Deek and his boys."

"Fucking no body."

"I hear Rocco's gonna be there."

Tristan's ears perk up.

"Rocco Consentino?"

Maddox nods his head, knowing he struck a chord there. Rocco is an Instagram legend. He posts memes that everyone likes, nerds and fuckboys and thots alike. His account went viral, with 120K followers, the most in the whole school. He's a fucking boss, destined for greatness outside of this piece of shit school.

"Look at this," I pull out my phone and show them a Game of Thrones meme I made. It's of Danaerys holding a dragon egg with the caption 'When you find the perfect avocado'.

Maddox cracks a smile. Nothing from Tristan.

"You made that?" says Tristan.

"Yea."

"You have a lot of time on your hands, eh? Must be nice," hashtag fake smile.

Click fuck you.

"Yo, did you see Connor's Roger Rabbit challenge? It's fucking hilarious. I died," says Maddox.

Connor is a genuine fuckboy in the school. I hate Connor because he's just like all the other fuckboys, dressed in their long ripped t-shirts and skinny pants. Their flat-billed caps and Jordan's. I keep mistaking him for Conrad, who's also a fuckboy in grade 11, and who even wears the same white Jordan's. One time I mistook Connor for Josh Conway, a fuckboy in grade 12, though I'm pretty sure he doesn't go to this school anymore. But mostly, I hate Connor because he's going out with Nadia Ricci.

Maddox holds out his iPhone. Tristan and I lean over to look at it. It's an Instagram video of Connor doing the Roger Rabbit dance to a New Kids on the Block song. I grab the phone from him to get a better look. The video has 384 likes. Comments are even coming in as we're watching the video. Victor Obasi tags Lawrence Ivers. Pardeep Chambal tags Walter Torres. There's a comment from fucking Bart. He wrote: LOL

Oh em gee, did Roberta just comment with five purple heart emojis in a row?

I start to sweat. I can feel a burning in my chest as my fist clenches tighter around Maddox's iPhone.

"What's wrong?" Maddox looks at me. "You're shaking, bro."