"Take me to the lakes where all the poets went to die

I don't belong, and my beloved, neither do you"

- Taylor Swift, "the lakes"

Will wrote quietly in his pocket journal in the corner of James' living room. All of his friends decided to get together after school that day to play video games, but Will's mind was still stuck in the past. Merely a week ago, Will had his magical run-in with Indie the enigma, who probably thought he was an idiot and never wanted to talk to him again; but Will was completely smitten.

Will was a member of an outsiders-friendly group that Edward lovingly referred to as "The Unorthodox Underdogs." None of the other boys used that title, as they deemed it "stupid." Will deduced that they, most likely, didn't know what unorthodox even meant, hence why they didn't adopt it as the official name for the friend group.

In their group of underdogs, there was James the jock, Forrest the outdoorsman, Edward (Eddie) the nerd, and of course, Will, the hopeless romantic. If Edward hadn't joined the group, Will would've been given his title in a heartbeat.

"Whatcha penning, Writer Will?" Forrest asked, his deep voice booming through the house as he focused on the TV.

"Nothin'." Will replied, his heartbeat quickening at the thought of his friends reading his poems referencing Indie's beauty.

"When are you gonna let us read one of those, lover boy?" James heckled as he flipped his overdue-for-a-haircut mop of blond hair.

Will pulled his journal closer to his chest, forcing his pen to stop writing entirely. "When I write something that consists of words you actually know the meanings of."

James cringed. "Yikes, burn." He replied, jamming the buttons on his controller. He then tossed it on the carpeted floor as Edward let out a victorious laugh.

"How do you always manage to win these things?" Forrest inquired, popping a Dorito in his mouth.

Edward tapped his temple. "Intuition, my fellow man."

"I do not know what that is." Forrest shook his head.

"That is evident," Edward quipped, taking off his square glasses to clean them on the edge of his shirt.

James stood up, looking defeated as he grabbed the chip bowl. "I'm gonna refill this, anybody want anything while I'm up?"

"Your mom," Forrest joked, nudging Will.

Will looked at Forrest briefly before turning back to his journal. It was impossible to write in these conditions. He was unsure as to why he even brought his journal, although he literally went nowhere without it. Not to mention he didn't really enjoy playing video games all that much, something that his friends picked on him for. Repeatedly.

Forrest followed James into the kitchen, leaving Edward and Will sitting alone in the living room. Will had zoned out, his gaze fixating on the chair that Forrest had just been sitting in. Edward whistled to get Will's attention, his pale hands folded in his lap.

"You've seemed kinda... out of it lately. Is everything alright in William Land?" Edward asked quietly, fluffing up his unruly auburn curls.

Will shrugged coolly. "Eh, just doing a lot of thinking lately."

"I could tell," Edward chuckled. "You've been writing in that tiny notebook like your life depends on it."

"In some ways, it does," Will cleared his throat. "It's how I get all my feelings out. I'm sure the other guys probably think I'm a sissy."

"I don't even want to know what the others think of me," Edward sighed. "And, frankly, I stopped caring a while ago. I'm not going to change who I am to fit in, hence the entire point of the Unorthodox Underdogs."

"They don't know what that title means, Eddie." Will laughed.

"I wish they did." Edward shook his head.

After a couple more hours of writing absolutely nothing of worth down, Will left James' house. He'd always felt as if he had to be a watered down version of himself in front of his friends because he was unsure of how they'd treat him if they saw his true colors. He didn't want to care about petty things like that, but his brain often wandered into uncharted territory. He felt everything, all the time. The other guys had the emotional intelligence of a circus peanut. Unfortunately for his spot on the social hierarchy, the only time Will truly felt "normal" was when he whisked his pen across a page.

Will sat on his family's front porch swing, watching the color-changing leaves fall from the trees and fly past his face. Every time he opened his phone, he was reminded of Indie's number sitting idle in his contacts list, collecting digital dust with each day he couldn't bring himself to text her. He'd repeatedly tried typing out his first message to her in his notes app before he ever even touched the messages app, but each attempt sounded more desperate and creepy than the last. He didn't know how to turn off his poetic tendencies and speak like a normal human.

All of a sudden, Will heard the door creak as it swung open. He quickly turned off his phone and stuffed his journal back into his pocket.

"Hey, there's the big senior." Will's father, Clyde, sat down aggressively on the rocking chair opposite of Will. Clyde's cigar smoke wafted in Will's direction. Somehow, he could even smell a hint of alcohol on his clothes, even though he was sitting multiple feet away from him. Will instinctively turned in the opposite direction.

"Have we figured out what we're doing with our lives yet? Decided on a college?"

Will knew their conversation would lead there; it always did. "No, dad, because I don't want to go to college."

Clyde whipped his head toward his son. "Are you serious? Why didn't you tell your mother and I sooner?"

Will exhaled sharply. "I have, you're just under the influence of alcoholic beverages right now and can't remember all those conversations."

Clyde pointed a greasy finger in Will's direction. "Don't talk back to me, boy." He replied, belching. Loudly. "A boy of your intelligence needs to go to college. Otherwise you're gonna start slacking off... gettin' lazy."

"But I don't want to go to college." Will replied. "I... want to write for a living."

Clyde let out a stiff laugh. "So you're saying you want to be broke for a living?"

"I don't care about money like you do, Dad." Will scoffed. "I want to write beautiful words that people can relate to. I want people to look at my writings and say, 'wow, it feels like he's talking directly to me.'"

"Do whatever you want, I guess. It's your life." Clyde took another drag of his cigar, coughing profusely after pungent smoke billowed from his mouth.

"Can I get that in writing?" Will mumbled, staring down at his shoes. He hated having to re-explain his life choices to his father, who clearly didn't understand his creative ambition, but he had gotten used to it after a while. Clyde drank until he was on the edge of being drunk, then decided to have the "life talk" with Will because he regretted all the terrible decisions that he had made. Will never fell for it, though; he had decided long ago that being shoved into the cardboard box of college conformity was not the path he wanted to take. He was unsure as to why Clyde pushed the college narrative so hard anyway, since he hadn't even finished college himself; he'd gotten so entangled in the lifestyle of drinking and partying that his grades and motivation began to decline because of it, so he ended up dropping out. Will thought that, maybe, it was because of Clyde's own failure that he decided to push his own failed dreams on his children, which turned out to be an incredibly amazing strategy for pushing them both further away.

Clyde sat up, snuffing out his cigar and tossing it off the porch into the front yard. Will rolled his eyes as his dad walked back inside, not saying a word to his son on his way out.

Will sat in the chilling silence of the autumn night, contemplating everything his dad had said. His little "future" speeches were beginning to sound like a broken record. Will wanted nothing more than to make them all stop somehow, but he wasn't going to give in to peer pressure and go to college just because his dad wanted to force him into going.

Just as Will was about to head inside, he felt his phone buzz in his pocket. He pulled it out, not expecting to see the notification waiting patiently to be opened on his Lock Screen.

Indie: Hey, Will! I've been thinking about you lately. I hope you've been doing well. Wanna meet up sometime soon? :)

After reading that single message, Will's night transformed from sour to sweet in an instant.