Young Writers Society

Chapter 2:

Rye:

I walked away from school after finally getting away from the horde of girls. They had teamed up together and ambushed me outside of school. There were even some teachers in the group. I had to trick them into letting me go. I’d feel bad about it, but when you do it as often as I have to you get used to the feeling. I’m not saying that makes it okay, but it certainly makes me numb.

As I walked, I thought about my roommate. I hoped he wasn’t gay, I was in a movie once where that happened. Luckily, there were no romance scenes in that movie. It was an action/sci-fi flick. I kept this train of thought as I finally made in the building and up the stairs. Here goes nothing, I though to myself. I opened the door and was surprised to see the angry leprechaun that picked up Rylie in my room.

“Who are you and what are you doing here. You know what, scratch that first question. I know who you are, but what are you doing here?” An angry voice came from behind me. I jumped around and saw an angry Hispanic girl with both hands on her hips. She had glasses on and her black hair was barely past her shoulder. Oh, and there was a deep scowl on her face.

I smirked at her and waggled my eyebrows just to see what she would do. Although in the next instant I couldn’t see anything because her fist was in my face.

“Owhh!” I yelled at her. “What was that for?”

“For looking at me like I was a piece of meat you idiot. And I’d be more careful if I was you, I ain’t afraid to do it again,” she said, already rearing her hand back.

“No, she’s not, but she won’t. Calm down, kay Es?” Leprechaun dude came up behind her and turned towards me.

“I’m sorry, she tends to be violent. I’m pretty sure you provoked her though. She doesn’t hit people for absolutely no reason. So, just accept the apology and leave it be. Esi, go get him an ice pack.” He turned towards her. You could tell she wanted to protest but she must’ve seen something in Leprechaun’s face, because in the next instant she sighed and headed into the kitchenette. Leprechaun turned back towards me.

“Hey, you’re Rye, I’m Zach, and she was Esi. Again, sorry about her, normally Rylie’s here to either cheer her on or calm her down.”

I didn’t really care about what he was saying but when he got to Rylie, I started to jump into the conversation.

“Rylie?” I asked.

“Yeah bro. They’ve been friends since like fifth grade. They’re an awesome team, unless they turn on you. Then beware cause Esi ain’t the only one who can punch. Though, Rylie prefers to kick.” He looked complentative for a moment, as if he was actually complentating their fighting styles. I heard the door open and I turned around once again to see who was talking behind me.

“Yeah, we’re a bit odd. Might as well get used to it, or life is gonna suck for you cause we spend a lot of time here.” Rylie said. She currently had on a dark purple leather jacket and a motorcycle helmet tucked under her arm. Some black boots completed the look. To say she looked good was an understatement.

“What are you doing here?” I finally realized I was basically drooling over her and decided to break the silence by asking her a question.

“We always hang at Zach’s place. Second question, what did you do?” As she said this, she put on hand on her hip and raised one eyebrow.

“What makes you think I did anything?” I mean honestly, I haven’t even said two sentences to her and I was already being accused of something.

“Well, first, let me tell you, you don’t look good in black and blue. Second, your eye is swelling shut and is surrounded by bruises. I don’t know, kind of looks like you got punched. Esi may tend to lean towards violence, but that doesn’t mean she’s a bully who punches people for no reason.”

Oh, my gosh, I’m the one with a swelling eye and she’s siding with her?

“You’re siding with her?” I asked puzzled. I just couldn’t understand it.

“Yeah, she is. And that’s why I love her,” Esi said from behind. She went around me to go and hug Rylie.

“Seriously, I’m the one with the bruised eye and everyone is hugging her, the one who punched me?” I asked.

“Dude, get used to it. Here, go lay down on the couch and put this on your eye.” Zach told me from behind. He grabbed the pack of ice from Esi and handed them to me. I grabbed it and headed towards the living room. As I lay down, I overheard Zach and Rylie’s conversation.

“So, Rye’s your roommate?” She asked him.

“Apparently,” he answered.

“So, do you know where Tab is?”

“You know I don’t invite her over here, she’s your friend,” You could hear his disdain for her.

“Esi likes her. What is so wrong with her that you can’t spend two minutes with her?” She asked offended.

“She has yet to grow up and she’s older than me,” he huffed.

“You know what, we are going to get absolutely nowhere here, so lets both just shut up ‘kay?” she sighed.

I didn’t hear anything after that, so I assumed they were making up and doing all that girly stuff. Though, Zach was a dude so that might not be completely accurate. Zach was either really weird or really smart for hanging out with a bunch of girls all the time. I’m going to go with really smart since he gets to hang with girls like Rylie all the time.

Zach walked back into the room and turned on the T.V. for me. He kept flipping the channel and turning back to me for some reason.

“Dude, are you going to choose something or just stare at me like an idiot?” Zach asked after about a minute of this.

“Oh. Just put a movie on, I’m fine with pretty much anything.” I told him. I was just glad I was no longer staring at the ceiling. He put Starz on then got up and left. I turned around to look at the T.V. but I couldn’t find a comfortable position with the ice bag on my eye so I ended up staring at the ceiling again.

“Having fun?” Rylie asked from the end of the couch.

“Yep, as much fun as going over gross salaries with my manager. Wipee.” I answered sarcastically.

“In that case, I guess I’ll just leave you alone then,” she taunted. She started walking away, and was nearly at the door before I finally called out to her.

“Wait,” I called out. She stopped at the doorway and said, “Yes?”

“Will you please stay? I am bored out of my mind,” I asked with my teeth gritted.

“Good boy,” and she patted my head. She seriously patted my head.

“I’m not a dog, you know.” I told her, taking her hand from my head and putting back to her side.

“Of course not.” She said.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Esi said as she walked in the room. What was up with this girl? I was playing with her. Can’t she take a joke?

“You know what’s odd?” Rylie asked, turning around to Esi.

“What?”

“I act like a dog most of the time, yet I treat everyone else like they’re the dog,” she said.

“True, but not. Sometimes you treat people like little kids,” she pointed out.

“That one’s not intentional though. You know I want to be a teacher when I grow up. I just have that maternal instinct,” she countered. Esi nodded her head and let it slide.

Rylie then turned towards me and asked, “Lift up your ice pack. Let me see if the swellings gone down.” I took the pack off my eye and lifted my head so she could see my head better.

“It’s…umm…Nah, bro, just can’t do it. Do everyone a favor and put the pack back on,” she said, not even attempting to hide her grimace. I heard Esi snicker from the side.

“Oh, yeah…speaking of which, Esi has something she would like to say to you,” Rylie said, nudging Esi in the ribs.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered. If I hadn’t already known what she was going to say, I probably wouldn’t have heard it.

“What did you say?” I asked, deciding to have a little fun with it.

“Oh, shut it. You know what I said,” she snapped. She wouldn’t look me in the eye, but instead looked every else around the room. I smirked at her, but it quickly went away when I remembered the reason why she was apologizing to me. Everyone was silent for a few moments before Rylie broke the silence. Rylie whispered something to Esi and they both looked back at me. They then left the room without so much as a reason why. I stayed where I was, seeing as there wasn’t anything else for me to do. Finally, leprechaun dude came back into the room. I knew that I knew his name, I just can’t think of it now. Not that it really matters. He sat on the black loveseat next to the sofa and started flipping through channels. Why the dude had a loveseat, I had no clue, but he did and he was sitting on it. He finally settled on Big Bang Theory and relaxed in the seat.

We just sat there for a while, neither one of us willing to break the ice. Lepre-I mean, Zach, kept looking back at me as if assessing me then turning away. I finally got sick of it and snapped at him.

“Dude, what do you want?” I asked.

“Just measuring you out,” he replied as if it was no big deal.

“What the heck is that supposed to mean?” I asked, not really sure if I was supposed to be offended or not.

“Well, it’s obvious that you’re gonna go after Rylie, so I got to make sure you're good for her.” He told me with a straight face. “Just be glad it’s me and not Esi.”

I shuddered as I thought of what Esi might’ve done instead. That girl was scary. When Zach saw the shivers, he started laughing at me.

“Just make sure you don’t hurt her, and we’ll all be good,” he reassured.

Yeah right buddy.

Rylie:

After Esi and I left Rye, we went to Zach’s room and started talking. We only had a few classes together and they were all only on Thursday, so I only got to see her in school one day of the week. We started talking about anything and everything after that. I realized she was dropping subtle hints about Rye every chance she got, but I kept playing dumb. I wanted to see how long she could hold up this act. Apparently not very long, cause after only the third hint, she just huffed and turned to face me.

“So do you like Rye or not. Jeez, here I was thinking you were the smart one,” she muttered.

“Oh, I knew what you were doing, I just wanted to annoy you,” I smirked. We both knew I was smarter.

“If you answer the question, I will let it slide and not kill you. Otherwise, you better whip up a will pretty fast,” she threatened even though we both knew she wouldn’t do anything to me. I could get away with everything. And I pretty much did.

“Maybe,” I looked back at the magazine I had in my hands. “Ugh, I don’t know why so many people like him. He’s ug-ly,” I said, drawing it out into three syllables.

“What do you mean maybe. It’s a yes or no question,” she screamed at me.

“How am I supposed to know,” I shrugged.

“You know what your problem is, you just don’t care. And it’s freaking annoying,” she yelled. I was stunned momentarily. No one ever really commented on me. Well, most people didn’t actually get close enough to see anything beside my happy, bubbly persona. Heck, I was surprised Esi did. We’ve known each other since fifth grade, but we just met up again a few years ago.

“You know, my sister said the same thing. I just don’t see the need to care though. If he likes me, whoopee, if not, doesn’t bother me. It’s not like I could change his mind even if I tried. I’m completely normal, nothing extraordinary about me. I’m good at everything, but I’m not great at anything. I don’t see a need to change what I am.” I’ve never actually confessed that to anyone before. It felt odd to tell someone. I normally just channel all my feelings into my poetry so I could just be happy.

“Yes, but by not changing, you’re also not improving or progressing. Sometimes change is good.” She pleaded with me.

“I accept change, I just don’t try to do anything about it. I’m a leaf in the wind. I let it take me where ever and try to not let it affect me.”

“But some things are meant to affect you. You can’t just let everything go. You need to hold on to something, just let out one emotion. It’s okay to let everyone see you’re human. We all are. No one’s gonna hate you because your not always happy. Stop trying to please everyone else, and start focusing on you.” She just wouldn’t give it up.

“What if I don’t like me, huh? What if nobody else likes me? What am I gonna do then? I hand everyone this silver platter, and they all ohh and ahh over the bright and beautiful display. Then imagine, under all those silver ornate covers, are a whole bunch of PB&J sandwiches. Imagine how many people would actually stick around then huh. Not many, that’s what I can tell ya. So, no, excuse me if I don’t like to be lonely. Excuse me if I’m just trying my best to satisfy everyone.” By the end of my rant, tears were slipping down my face like kids on a playground slide.

“You can’t satisfy everyone.” Esi sat up and got off the bed. She headed towards the exit but turned around last minute.

“I happen to love PB&J, so I would’ve stayed.” With those parting words, she left the room, leaving me to wonder what to do now.