Monday's are still dreadful, Bradley decides as he sits down in his seat in Honor English. Technically, they don't have assigned seats—unlike his other classes—but they still have their seats.

He's a few minutes early. His Calculus class is only a few feet from this class. There are only a couple of other students in the room.

On Bradley's right is a girl with gorgeous blonde hair that whooshes as she moves her head back and forth between the door and Mrs. Castillo's desk. The girl may be beautiful, but she was nothing but trouble.

On Bradley's left, a boy sitting by himself. He's texting on his iPhone, having no regard for the school rule about no electronics in class. He has his chestnut brown hair quiffed up. He has a lip ring which, again, is against school policies. Bradley usually finds lip rings tacky, but for the boy Bradley thinks it suits him. More students file in, taking their unassigned seat.

When the bell finally rings Bradley stops staring at the boy—who never looked up from his phone—and turns to the front of the room, looking at the board. The room is filled with mindless chatter, kids talking about useless and irrelevant things.

Maybe Bradley's a pessimist. Maybe Bradley just doesn't work like the rest of the teens at school, but Bradley knows that life is short and he sure as hell knows he isn't wasting his on insignificant things anymore.

Mrs. Castillo walks into the room, finally, and the class goes silent immediately. Mrs. Castillo doesn't waste time with hellos, and how's the day been so far. She writes a prompt on the board, like she does every morning, and sits down in her desk.

Bradley pulls his writing notebook out from under the pile of textbooks he has. His notebook is only half-full of stories whereas the rest of the class's are almost done with there's, as they should be. Bradley didn't write as much as other's; they could go on and on about things, fill up to four pages. Bradley, however, always cut stories short. He could write a page, two pages at most.

Bradley reads the prompt on the white board: if you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? Bradley knows the answer right away, it comes to him faster than someone could snap their fingers. He looks around the room, kids having already started to write.

Bradley scribbles the prompt and date down on a blank page of his notebook and begins to write. Time disappears. Before Bradley knows it, Mrs. Castillo is talking.

Bradley sighs, closing his notebook and looking at his teacher. She's saying something about the next assignment, something about partners. Bradley groans internally. He hates working with partners, he always does all of the work.

"One month. Write a short story, minimum of ten thousand words, with your partner in one month." Mrs. Castillo sits on the edge of her metal desk as she speaks. Her legs bump pictures stuck to it with magnets. They're all pictures of students who've come back to thank her, for whatever reason they had.

Bradley knows he's screwed. Really. Fucking. Screwed. He doesn't want and or need to write a story.

Other students having already started to chat with who Bradley assumes they want to be their partner. Bradley has no one to talk to about it, doesn't want to talk to anyone about it. He's sure Mrs. Castillo will let him write it alone.

Well, he was until Mrs. Castillo says, "I'll be assigning you partners."

Bradley grumbles under his breath. He just wants to do this by himself, but the universe is never so fair.

Mrs. Castillo starts calling off names from a clipboard in her hands. Bradley doesn't listen that closely until "Leo and Bradley" comes out of her mouth. Bradley has no idea who Leo is. He searches the room, eyes wandering between guys. His eyes set on the same boy he was staring at before class. The boy with the quiff and the lip ring.

The boy—Leo—is staring into Bradley's eyes with his alluring green eyes. He grins at Bradley and Bradley, not used to someone being so ecstatic to see him, attempts to smile back.

•••

Bradley's getting in his car when Corrie yells at him. Bradley looks up and see's Corrie running towards him from the distance. Bradley just wants to go home and sleep. He thought Corrie got that when Bradley snapped at him during lunch.

Bradley doesn't get in his car, waiting for Corrie to come talk to him. He sighs, leaning his elbow against the top of the door frame of the driver's door.

Corrie finally reaches Bradley's car. He smiles his charming smile. "Awh," Corrie whines. "Where are you going?"

Corrie acts as if he and Bradley had any plans together after school. Maybe they did and Bradley just forgot about them. Maybe they got lost in Bradley's mind while he thought about his dumb project with Leo.

"Home..." Bradley trails off. He tilts his head at Corrie, showing his best friend that he's very confused. Corrie huffs, tugging on the seam his black jumper.

"You never listen!" Corrie whines like a five-year old. Most of the student body has left the parking lot already. Only Bradley and a few other's cars remain.

"What's wrong? Were we going to do something?" Bradley's grown extremely frustrated by now. It's extremely cold out in Michigan, and Bradley's only wearing a hoodie.

"Nevermind, it's not important," Corrie dismisses. "Can I come to your house?"

Bradley has no time to respond before Corrie's getting in the passenger seat of his car. Bradley sighs and sits down in the drivers seat. After starting the car, making sure the heat is on, and giving a quick glance in Corrie's direction, Bradley's pulling out of the school parking lot.

Corrie's being peculiarly quiet, not even bothering to look at his text messages. Bradley can hear the ding from Corrie's phone. It's going off every three seconds.

"Are you going to answer that or not?" Bradley snaps. The heat is blasting them now, making Bradley feel very toasty. They've arrived at Bradley's house now. Corrie's the first to get out of the car and stomp his way into the house, Bradley hot on his heels.

They both kick off their shoes. Corrie's white Vans next to black Converse. Corrie pouts his way to the kitchen while Bradley moves to the living room. He lays down on the couch and goes to Netflix. He picks out a show him and Corrie both like—Fuller House—and grabs the blanket that was on the couch.

Corrie returns, tossing a fun size of Lays Potato chips on Bradley's stomach. Corrie has another bag, along with two cans of Diet Coke.

"Why were you so upset?" Bradley breaks the ice. He's looking through his Instagram feed, not really looking, just acting as if he were.

"It's not important," Corrie replies. Bradley can sense Corrie's aggravation from across the room, which he decides is probably not good and he shouldn't push.

But Bradley being Bradley, does.

"Seemed pretty damn important an hour ago," Bradley says sing song-ily. He's closed out of Instagram now, just swiping between screens on his home page. There's nothing in particular he needs to look at. He's already checked Twitter, Instagram, and—believe it or not—Facebook because he got desperate.

"Just drop it, alright?" Corrie huffs angrily. "I'm going to get drunk, you coming?"

Corrie's standing over Bradley now, looking down at him. Somethings wrong, Bradley can feel it. Not only is Corrie getting drunk on a Monday, he's being sketchy.

"It's a Monday afternoon!" Bradley screams surprised. "Please tell me you're not dealing drugs again. Gosh—fucking—damn it Corrie. We barely got you out last time."

Corrie rolls his eyes, "No, I'm not dealing drugs again. Geesh, a guy deals drugs two times and suddenly he can't live it down."

"Oh shut up," Bradley laughs. Corrie laughs too. They're laughing for a few minutes before Corrie's looking serious again.

"Please just, leave it alone, okay? For now."

Bradley nods his head, "For now," he promises. Corrie smiles gratefully before leaving the living room. Bradley wonders what's going on, but he knows that some things are better left unsaid.

__________

☒ - unedited

What do you think of the project Leo and Bradley have to do? What do you think about Leo? What is Corrie not telling Bradley?

If you see any mistakes, tell me. I'm the queen of typos.

Read, vote, comment, and please, please share! Tell me what you liked/disliked. Constructive criticism is very, very welcome!

Rant of the chapter: Grey's Anatomy is messing me up omg. I also feel like my writings getting worse and worse but aww whale *insert whale emoji*. Now you rant below!

Dedicated to: iRunawayfromtheMoon ... go check out her story! No you choose someone and dedicate it to them!

Next update: who knows lol

Teaser: It's event time, are you excited?

Quick notes:
[ 1 ] This is such a filler chapter omg. It's terrible because I had a plot but then I changed it, why.
[ 2 ] I gave the wrong teaser last chapter because I changed the plot. Why do I do this to myself?
[ 3 ] I've entered TheWattys 2016, I doubt I'll win but still please share, vote, and comment. SHARE THIS PLEASE.

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