Quad Squad

  The Party

  It was like death at school for like solid five days, everyone walking around all oh my God I’m so depressed. Andrea was like, how are people so stupid that they get caught breaking into a school? Like literally who does that? Breaking out of school, that makes sense, do that! Half of them were grounded now and the other half -- God, not that she cared. Jesus!

  She was invited to a party Friday night that was going to be lit af, Carson and Madison who were in 10th and 11th, this really super chill brother and sister that everyone knew you could score weed from but not like that, they weren’t all shady dealers and everything, just super chill and the whole thing was going to be at their house and everything and Andrea had gotten invited, like one of the first people to be invited and probably definitely the first ninth grader and then it turned out that Carson and Malik’s brother Ray were pretty much besties, both of them juniors, so Ray was going to give Malik a ride, and Malik was all do you want a ride with us to Andrea and she was like, hell yeah. Not too too excited though to Malik’s face because even though he was chill and btw super cute she didn’t want him automatically thinking he was getting any. But, like, she would consider it? But he shouldn’t take it for granted, that was for sure. But who probably or definitely wasn’t going to be invited to any party like that? People like Maya and Cole and them, it’s not like Andrea had some big grudge or anything against them, it was just, they were kind of pathetic.

  Mike didn’t even know about the party until Friday itself but then Andrea said hey a bunch of us are going to a party and it was a little bit weird to be invited? In fact a lot weird, like exactly what did kind of friend did Andrea think Mike was to her was unclear. Like, what was her deal? He didn’t really know. Like, not at all. Mostly girls were basically always a mystery even though he had kind of learned a lot more about them lately, but it wasn’t like he could tell, like, at all, what Andrea really thought about him. But then he made the stupid, like really, really stupid mistake of asking Rachel and Jerry at lunch if they were going and they were all no, haven’t really heard about it and Mike was like, oh, yeah, no, I only just heard about it myself, probably won’t go, but everyone could tell that he was suddenly just trying to be nice, that they weren’t invited and he was, and it was just super awkward.

  It was so sad lately for Sabrina how lunch and Quad Squad had gotten kind of really weak, it was kind of like everything else in her life, like she was failing she didn’t even know how many classes and her mom had had to come in and talk to the counselor about possibly transferring to some stoner school and Sabrina actually didn’t even care that much because Kennedy and Q Squad and everything used to be cool like at the beginning of school? Like it was way, way better than middle school. But then it got sad, it got weak and people started, even the few friends she had like couldn’t, get along. And she didn’t know if somehow maybe it was all her fault? Even though that didn’t exactly make sense but it was like a thing that you know, but isn’t true? Like you know it’s true on a deeper level, if that makes any sense.

  Plus there wasn’t weed around, strange but true, people were kind of out at least for a while, because she hadn’t been hanging out much and she was seriously broke, usually a guy would give you a toke before school or whatever, but lately her mom had been dropping her off so late to school, not that she cared, except then she had to go through half of school without any smoke.

  You could get high usually if you went to the church on the second corner’s parking lot under the big tree, but when she did it was just guys, no other girls and they were being super gross, like sketchy gross, making all kinds of comments, about girls’ bodies and everything, like she had heard it all before, but it started to feel like seriously not safe, and maybe that was the paranoia of the weed talking but she had to stop going to the church at least for a few days because she wasn’t about to get raped over some pot. Or, of course, at all. But anyway, yeah. No pot.

  Jerry was thinking that this had been kind of the best school year ever and the worst school year ever all at the same time. The thing where everybody got busted at the old elementary school was so stupid, but Jerry and Tim weren’t even in the room, that was Cole and Malik, but yeah, anyway truthfully he had been there, like, at the school, and he had basically made the girls stay or at least really wished they would, so he did feel like some of it was his fault.

  His dad was super nice about it even though Jerry could tell he was disappointed. That was even worse, though, than him being mad. Jerry watched him get kind of quiet in that way Jerry knew he had of letting you know he’s disappointed and after a while he went to the garage to work on his RC cars, and Jerry was thinking, like, do I go out there and say more? But what was he supposed to say? He had fucked up, he had admitted it, he had said he was sorry, his dad took away the Xbox, like what else was supposed to happen Jerry don’t know.

  But that’s what Jerry felt was a really bad thing about Kennedy. It was like, that kind of thing wouldn’t have happened last year. Like at the beginning it was super chill at Kennedy because teachers just treated people different at high school and people are more relaxed about who they hang out with. It wasn’t this big deal like in middle school where you offend the shit out of people if you don’t hang out with them for one lunch.

  Jerry had decided that one thing he wanted to do before he died would be to travel around the world. Like not just see places, but start in one place and go exactly like straight west or north or whatever and see everything that is on that line exactly around the world. That would be so sick.

  Plus the girls were way hotter in high school. Mostly they were the same girls but they were hotter, did that make sense? And he sort of thought that by now he might get a date or something, but nothing had happened?

  Nobody seemed like they want to go out with Jerry specifically, they weren’t like, oh, Jerry, please take me out or whatever. But nobody had said no, either, because if he was being honest he had been being kind of a coward maybe?

  There was one girl he’d been wanting to ask out who was super cute but he feel like he’d already probably told too many people, like Tim and everybody about who he like and who he didn’t and he thought that maybe he’d be better off if he just didn’t say who it was. Like not jinx it. Also out of respect.

  Because he also felt that if you actually like someone you don’t go saying anything about them. Like if you say, oh, she has a nice butt, or even like nice hair, or personality, then the person that you told would start way paying attention to it, like stalking her hair or whatever and not giving her any privacy and that’s not cool.