He saw her from the bottom of the stairs before she saw him. It was a reflex, done without even thinking about it, as he stiffened then turned to move quickly to the side and down the hall. His next class was upstairs, but he didn’t want to risk running into her as his feet carried him farther away from where he needed to be. The risk was pretty low logically with how fast-paced everyone was moving, but in his head, he could only think that she’d try to talk to him at the first chance she got. Well, the worst-case was she told an adult, but that would get her in trouble too.

As he hurried along through the halls he felt his heart miss a beat when someone came up behind him and touched his shoulder to get his attention asking, “Reid, you see the text in our chat?”

It was just one of his friends, who moved to walk beside him as he gave a mental sigh of relief. “Oh, um, no not yet I can do that when I get to my class,” he replied awkwardly, moving a hand to his pants pocket and touching his phone to confirm that it was still there. This was one of the five guys in his new friend group, a group that he was still adjusting into after meeting them in football. He wasn’t exactly good at it, or any sports in general, but his parents put him in it hoping he’d finally make some new friends after his old one of 7 years moved away over the summer.

Nash frowned, looking confused. “You have English this period, right? I thought that was-”

“I need to stop off at my locker first, I’ve already accepted that I’m going to get to class late,” Reid replied cutting him off, he was too embarrassed to say that didn’t go up the stairs because he saw Natalie.

“Whatever,” Nash said giving a quick glance around them, “the text just says we’re going behind the Burger King during lunch if you want to join us, Brent stole another box from his dad.”

There was a sinking feeling in his stomach as he weakly sputtered out the first lie that came to mind, “aw man I wish I could but I can’t today, got lunch detention.” He really didn’t want to get into all the stuff this friend group was. On one hand they were usually pretty good guys that told hilarious jokes and were fun to hang around with, but on the other hand, he was scared of declining too much and being deemed a ‘loose end’ and getting hurt for all he knew but didn't want to partake in.

“Really? What for?”

“Between getting to 6th period late basically every day and ditching class a few times my Biology teacher really isn’t happy with me.” He huffed, working out the details of the lie in his head to prepare for any more questions. “She caught me Friday in the computer room when she went to get a stack of papers from the printer.”

“Damn, sucks to be you,” Nash responded bluntly, “another day then, see ya.” And with that, he turned into one of the classrooms they were walking past, leaving Reid to continue forward by himself to the locker he didn’t actually need to go to. Most of the kids were gone from the halls and in their classrooms by now, the bell ringing overhead a few seconds later.

He opened his locker, letting his backpack fall off his shoulder and slump to the ground beside him as he then leaned down to unzip it to put his geometry book in. He didn’t need the book until last period, but wanted to look like there was some reason for still being in the hall instead of class. He zipped his bag back up, threw it over his shoulder, and hit his locker door shut to find Natalie a few lockers down rushing to get something out that she likely forgot to bring to her class. They caught eyes and he froze, giving a meek half-smile of greeting in her direction but finding only hate falling over her face instead of returning the manner. He felt glued to the ground at that moment, her stare burning into him with anger causing him to finally speak up to break the tension-filled silence.

“I- I’m really sorry about the whole, um, McDonalds thing, but you shouldn’t have been out at one in the morning either so...”

“Are you really going to say that you and your buddies yelling, laughing, and throwing french fries at us in the parking lot was our fault?” she hissed, slamming her locker closed and tightening her clutch on a book she had grabbed from it. “I don’t even care that you were drunk out of your minds, the fact that you still think you were somehow in the right for it is disgusting!”

“Look I don’t usually,” he paused then whispered, “drink or smoke,” then continued normally with, “but my friends were all doing it and kept insisting that I did too! Same with the-”

“The harassment?” she snapped cutting him off as she stormed closer to him, “I don’t want to hear your excuses. If what you’re saying is that you’re friends with bad people then get new ones! But the bottom line is you better make up for your actions, because I don’t care about getting a firm lecture if it means you all get suspended for what you’re doing!”

And with that she turned and headed down the hall away from him, Reid holding his breath as his eyes scanned the closed doors around him to see if anyone had been able to hear that conversation. A few seconds of nothing happening passed, and he turned to go down the opposite hall from her to finally go to his class. If he hadn’t been in lunch detention before, he’d certainly end up in it now with how late he was. When did high school get so complicated?