Rule Number 2: A Bro Never Cries

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The next morning I pulled into East High's giant parking lot tired, hungry, and irritable.

I hadn't slept all night because my brain just wouldn't turn off, and there were way too many things on my mind, ranging from Eliza to Carter to my stupid Biology presentation to my dad to soccer and even to the possible extinction of bananas and how devastating that would be to pancake breakfasts everywhere.

 It was not a good night.

 So I cranked up the volume in my old, black Mustang and listened to the latest top 40 rappers. I was already ten minutes late for first period since I'd been moving so slowly that morning.

 Talk about a great way to start a Friday.

 A lot of kids had already checked out for the day and were milling around the back of the school, smoking and gossiping and all that good stuff, but there wasn't anyone I particularly wanted to talk to. Even when Madison Hayes, joy of joys, walked out of the building. 

 If someone were to say I was "in a relationship" it would be with Madison. We're not actually official but we have more PDA than any other couple in the school. I'm not sure what she thinks 'we' are, but it doesn't matter anyway.

Madison immediately spotted me and began to walk over, her hips swaying big time under her skirt. I sighed and got out of the vehicle. Getting a detention slip would have been better than being with Madison just then. I really just wanted to be alone.

 "Hey, Nick." She came up to me with her hands behind her back. "It's good to see you."

 I barely looked at her and instead just kept walking towards the door of the school.

 "Are you ignoring me or something?" She came up next to me, and I could tell she was concerned. Madison hates it when people don't pay attention to her.

 "Trying to."

 "Okay, rude. Talk to you later, Maguire." Then she let me walk by her.

 I paused, debating over whether or not I should go back and apologize, but then I decided against it. She wouldn't understand anyway. 

 I stepped into the empty, school hallway. Everyone was already in class so it was just me and..."Nick Maguire!" Mr. Hoover, the hall monitor called out. 

 I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment to try and make him disappear, but when I opened them he was still right in front of me with a familiar, yellow slip in his hands.

 "You're late." The man handed me the paper. "That's the third time this month."

 "Gosh, you're so smart." I rolled my eyes sarcastically. "I can see why they made you the hall monitor."

 "Excuse me?" Mr. Hoover frowned at me through his glasses. "I'll give you one chance to correct that attitude, Maguire. Now let's try that again." 

 "Sorry," I said to him. "I meant to say you're so smart, Sir." I really shouldn't have been mouthing off to him, A- because he's the guy who hands out detentions and B- because he's one of the few teachers in this school who's taller than me, and he could probably take me in a fight. Heck, that guy could take on freaking Godzilla, but I didn't really regret it. 

 "And here you go." He handed me another slip. "I'll see you after school. Now get to class." 

 "I look forward to it," I muttered as I walked away. That was my second detention this week. Coach Sullivan, my soccer coach, was not going to be happy. 

 I finally made it to my first-period class, physical education. Luckily, the first fifteen minutes of P.E is the time it takes to change, so I didn't miss much of class. I only came out of the locker rooms two minutes after everyone else.

 "Move along next time," Ms. Johnson, the gym teacher said to me, but I could tell she wasn't too upset about it. Ms. Johnson is cool. She's about 35, and she played beach volleyball for the Olympic team in Beijing. She likes her job, she likes kids, and she doesn't really care about the rules, or people being late. Needless to say, gym is my favorite class.

 I went to stand with Robert Maxim and Josh Daley. Even though I can't stand Josh's guts, Robert likes him, and I like Robert so I have to be with Josh, too.

 "Dude," Josh said when I reached them. "Have you seen O'Connor's sister?" He nudged my side and nodded towards where Eliza was sitting on the bleachers with some of the other juniors. I noticed she was with the same kind of crowd she'd been with before she left. That made me feel a little better about Josh's comment, since she still seemed to be kind of the same person, and he probably still wasn't her type.  "I call dibs on that-"

 "Don't let Carter hear you say that," I muttered to him, even though I could completely relate to what he'd said. If only she'd been anyone else...

 "I wish I lived in Australia," Robert groaned. "Then I could come back all tan too."

 "Yeah," I teased him. "Then Hannah Green might finally notice you." 

 "Too soon, bro." Robert put his hand over his heart, looking slightly pained. "You have to wait at least 72 hours before we can even think about bringing that up."

 "It's cool, man. Just kidding." I shoved my hands into the pockets of my silver basketball shorts. It had been pretty clear all along that Hannah liked Carter more than she liked Robert, but Robert would never give up.

Ms. Johnson blew her whistle to start class. "Alright, gang, it's dodgeball Friday. Who wants to be a team captain?" After everyone raised their hands she pointed to Robert and Josh. "You two raised your hands first. Switch off between picking a boy and picking a girl. And break." 

 Yeah. Gym is definitely my favorite class. 

 Josh got to pick first so he chose me. No surprise there. We go pretty hard in P.E and dodgeball is my game.

 He picked Eliza next and she came to stand beside me, watching the rest of the teams being formed.

 "How come you were so late?" she asked as Robert and Josh argued about whose turn it was to pick.

 "Selena Gomez forgot to wake me up," I told her, my lips curving into my signature, teasing grin. 

 Eliza cocked her eyebrow in dismay, but I could tell she was a little bit amused.

 "Also my alarm clock didn't go off," I said. "So... yeah."

 Her expression softened slightly, but her green eyes remained fixed on my face, as if she didn't quite believe me. "Nick," her voice was stern, "I grew up with you. You and Carter played a million pranks and tried to blame them on me to my parents. I. Can. Tell. When. You're. Lying."

 I turned away from her, running my fingers through my dirt-colored hair. "Sorry about that..." I said, apologizing for all of our childish pranks, not that we'd stopped doing them, but I knew Eliza would get it, so I finally told her. "I had to take my dad back to the hospital."

 "Geeze." She looked at me and spoke in an almost whisper, "Are you okay?"

 "Fantastic," I answered, giving my attention to Ms. Johnson who was setting up the balls in the middle of the gym. I really didn't want to talk about it.

 "Nick-" Eliza opened her mouth to say something else but then Ms. Johnson blew her whistle and our game was underway, so I never heard what she was going to tell me.

 I was glad we were playing dodgeball that morning. Every time I picked up the ball and nailed someone square in the chest, a kind of a weight lifted off my body, until all of my stress and negative thoughts had transformed into endorphins, and a feeling of empowerment like I could do something.

 My team won two games in a row, and it wasn't until the third game that Robert got me out. I hadn't deflected the ball well enough and it hit me in the knee. It was okay though, I didn't make a big deal about it. Shit happens.

 Except that was the beginning of a string of outs for my team, since Josh got out, and then a few other kids, and then Eliza, until finally the only person still in was this tiny Freshman named Stephen Ross.

 He was up against the entire other team.

 "Here we go, Steve!" I shouted to him. I'd never really talked to Stephen before, and admittedly I did not know much about him besides the fact I umpired for his baseball team one time.

 The kid has an exceptional arm. It's kind of amazing, really, because he's probably just over five feet tall and he's super skinny, but he could whip one of those balls faster than anyone I've ever seen. 

 "YEAH, STEVE!" my team on the bench called out when he hit Robert's leg. Then he did a series of tucks and rolls to dodge the balls being torpedoed at him, until he actually caught one of them.

 "Looks like I'm back in!" I stood up from the bench and jogged back into the middle of the game. Since I was the first person to get out I was first in line to play again if someone on my team ever caught a ball.

 Stephen and I worked together. He threw the balls at the other team and I caught the ones they threw at us, until eventually my entire team was back in. We won that game too.

 I left gym class in a really good mood. In fact, I'd almost completely forgotten about my dad and my conversation with Eliza until I had to go to detention that afternoon.

 Mr. Hoover gave me an hour-long lecture about the importance of being on time and how I was being disrespectful to him, my teachers, my classmates, and the rest of the school when I "Arranged my priorities around my own sleeping schedule."

 I'd told him it was my alarm clock's fault, so he thought I was as self-centered and arrogant as ever. 

 Then he made me clean his white boards. All four of them. Just for his own, sadistic sense of enjoyment.

 That put me back in my bad mood, and it was even worse when I found out that detention had made me miss soccer practice entirely. Everyone was gone from the field by the time I got there.

 It just wasn't my day. It wasn't really my year, either.

 I got back to my car and I felt my phone vibrating in my pocket. It was from Carter. Wanna come over tonight?

Carter O'Connor is my best friend for three reasons. 1. He knows what my phone password is.  (And I didn't even have to tell him) 2. He likes "The Hangover" just as much as I do. (Maybe even more) 3. I'm always welcome in his house, because he knows when I just can't go home, and he always lets me crash at his place.

 Thanks, man I texted back. Then I put my car into drive and started heading for his address. I stay at his house so often that I have a lot of my own stuff there, so I didn't need to go home first.

 That's what happens when your dad has leukemia and your mom's too depressed to take care of you. 

 Carter's always understood that. And from the way gym class went this morning, it looked like Eliza did too.

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