Chapter 10

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a/n: It's finally here, the 10th chapter. I'm sorry for the wait but I hope this meets your expectations. I can't promise frequent updates, but I do love this story and I love Kayden so I'm definitely going to keep writing it. Remember to drink water and take your meds, taking care of yourself is important. 

By 3:00 on Monday, Kayden was already tired of taking notes for all his classes, but he'd successfully gotten through Philosophy, Latin, English, Anatomy, and Math, he even thought he caught a small smile from Elias during English when he saw Kayden scribbling down everything that was on the board. The entire period for History had been taken up by the test, but he felt like he might have done okay on it. He'd spent all of Saturday evening studying and a good few hours Sunday too, he'd even gotten Theo to help go over the flashcards with him, and for the first time he felt like he was understanding and retaining the information. He ended up knowing the answers to most of the questions, but there were still a few that he wasn't sure on so he just guessed and one that he left blank. Even so, he was pretty proud of himself for getting through it. 

Now, he sat with his legs crisscrossed outside on the grass under the shade of a towering oak tree with a small but thick booklet in his lap, leafing through the pages of the handbook.

"I think you're the only one since Ezra to actually read that thing." The redhead looked up and grinned when he saw Grant standing over him with one hand in his pocket. "So what's the deal then?"

"I'm trying to figure out which rules look breakable." Kayden said and that was when Grant noticed the red pen in Kay's hand and ink under a few lines of the book. "-and looking for any loopholes too I guess."

"So have you found anything?" Grant asked, sitting down next to him, taking the book to glance through it. 

"Well Theo said they're pretty strict about the uniform rules, keeping the room clean, curfew, and attendance so I figured those are pretty overdone and you just shouldn't get caught doing them, but there are a few that look fun. The policy says you can only dye your hair natural colors, which means I could dye one side of my hair blond and the other side black and they'd both technically be natural colors still, or I could get a temporary full-body tattoo." 

"Kay, I know you've only been here a month, but you're taking low-hanging fruit with stuff like that. One year there was a janitor who was always too lazy to lock doors behind him so Brooks, Luke, and I went around stealing mops out of all the closets and superglued them to the statues out front so it looked like they were sword fighting with mops and had dreads." Grant chuckled and Kayden laughed softly. 

"Who's Luke?"

"He got expelled last year, caught smoking weed in the woods, I haven't seen him in a while and he just kinda disappeared after that, but I think he's going to Rosewater high now or to St. Williams Prep." He shrugged. 

"My friend Connor and I were always getting up to shit at my old school, he's always been the kind of person to sneak vodka into class and pass it around, and one time he came in wearing roller blades to class and wore them all day, and there was another time the weekend after I got my drivers license, we went on a roadtrip and rented a room at a cheap hotel and snuck into the abandoned Renwick smallpox hospital," He said with a soft smile. 

"You know what, I think we're gonna have loads of fun together." Grant said and Kayden smiled.

"Why don't you get Ezra to do all this with you?" He asked. "You guys seem to do everything together." 

"He doesn't like breaking rules, so I can get him to tag along sometimes, but I respect his boundaries and I know he'd be an anxious wreck the whole time if I forced him to do something he didn't want to." Grant shrugged. "He's more the type to go looking for flowers in the woods with Theo, that's about as rebellious as he gets, but he's fun to hang out with anyway." 

"My mom always says I'm too impulsive, I've gotten kicked out of a couple of schools because of it, I was planning to get kicked out of here too but she's got some kind of deal with that headass, Walker." Kayden flicked a stone away. "I don't think it'll be as bad as I expected, I'm only a month in though, you can never tell anything after a month."

"What's your dad say?" Grant asked. 

"My dad ran off, my stepdad's whipped and agrees with everything my mom says." 

"That's tough, man." 

"Nah, I'm not hung up over it anymore, it's whatever now. My mom can do what she wants, I just wish she wouldn't try to dictate my life too."

---

Kayden finished up his homework in just under two hours and so he didn't have much to do after dinner, he was planning to just watch YouTube videos and maybe read until he fell asleep, but then a thought struck him. As he was going to sit down on his mattress, his skateboard rolled out from under the bed and he stared at it. He missed skateboarding so much but he hadn't had any time to do it recently, he didn't even know if there was anywhere to skate. 

"Hey, Theo, do you know if there's a skatepark anywhere close?" Kayden asked and Theo looked up from the book he was reading, seeming to think for a moment. 

"I think there's one about a mile off campus, it's walking distance but you'll just barely get back in time and if you get caught going off campus during a week day you'll be given extra work." Theo warned. Kayden just rolled his eyes at that. 

"I'll be fine, I'm a master at sneaking in." He said, picking up his board and looking up the location of the skatepark on his phone. "I'll see ya in a couple of hours."

"Stay safe, don't get kidnapped." Theo said and Kayden laughed, waving to him as he stepped out the door. 

He headed down the steps to the front door of the dorms, checking to make sure none of the teachers were around before he hopped on and skated down the paved hill that lead towards the town outside of campus. The town of Rosewater was small and full of little shops, there was also a huge library at the edge of town and next to it was the skatepark. Admittedly, it was an odd location for a skatepark and it was in an area where he didn't expect to find many other skaters, but he could hope. 

He made his way over to it, leaving himself a mental note to check out some of the shops when he had time, they all looked so pretty and well-decorated. When he finally got to his destination, he was happy to see a few other teens were there hanging out in small groups. A few of them were drinking or smoking, others were attempting the half pipe. He was just about to move over to the ramp when he heard someone's voice calling for him. 

"Hey, Carrot Top, what's your name?" He looked up to see a guy with fluffy brown hair, maybe a little older than him, sitting with a skinny boy who had curls that stuck up everywhere, and a girl with a septum piercing and faded light pink hair. 

"Kayden, what's yours?" He asked, picking up his board and walking over. 

"Oh, I'm Milo, this is Luke, and El." He said and Kayden nodded, his attention moving to Luke for a moment. 

"Did you ever go to Antisto by chance?" He asked and Luke scratched the back of his neck. 

"Yeah, you know someone there?" 

"I go there, I'm friends with Grant." 

"Oh, you're cool then." Luke said with a small smile and Kayden returned it. "Are you one of the new ones there?"

"This is my first year, I was living in Lakeview before that, but my mom dumped me here because she wanted me to put my best foot forward in life, whatever that bullshit means." Kayden sighed and Luke seemed to nod in understanding. 

"Yeah, that's what all the parents are like, it's the only reason why they can justify spending so much to send your ass there." Luke said with a laugh and Kayden snickered. 

"What do I care if you're friends with some guy I don't know? Get on your board and show us what you can do." El said with a bright smile, clearly not being too serious. 

"What are you, the skatepark police? You're not gonna be friends with me if I can't kickflip or something?" Kayden joked. 

"That's just how it is, gotta make sure you're cool enough to hang out with us." She said. 

"I guess I'll just have to prove myself." He grinned, setting the tip of his board on the ground and lining his foot up on it. 

---

He ended up spending several hours at the skatepark practicing tricks and hanging out with his new friends. It was nice to get away, he liked his friends at Antisto, but nothing there was familiar to him. Needless to say, it was long after dark when he got in, though he'd still managed to get back a few minutes before the doors were due to lock. 

"So what'd you think of the town?" Kayden looked up to see Elias standing by the entrance to the dorms smoking a cigarette much like he had been the other night. Kayden stepped off his board and picked it up in one swift motion. 

"It was thrilling." He said back in a deadpan tone. "Can I have one of those?"

"Haven't you done enough rebelling for the night without stealing my cigarettes too? You know, these aren't cheap." 

"Like money is any object to you...how much do you want for one?" Kayden asked, pulling out his wallet and Elias thought about it for a second. 

"A dollar." He said and Kayden handed it over before Elias took one out of his pack and dropped it in Kayden's hand. The redhead held it up. "Oh sorry, did you want me to light it for you too?"

"Well, yeah."

"That's extra."

"Oh, fuck you." Kayden laughed and Elias grinned, taking out his lighter. 

"Life words." He chided as he lit it and Kayden rolled his eyes with a smile as he took a drag of it. 

"When did you start being such an insufferable asshole? Does it just come naturally or was it learned behavior? Like, is your dad also an insufferable asshole but only because his dad was an insufferable asshole first?" Kayden teased.

"Well my dad is definitely an insufferable asshole, but I could also ask you when you started being so sedulously annoying." Elias said nonchalantly and Kayden snickered softly. 

"Cocky bastard."

"Petulant twig."

"Twig, really? After a word like petulant?"

"Bastard is the best you could come up with, you have no room to talk. And I do mean that literally considering how small your vocabulary is." Elias said, putting out his cigarette on the stone railing and throwing the butt of it into the bushes, dusting the ashes off to make it look like nothing had happened. Kayden took the last drag of his before doing the same. Elias glanced across the dark courtyard, his elbow resting against the top of the stone.

"My vocabulary isn't small I just choose not to-" though he didn't get the chance to finish his sentence as he was harshly pulled inside by a firm hand around his wrist, and he didn't even really notice he was inside until the door was clicking behind him and he was panting softly, glancing up to Elias who was now directly in front of him. 

Kayden took as step back, pulling his wrist away. "What was that for?"

"Walker, he was sweeping the grounds to make sure everyone's inside, he usually does it a bit later than this though, he must have finished up some work early or something." Elias said, brushing off his uniform pants.

"Do you smoke out there every night?" 

"When else am I supposed to? If I did it any other time of day I'd risk being caught and my life is too busy to add mopping the locker room floors into my schedule." 

"Well...thanks." Kayden said softly, glancing away from him. "I should head up, Theo's probably been waiting for me." He said and Elias nodded, running his fingers through his hair. 

"I'll see you around." Elias said.

"Goodnight." Kayden said back with a small smile before he walked off. 


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