11 to 16

11 to 16

11. 33% - Ryan, Noah, Andre

"I can't believe this! I studied for six hours last night!" Ryan growled from his lunch seat, green eyes glaring at a somewhat crumpled piece of paper in his trembling hands, one with a red mark that did not quite please him.

"Well," Noah began, taking a seat next to his disgruntled companion, "y'know... Math ain't really yer best subject."

"Yeah, but I studied chapter fifteen for six hours! Six hours straight! I didn't sleep till three in the damn morning! I at least expected a damn 70!"

"Chapter fifteen?" A yawning voice piped up from beside the table. Lo behold came Andre, his jacket shoveled oddly over his shoulder and a lunch tray in his boney fingers. "We're on chapter eight, dude. No wonder you failed. You used the wrong formulas or whatever the fuck we're learning and screwed yourself over."

"So... What'd ya end up gettin', Ryan?" Noah asked after a lengthy moment of silence.

There was a harsh sigh, then a frown, then a growl. "A goddamn thirty three."

12. Dead Wrong - Noah, Hayli

"Noah, we're going the wrong way. I think we're lost."

"I've lived 'n this damn county fer sixteen years; I ain't lost."

It was the stereotypical driving situation: a boy who was too arrogant to stop for directions and a worried girl who kept trying to convince him it was the right thing to do. They'd been driving for a while down a curvy road that seemed to drift for miles upon miles through fields and farms, Noah at the steering wheel of his truck and one of his hopeless childhood friends beside him. So much for a short cut.

"Look, let's just stop at a house, knock on the door, and go talk to somebody," she suggested, though it came out as more of a plea.

"Nuh uh! I know where I'm gettin'. Just lookin' fer a familiar road's all..."

"For the love of God, Noah..."

She'd never get home, at this rate.

13. Running Away - Noah

Leaving that town was one of the most difficult things he'd ever done.

He wasn't even sure why he was running. Maybe it was memories; that had to be it. A pitiful attempt, sadly. At eighteen years old, he had long since known he couldn't run from what was in his mind. But, he could suppress it. He could hide it. He could pretend like that life had never happened and forget every painful memory and start anew. He could do it.

It was five or six in the morning when he left, the sun creeping over the foliage that lined the highway, a sky of purples, blues, and yellows blanketing the air. The roar of his truck came as it chugged along, a lone ranger heading in its own path in a lonely road. Noah looked from his steering wheel to the yellow lines on the road a few times, weary, the bags under his eyes apparent.

"Ain't no lookin' back now," he muttered to himself over the hum of the radio, ironically gazing at his rear-view mirror for a moment, staring at the sun behind him. After a few minutes, he reached down in his pockets, taking out a pack of Marlboros and popping out a cigarette. "Ain't gonna do me no good to care anymore. Gotta move on."

14. Judgment - Ryan

What would happen when he died?

Maybe it was too early to think of something like that, but maybe it was also too late. People had died because of him; could he ever redeem himself in the eyes of God? Of course, the man wasn't even sure God existed. There was no proof, only faith, something he'd been lacking in his life since his adventures in Afghanistan. Ryan wasn't even a religious man. Sure, the songs he had played long ago had been written by their creators in the name of a god. He'd surrounded himself in literature with the same purpose. But he was not a Christian, he was not a Muslim, he was not a Buddhist... He was nothing.

For a long time, he hadn't even cared of the possible existence of any god. Maybe, just maybe, all the deaths, all the pain, the way he'd seen people live a life surrounded by bombs and smoke... Maybe he refused to believe in a god. Maybe he didn't care still.

Either way, when he died... It was gonna suck.

15. Seeking Solstice - Mudd, Andre

"It's cold as shit, man."

"Uh huh."

"Like seriously, dude. It's fucking cold. If I was a chick, you'd see nipples the size of orange cones poking out of my jacket."

Mudd chuckled softly, leaning against one of the legs holding up the bleachers that seemed to rise far above his head, a cigarette in one hand, a lighter in the other, both almost balled up into fists that were turning blue from the cold. He looked to his right, finding Andre sitting in the snow, curled up in a ball with a look stuck between misery and anger across his face.

"What are we even doing here?" Mudd asked after a long minute, flicking ashes off his cig, glancing through the seats of the bleachers to gaze at a white football field. "School's closed."

"Cause this is the last place the cops will expect me to be. That fat bald one drives on Noah's road all the damn time just looking for me. Fat piece of shit will arrest me just for jaywalking." Andre shivered a little, pulling the hood of his jacket over his hair, a few strands of brown covering his face.

"Paranoid."

"Fuck if I am. I got the right reasons to be." He sneezed a little. "Where is summer when you need it?"

16. Excuses - Noah

Working out in the fields was something Noah had done for as far back as he could remember. He recalled the first time he'd ridden in a tractor by himself, plowed a field, and picked crops from the soil with his bare hands. But f all the times in his life he'd done these things, he hated to do it with his father.

"Boy, do this" and "Boy, do that." When he didn't do something right, there was always an exaggerated groan or gripe from Papa Barton. Praises for things done right were nonexistent.

"Boy, do't tighter," the father ordered his teenage son one day as he fixed a broken piece of barbed wire on one of the fences. No one was quite sure how it broke- probably just rust- but a replacement for that string of wire was needed.

"Yessir," Noah repllied, half agitated, half worn out. He was sweating through his t-shirt from the heat, and his knees were killing him. Genetics were a bitch; why did he have to inherit bad knees?

"Tighter." The booming voice came again, this time louder, as if echoing. Noah pulled on the wire, thankful to be wearing gloves. Sadly, the tighter he clasped to the barbs, the more useless those gloves seemed. "Boy, I told ya twice an' I ain't tellin' ya again."

"John, I'm pullin' so hard, m'damn hands're bleedin' through the gloves."

"Boy, d'ya ever wanna be a man? Y'can't do nothin' right."

"Well, sorry I can't do nothin' right. Must be why I'm out here workin' after school every danged day doin' more hours than a single mom. Cause I just ain't got no manly bone in mah damn body."

"Stop yer bitchin', boy, an' tie that down."

Like every other time things like this had happened, Noah reluctantly did as he was told, itching to punch his old man in the face so hard that the cigarette in his mouth would go straight down his throat. Hell, Noah might even steal that cigarette beforehand. If he was to ever become a chain smoker, his father was going the be the main excuse.