Don't be a Dick by Gabby Follin (young adult books to read TXT) 📕

confusion, “What is it?”

“You going on a date with me.”

My heart sinks, what did she just say to me?

“A date?”

“Well kind of a date, it’s at my house. My parents won’t be home, I thought we could hang out.”

My mouth shapes into a smile and freezes like that. My heart is beating so hard and fast I’m afraid it’s going to implode.

Is this really happening?

“Of course!”I exclaim,”I mean yeah sure, that sounds cool.”
She smiles and pats my shoulder as she lets go of my arm, “I’ll text ya the details.”

I smile at her, “Alrighty. Cya.”

She waves as I’m a few feet from my mother's car.

I’m still staring in her direction, watching Emily walk away and meet up with her friends, to I assume walk home.

That’s when I walk straight into the car, into the drivers door too, scaring my mother.

I look up and my mother has her head out the window staring down at me.

“Are you okay Mark?”She asks me.

I nod as I get up.

“Why did you walk into the car, were you not watching where you were walking?” She asks.

I shake my head, “I have exciting news.”

She smiles and tells me to get into the car so I can tell her as we drive home.

 

We’re about halfway home and mom asks me what the news is.

“Emily wants me to come hang out at her house sometime soon, she said she’ll text me the details so I’ll let you know but we’re hanging out for sure.” I tell her.

“That girl you have a crush on?” She asks.

I roll my eyes, “Mom!”

She giggles, “I’m just kidding honey, that’s amazing honey. You just make sure you let us know when!”

“I will mom, don’t worry.”I tell her, “I just hope it goes great. I really like her.”

My mom smiles, “I know sweetie. I would like to meet this girl.”

“You will when we start dating after we hang out!” I say.

“You sound confident in that.” She says.

“Should I not be?” I ask.

She pulls into the driveway, we’re finally home.

She turns over to me and ruffles my hair, “You should definitely be Markie.”

As we’re getting out of the car, she asks me something that makes me feel empty inside once again.

“How was Alex’s first day?”

I stare at her blankly for a moment trying to find something to say, but all I end up saying was, “Oh he said it was okay, but you know Alex.”

“Well yeah.. I don’t know if you know honey, but he came into my office pretty banged up. Do you know what happened?” She asks.

Panic wells inside of me, “Seriously?”

“Yeah, he was all bruised up. Nothing major though, but his first day….” Her voice trails off.

I stare at the pavement,”I had no idea…” I stop talking.

After the briefness of emptiness, we go inside the house and I go upstairs into my room. As soon as I get comfortable on my bed, my phone dings, notifying me that someone texted me.

I switch it on and Emily’s name shows up.

I open the messaging app and open her text.

“You can come over next weekend if you want, that’s when they’ll be gone.” She says.

I texted back, “What time am I going?”

“Whenever you want. You can spend the night too if you want.”

“Sounds great, see you tomorrow.”

“See you <3.”

The heart she sent makes my real heart pound.

I’m so excited it’s ridiculous. The amount of days, weeks, months I’ve been waiting for this moment.

I’ll just have to make sure mom is okay with me spending the night, I’m sure dad will be right on board.

As I think about how that night could go, I’m thinking about school tomorrow and how I’m going to deal with Alex.

I broke up our friendship.

Maybe it was mistake.

But I wouldn’t say so.

Things have been getting better for me.

Probably not for him though, but I don’t care.

I’m not his friend anymore.

Chapter 11 - Alex

 

I left the classroom right before the bell rang, I’m basically sprinting down the hallway only to turn back halfway to check if anyone’s coming.

Not a single soul leaves the room. I slow down as I sprint and all I hear are my feet tapping against the ground with each step and all the teachers giving directions on homework to bored kids as I pass each classroom.

Homework is certainly not on my mind, I just lost my one friend.

As the words left his mouth all I could feel is a stab in my heart, only because we’ve been friends for so long and that was literally just the end of it.

How could I not be upset?

I’m all alone now, literally no one will ever see me again.

I don’t even want to see myself.

All I really have is my mother, but… probably not for long with that drunken man slouching around.

Maybe I could take care of that for her, maybe I could do something for us.

The thought crosses my mind but I then look down at my own body.

I’m too much of a wimp, I could never pull off something like that.

It’s probably for the best, it’s a crime anyway…

I wouldn’t want to hurt my mother but an idea comes across my head that might be the best for everyone.

What if I just left completely.

Imprint

Publication Date: 08-26-2017

All Rights Reserved

Dedication:
This is just a crazy idea I had for a book and my friend seemed to like it quite a lot so I thought I'd attempt and make a book out of it. I recently started listening to this song "Pumped Up Kicks" by Foster the People (I know I'm waaaay late) but this idea was kinda inspired from that song. I know, kinda lame. I also wanted to point out that, that song was to make awareness of school shootings and haha, yeah that. This book might be quite triggering, so that's just a warning. Read at your own risk. Thank you all, and I hope you enjoy.