I didn't go back to the cafeteria after the call. I took a walk to try and ease my nerves, and then went straight to my next class. I knew if I went back to the cafeteria that I would see Miles' smirking at me, his face dripping with "I told you so". As I stood outside the portable of my last class that I shared with Miles, facing that reality was again inevitable. The only question was whether he had made it to the portable before me, and if he was already inside waiting smugly for me to come sit next to him, with a snarky note placed on my desk.

"Bro, move," I heard from behind me as I felt someone push passed me on the 5 stairs leading up to the portable door. I probably deserved that. Although he didn't turn around, I could tell by the curly and blond back of his head that it was Austin. If I was forced to create a Venn diagram of the popular kids at school and the kids that regularly bought weed from us, Austin would be in the middle. I wasn't surprised that he didn't seem to know my name.

"Sorry!" I called back, just as the portable door was closing behind him. I sucked in my bottom lip as I pulled open the door.

Although Miles had made it to the class before me, he was doing his typical dejected-Miles thing; head-down on his desk so you were uncertain whether he was asleep or not. I'd seen him do it the entire class before. Looking back on it, I often wonder if they teachers let him get away with more because they sensed something, and I wondered even more so why no one did anything. I wished to do something, anything to help him. But despite everything he wouldn't leave his mother, the only family he ever knew. Although, probably the more likely reason I didn't do anything was because I knew that he would never talk to me again.

"Tired or done with the world?" I asked.

"Not the world," he replied, muffled through his uniformed arm that his head laid on. I filled in the unspoken ending to his sentence in my head: just you.

I wanted to say something, but I was out of lame conversations starters. So, I opted to just start unpacking my backpack onto the desk, waiting for Mr. Culan to get to start the class.

Much to my horror, the class started right on-time, with the handout of a test that I was apparently unaware of.

"Is this a pop quiz?" I whispered under my breath to Miles as the tests began to circulate.

"Even I knew about this, and I haven't been here since last week," he said, lifting his hand slightly to reveal the pencil-scribbled cheat notes on his desk.

When the test reached my desk, I felt my heart rate soar. It was entirely about angles, and I knew nothing about them. I had decidedly not done the homework amidst all my self-created drama.

"You may now begin," Mr. Culan announced, which created a chorus of page-flips and pencil scribbles.

My eyes skirted from side to side, watching as everyone around me hurriedly wrote on their papers and typed on their calculators. Hell, even Miles looked to be doing something. I just stared blankly at the page, listening to the sound of my own heart beating.

How could I possibly have managed to come to every class, and yet been so absent that I missed the existence of a test? I was supposed to be making decisions about the rest of my life in the next week, and yet I couldn't get my head from my failure of a romantic life long enough to even remember my present schoolwork. Screw thinking years in advance, I couldn't even manage hours.

I felt the pencil slipping in my sweaty grasp and caught myself from staring in a direction that could be misconstrued as cheating. Cheating was impossible at this point; I didn't even understand enough of the concept to know who was good to cheat from.

I looked towards the ceiling, grabbed a fistful of hair from the back of my head and closed my eyes for a second. Everything else didn't matter right now. I was here now, and I had to write this test.

I looked back to my paper with what I couldn't possibly describe as drive or motivation, only fear. I started scribbling the only logical solutions my brain could muster from the questions, without any idea of the rules behind it. It was just math; I could figure it out. That's how it was invented in the first place. Although, it felt kind of like the figuring out of a Rubik's Cube. Technically possible, but practically impossible.

When I finished the test, I looked up to the clock and saw I still had 20 minutes left, and everyone else was still writing away. That was not a good sign. But I conceded to the fact that it didn't matter if I sat there the whole damn day, these answers were the best ones I was going to get. I raised my hand and Mr. Culan came to collect the test and I got the hell out of there.

I was practically racing through the parking lot to the Buick. I didn't bother to text Gemma if she had needed a ride, I'm sure she would figure it out and I was getting out of here. I also didn't bother to stop by my locker to switch out books, I just threw my bag into the passenger seat of the car and started it up. The first time I tried, the car didn't start, and I thought fuck this would be just my luck, but it thankfully started on the second go.

I had to actively remind myself the entire way home that this was in fact not GTA, and crashing my car had real-life consequences. I was just so angry with myself. I vowed that drive home that I was putting everything to the side until I finished these stupid post-secondary applications, until I figured out my life. Cian would wait, and Miles was irrelevant. I had spent far too long putting this off. I didn't want to decide the rest of my life, and I didn't want to consider the fact that although not a criminal charge, multiple suspensions on my record for drug-related incidents was probably not a great selling point to my future schools.

After an hour of being home, scraping through different program admission requirements and taking personality career quizzes, I had nothing. Nothing except a constantly vibrating phone, courtesy of both Cian and Lake. Gemma had naturally come home and given me an earful about leaving her stranded, as if she hadn't been blowing me off constantly. I guessed her and loverboy had a fight. I had put on noise cancelling headphones to block it out halfway through her rant.

I didn't need a perfect fit; I didn't think I had a dream job or a future I envisioned. I hated when people would ask me where I saw myself in five years. My seasonal summer job always did that in the interview process, as if I was supposed to say I see myself working minimum wage and being yelled at by unreasonable people for the rest of my life. I used to think the average person was reasonable before I worked customer service. I was so naïve.

I never had really stopped before to contemplate the things I liked. I had tried had to be a good student, good at everything. I didn't always succeed, so the one thing I was certain of was that biology and physics were well off the table. But how was I supposed to draw comparisons between the basic 10 subjects at high school and the thousands of careers that existed in the world.

The only thing I had decided was that it had to be the perfect distance from home. Close enough that if things worked out with me and Cian that far then we could maybe keep it going, and far enough that I didn't see Miles' face around every corner. I was aware that what I had done was set boundaries with him, but why did it feel like I was abandoning him? Why did I have this massive pit of guilt in the bottom of my stomach?

My headphones were ripped off my head and thrown to the ground. "Are you even listening?!" Gemma yelled out.

"Gemma, I get your having this mid-teenage crisis thing, but I'm actually trying to figure out what I want to do after I finish being a self-centred teenager. Do you mind?" I spat.

"I'm not self-centred," she yelled back, crossing her arms across her chest, "but I don't think it's a lot to ask that Mom and Dad give you the car to drive us, so maybe you don't leave me in the parking lot!"

I turn my attention from my laptop screen to look at her highly annoyed face. "What, so your boyfriend will scale the balcony to climb through your window at 2 am but he can't drive you home?"

Her face turned beet red. "He's not my boyfriend," she muttered under her breath.

"Whatever, Gemma. Clearly, he's the one you're actually mad at, so can you leave me alone?" I could hear the exhaustion in my own voice by this point. Gemma dropped her arms to her side and bit on the inside of her lip. I turned my attention back to the laptop. I heard her quietly pull up a chair next to me.

"Where are you thinking of going?" She asked.

"I don't even know if I will get in anywhere," I replied.

"Won't know unless you try, right?" She smiled meekly, and I returned one.

"I put this off for way too long, Gem. I have days to decide what I want to do with my life, and I have no idea."

She pondered it for a minute. I was aware that I was asking a 15-year-old for possibly the biggest life advice I needed thus far, but somehow, she was the most mature person I knew, boyfriend-mess aside.

"All you're doing is creating some options for yourself. It doesn't mean you have to take them, even if you do get in. You can always create more options later." She said, taking the mouse from me and scrolling through the programs.

"What about Psychology? I feel like you'd be good at that. You like helping people."

I sighed. "I think I pre-requisite to helping other people is not being a complete mess myself."

I could tell from the way she looked at me in response that she wanted to argue, but instead settled on just continuing to scroll.

"You've always been good at math?" She offered, and I laughed loudly.

"When I get my test back that I wrote today we can talk about that," I replied.

"Look, I have no idea either but just try to think about the things you enjoy studying, and maybe what kind of work you could imagine yourself doing. I can't see you working a job where you aren't actively helping people every day. You're an impact kinda guy."

I wanted to tell her that obviously I had tried that already, but I bit my tongue and just nodded. I knew she was just trying to help.

As we continued to sit there, hunched over my small laptop, and staring at the even smaller print on it, Gemma took notes on programs that looked interesting, and more notes on ones that I met the requirements for. She kept it colour-coded according to program and alphabetized according to school, and I was grateful to have her help. It made the whole thing more manageable. My continuously buzzing phone on the other hand, continued to be an inconvenience, and distraction.

"Have you considered... and this is going to sound crazy, I know.... But maybe, answering the phone?" She said as she lifted it off the desk and thumbed through the missed texts and calls.

"We are kinda in the middle of something," I say to her, pointing at the screen as if she wasn't contributing more than I was.

"You made it wait this long, I feel like it could wait five minutes more," she said quietly.

"Unless someone is dying, it can wait."

Gemma looked up from my phone with wide eyes and a suddenly flushed face.

"I can't say for sure someone's dying, but it definitely doesn't seem good." She thrusted the phone into my face, so close I could barely focus to make out the words. The name was clear though, they were all from Cian.

Incoming Message

Are you done class?

Sent 3:15

Incoming Message

I don't want to be annoying but I just really want to explain.

Sent 3:49

Incoming Message

I'm at the hospital with my mom, call me when you can.

Sent 4:27

**A/N Happy New Year all! Thank you so much for sticking with me and Bailey :) All the best for the year ahead!