(Will's PoV)

My hands fumbled around with the bullets. We were learning how to load and unload M-16s. Luckily for me, we all had to make sure that the safety was on first. Loaded guns and incoordination were not a good combination.

    Matteo shut the stock of his gun. "Finished."

    Sgt. Blake, as always, looked unimpressed. "You would have known that you also needed to unload your weapon if you'd actually listened to the directions"

    I could hear Connor and Aaron snicker from a couple tables behind me. I didn't even need to see to know it was them.

    I looked over to Matteo apologetically. "I haven't even finished loading mine yet," I admitted.

    Matteo broke his pout to respond, but he was interrupted by Lt. Jason's yelling.

    "Blake! I need help!"

    Sgt. Blake sighed bitterly, but then decided to go find Lt. Jason.

    Matteo continued to slam the open stock of his gun on the table. "Why won't they come out?" he said, pounding between each word. He stood up and held the gun over his head to look inside. "Stupid bullets." He gave his gun a hard shake, which caused the bullet case to fall out and hit him on the middle of his forehead. He immediately collapsed and the gun fell out of his hand.

    Everyone's eyes averted to the situation. I got out of my chair and made my way closer to Matteo. His eyes were closed and he wasn't moving at all.

    Justin came over and flicked Matteo's right temple with his fingertip. He still didn't flinch at all. "Yep, he's unconscious," Justin stated.

    Connor couldn't contain his laughter. "The idiot knocked himself out?"

    "Quick! Does anybody have a sharpie?" Tristan asked.

    "Not the point," Justin cut in again.

    Since Sean was so small, he was easily able to make his way through the crowd. He picked up Matteo's limp body in amazement. His limbs looked about as stiff as wet noodles. "This is so cool," he said, astonished.

    Aaron watched him apprehensively. "Don't--"

    "What?" Sean asked, dropping Matteo, leaving his head to smash against the tile floor.

    Aaron sighed. "Do that."

    Sean backed away, looking kind of guilty.

    I quickly turned Matteo's head onto his side, so he wouldn't choke on his tongue.

    Connor had a smug grin on his face. "Well it looks like his constant pleas for attention backfired."

    "He doesn't plea for attention," I tried to say, but Aaron cut me off.

    "Either way, he's getting it now."

    "That or he's just so lazy that he'll hurt himself to get out of work," Alan suggested.

    I gently nudged Matteo's flimsy arm with my foot, silently begging for him to wake up. I couldn't just stand there and listen while the other guys talked shit about him. It wasn't fair, they barely knew him.

    Daniel took it upon himself to ask an actually important question. "So how do we wake him up?"

    "We could pour water on him," Clayton guessed and several other guys shrugged.

    "No!" I exclaimed. "I have a sister," I decided to not straight up mention her disease, "but yeah, anyways, she faints a lot. But you can't pour water on an unconscious person. The water could get in their mouth and if they breathe it in, they could drown."

    Connor gasped in some sort of mixture of fake innocence and malice. "Oh, but I thought Matteo could swim really well."

    Justin grabbed his canteen, but I stopped him. I didn't trust anyone else to help him. Grabbing my own canteen, I poured the water on his forehead and used my left hand to block any of it from going past his eyes.

    After several seconds his eyes flickered open. They were somewhat dazed and dizzy as he began to sit up. "What happened?" he questioned. "I can't remember anything. What's going on? Why is my hair wet? Why does--" His brain finally caught up with his speech. "My head hurts," he exclaimed, clutching his forehead.

    "No, really?" Gavin said sarcastically.

    "You hit your head with a bullet case," Logan explained.

    "And you were out cold," Ned added, not even bothering to stifle his laughter. Many of the other guys joined in too. Matteo was blushing furiously and he tried to hide his face as he went back to his spot. The laughter didn't die down until Sgt. Blake entered the room. Matteo still looked really embarrassed though. He was really quiet for the rest of the day.

    At night he was curled up on his bottom bunk, writing a letter to his girlfriend. He also seemed to be squeezing something into his mouth. Beside him was a ziploc bag filled with different types of travel sized toothpaste.

    "Are you eating toothpaste?" I asked.

    He took the tube away from his mouth. "I do it when I'm nervous or stressed," he mumbled.

    One of the tubes was already halfway empty. "You must be pretty stressed," I observed.

    "Basic Training," he replied. He pushed his bangs back and sighed. "Today was awful."

    "I'm sorry," I told him.

    "It's just that it could happen again."

    I thought for a moment. "Well I guess it could--"

    "It probably will." He sounded upset. "I'm really prone to getting knocked out. I can't take hard hits. It's happened a lot before. From fights, from recklessly playing with my brothers, hell, I've even gone unconscious from getting hit with one of the kitchen cupboards." He looked down at his letter and blinked several times. "I'm just not strong enough."

    I debated telling him what the other guys had said about him, but I figured that would just make him feel worse. And he obviously had too many things bothering him at the moment.

(Matteo's PoV)

    I threw the weighted ball as hard as I could, but it still lacked distance. When Connor threw his from a few feet over, it went almost twenty meters farther than mine.

    "Nice try," he smirked. "But just be sure not to have any hit your head. We wouldn't want you fainting again."

    I gripped my hand around one of the weights and winded my arm back. Connor wasn't too far away. When Will saw what I was doing, he grabbed my wrist. "Don't," he advised. "It's not worth it."

    I threw the weight out into the field instead of at Connor's face, but it didn't go much past my original throw.

    Sgt. Blake began lecturing us on how to properly handle grenades. "Now, in combat you'll have real ones, but for now, these ones are fake, cuz I don't trust any of you with explosives."

    As Sgt. Blake droned on, we heard Trevor's voice from behind us. "Hey guys, look what I can do," he whispered. He picked up three of the weights and began juggling them.

    Daniel lost focus in the session. "Trevor stop," he chided. "You're gonna drop them and hurt somebody."

    "Relax." Trevor continued to juggle. "I'm not gonna hurt anybody, I'm pretty good at this." He caught two weights in one hand and the third in the other. He set them down right before Sgt. Blake looked back at us.

    "Start practicing," Sgt. Blake demanded.

    We all made our way over to the back to grab some of the fake grenades. They were about as heavy as the weights we had been throwing earlier.

    "So how do we use these?" Logan asked.

    Daniel pursed his lips in agitation. "I don't know, I was a little distracted," he responded glaring at Trevor.

    "Guys, I've seen this in movies," Clayton explained. "You just have to take the pin out with your teeth."

    Trevor's memory caught up with him. "Oh yeah, I've seen that too."

    Clayton's point made sense, so I bit down onto the pin, but it was really hard and it wouldn't come out--and I didn't even have the worst luck.

    Will's hands were shaking by his mouth. The grenade seemed to be dangling from it. "Ish shtuck," he panicked. "Ish shtuck in my brayshesh."

    We rushed over to him. The pin, which was still attached to the fake grenade, was caught underneath one of his wires. I tried pulling it out, but it wasn't moving, so I tried pushing it out from the top side. It took a lot of careful hand work, but I managed to get it out and threw it into the field.

    Will sighed in relief, but Sgt. Blake didn't look so happy. "Were you taking the pins out with your teeth?"

    The six of us mumbled awkwardly.

    "I already said, you unpin a grenade with your hands, not your mouth. What kind of idiot comes up with that?"

    Although he wasn't wondering. He was looking at me the entire time.

    I folded my arms once he left.

    "Matteo," Will began. "You didn't do anything wrong, I'm the one who messed up."

    "But he just assumes I did," I fumed. "Him and everyone else. Everybody here thinks I'm a complete fuck-up."

    What if they're right?

(Logan's PoV)

    Daniel crossed out March 1st on his pocket sized calendar and sighed. "Can you believe it? Tomorrow we'll have been here for a whole month."

    "I know," Trevor agreed. "It feels like it's been forever." He paused for a moment then gave a small laugh. "I miss show choir. We had a great theme this year," he reminisced. "I even had a solo." His smile faded as he realized that he might never get to perform again.

    "Yeah, well I don't miss math," Clayton stated.

    Daniel shook his head and turned to Matteo and Will. "What about you guys?"

    Will shifted rather uncomfortably and started looking around in different directions. After stammering over his words for a few seconds, he decided, "I miss not having to do workouts. "

    Matteo's expression was solemn. "I miss my girlfriend."

    "Me too," I added. I kind of felt bad when some of the other guys made fun of Matteo about his girlfriend. It was probably cuz they were jealous. But I could tell he really liked her, like I really liked Alisha.

    Alisha Anderson, my girlfriend.

    I had been dating her since 7th grade. She was very athletic and played for our high school's varsity volleyball team. She really wasn't into music or performing, but she supported my interests anyway. She loved to celebrate monthly anniversaries and give little gifts. It was just her thing. She would never miss an important date. Sometimes she would get a little irritated when I talked to other girls. It was never anything bad, but it was nice to know that she didn't want to lose me.

    Daniel's ears were starting to grow pink.

    "Do you have a girlfriend?" I asked.

    "Well..."

    We all leaned in closer.

    "I mean I like a girl. Her name is Joy. But she's like my best friend, plus she's dating someone else."

    "Oh dude that sucks!" Clayton exclaimed. "You got friend-zoned."

    Trevor smacked Clayton's arm. "Shut up, man," he hissed. We needed to be much quieter during "wind-down" time, and he could've been more sympathetic.

    Daniel set his calendar in his bag and kept his eyes down. "I don't wanna say anything to her. Her boyfriend, Bradley Carson, he just seems to make her so happy." He ran his fingers through -his hair in distress. "I mean, maybe I'm biased, but..." he shrugged, not bothering to finish his sentence.

    "Don't worry," Trevor told him. "High school relationships don't last very long."

    Matteo and I looked taken aback.

    "You know, except for your guys'" he added quickly. He turned back to Daniel. "But they'll break up sooner than you think."

    Daniel looked up. "Really?"

    "Yeah," Trevor replied. "And she'll realize that you're way better for her cuz you're nice, and girls like clean things, oh and you can sing. Can Bradley do that?"

    "Well no," Daniel responded.

    "That's what I thought," Trevor said triumphantly. "That automatically makes you a ten times better catch. You're gonna get the girl."

    Daniel gave a small smile and blushed a soft pink.

    Having a girlfriend was one of the best feelings in the world, and Daniel definitely deserved it.

(Aaron's PoV)

    Overhearing the choir boys' conversation forced a lot of us to think about how the war changed our lives.

    Landon was curled up at the foot of his top bunk. "Who knows how long we'll be here?"

    "Who knows if we'll ever make it back," Michael added.

    "It's just not fair," Tristan blurted out. "We have to get back. There's so much stuff we haven't gotten to do. I haven't even driven by myself yet."

    "I might never have sex again," Kent said, terrified. Felix looked at him in horror. The two of them were rather perverted, but they did get our minds thinking.

    "I may never go to college," Justin realized.

    Gavin slumped his posture. "I might never go on a date."

    We all had our own set of desires, but as we listened to each other, we started to seem less and less different.

    "I just 'ope I can see my famille again soon," Jean-Paul lamented.

    Marcus put his arm around him. "Yeah, I miss my older brother."

    Above me, Connor turned around and tried to isolate himself by lying face down. He didn't like to think about his older brother. I didn't really like to either. Jordan was horrible. He would often try to fight me or scare me with water, but I was merely a pawn in his games. He really only liked to hurt me because he knew it hurt Connor. I hated seeing my best friend tormented, knowing there was nothing I could do.

    "Does anyone wanna know what I miss?" Sean asked.

    No one really replied. A few people shrugged, but the majority of the guys just started having side conversations with the people around them.

    "I miss football," he stated. "You know why?"

    A few people laughed or rolled their eyes. Sean got really quiet and sat on his bed. He hung his head and blinked several times.

    He just wanted somebody to listen to him.

    "Why, Sean?" I spoke up.

    He looked up and smiled. "I miss football because I can be myself when I play it. I don't need to be smart. I know I'm not. But that doesn't matter when I play football. I can just be me."

    His answer was more than I had expected. The kid seemed to have more depth than he appeared, but no one else ever seemed to notice.

    "What do you miss?" he asked.

    "Well..." I racked my brain. I did miss sports, but only superficially, and I didn't want to say that after his response about football. I hated to say it, but I didn't really miss my parents very much. They weren't bad people, they just weren't really involved in my life. As for friends, I was really only super close with Connor. "I don't know." I admitted.

    Sean seemed to read my thoughts. "You'd miss Connor if he wasn't here."

    "Yeah, a lot," I replied.

    "It's good you guys are together then," he pointed out. "You're the best thing about his life."

    I was unsure of how to respond. I was trying to figure out how he picked up on that.

    "He seems so mad and sad all the time. I've only seen him happy when he talks to you," he went on. He rubbed his eyes and gave a small yawn. "Good night, Aaron."

    I gave him a small nod. "Night, Sean."

    He set his head down, but kept his eyes open for a moment. "Oh and Aaron, thanks for listening to me. Nobody ever takes me seriously."