"Gym is the worst. I want to sue this school. Can they be held liable if I have a heart attack?" Piers asked as we changed into our gym clothes.

"Gym isn't a class. It's a place," I mocked.

"Okay, Coach Barton, calm down," Piers said.

I shut my locker and leaned against it as I waited for Piers to finish tying his shoes. "Wally is still missing," I pointed out.

"He'll probably stay missing. He hates gym too," Piers said.

"You've been tying your shoes for five minutes," I said.

"I have very complicated shoelaces."

"Piers, we're going to be late."

"If they're not tied right, I'll trip on them and get injured. Do you want me to get injured?"

"Do you want me to answer that truthfully?"

"I'm glad you broke your ass this morning, you heartless man."

He stopped pretending to tie his shoes and the two of us left the locker room. We made our way into the gym, where kids were mingling about.

"It's always so cold in here," I groaned, rubbing my arms.

"Wally skipping gym? And here I thought Piers would do that," Five said, coming up to us. "Where's Josh?"

"Dead, if I'm lucky enough," I said.

"Sounds like a healthy relationship," Five said.

"Robin?"

"Luck is not on my side, evidently," I said.

Josh walked over to us. He glanced at my friends and relaxed a little, noticing Wally's absence. Man, Josh underestimated me. If I was going to be degrading enough to have an affair with any of my friends, I'd probably be degrading enough to pick them based on looks. Wally was a human puppy, but Piers? God himself hand sculpted Piers' ass.

The bell rang, but our Coach was always late so no one in the gym bothered to stop their conversations. Josh's arrival had brought awkward silence with it, as it always seemed to. It's not that my friends couldn't tolerate Josh. It's that half the time I couldn't tolerate Josh.

"Hey, you didn't ditch!" Five said, gaze sliding past me.

I turned as Wally hurried over to us, looking a little out of breath. "I didn't want to have to do a gym make-up. I pretty much ran to get here and get changed on time."

Ah, if only I could capture Josh's scowl and turn it into a Renaissance painting.

"Your face will get stuck like that," I informed Josh.

"Stuck like what?" he said, trying to pretend he didn't hope Wally would burst into flames and die a painful death.

"Outside! Class today is outside!" Coach Barton yelled as he came into the gym, clapping his hands together to get attention. "Come on everyone, outside to the obstacle course."

"Well, there goes the rest of my dignity," I said as we followed the stream of kids out to the hallway and towards the side exit of the school.

The obstacle course was designed specifically to torture uncoordinated losers like me. It involved a lot of climbing, jumping, and physical talent. Even worse, it usually involved teamwork drills. As if physical exercise wasn't bad enough already, our Coaches liked to throw social aspects into it.

We trailed along until we reached the obstacle course. Coach waited until everyone was gathered around him before speaking.

"Everyone get into groups of..." He paused and quickly counted out how many of us there were. "Groups of, uh, six. Yea, six, that'll work."

"Are you sure you weren't meant to be a math teacher?" Five asked.

"Are you sure you weren't meant to have detention today?" he asked.

Five sighed. "Fair enough, Coach."

Everyone began moving around to join groups. I hoped that Josh would go off with some of his other friends, but he shot another look at Wally and stood firmly next to me. Goddammit.

In the end, Coach let us get away with two groups of five, our group included. He began to sending everyone to various obstacles with teamwork instructions for each. When he reached our group, he took us over to a narrow beam of wood that was a fair height off the ground.

"Line up on it," he instructed, and we all climbed onto it. My feet were bigger than the width of the damn thing and my toes hung off the edge. "Good! Now, you each have to walk from the front of the line to the end. This will require coordination and teamwork. And balance. Probably a lot of balance. Get to it! I'll be keeping an eye on all the groups, so no cheating. Start with Piers."

He left us and we all stared at each other. Piers shook his head.

"I'm sorry, did he say start with Piers?" he asked.

"It's karma for mocking my injured ass earlier," I said. "Now you get to fall on yours."

Piers looked at Josh, who was standing next to him. "Great, I'm about to be closer with Josh than Robin has been in months."

"Don't think I won't push you," Josh said in irritation.

"Don't act like I won't fall regardless of you pushing me," Piers said.

He reached out and grabbed Josh's shoulder, swinging himself around so that he was balanced carefully on the beam. Josh tried to hold still, reluctantly reaching out to grab Wally's shoulder and steady himself.

Piers easily worked his way down the line of us, all of us just trying to hold still so he wouldn't fall. His feet easily found perch, and he knew just what weight he could put on us without knocking us over.

Piers would never admit it, but he was born to be an athlete. He was balanced, strong, and impossibly fast. But he was also lazy, and despised any form of physical activity.

Once he was safely settled on the other side of the line of people, Josh sighed. He swung himself around and carefully made his way down. When he reached me, he avoided eye contact as he tried to settle his feet and move past me. I considered pushing him, but didn't even want to imagine the storm of bitching that would drum up.

Josh made it safely and then it was Wally's turn. He grabbed Five's shoulders and turned himself, starting his way down until he reached me. His body wobbled unsteadily and I put an arm around him, holding him against me until he was steady again. Josh would be pissed, but he'd get over himself.

Wally shot me a grateful look before continuing on down the line. I watched carefully when he reached Josh, positive Josh would throw him to the ground.

But he behaved himself, probably aware that I was watching. He even steadied Wally as he turned around.

Five was next, grabbing my shoulders and slowly trying to get past me. I put an arm around her waist as she started wobbling.

"Christ, I'm going to be the one to fuck this up," she hissed, hugging herself against me.

"Rather you than me," I said.

"Such a caring friend," she said, and started inching her way down the beam, placing her feet between ours skillfully. Like Piers, she denied having any talent, but she was a soccer player and her footwork was impressive.

Some asshole part of me hoped she'd fall so that it wouldn't be up to me to fuck up, but Five reached the end without incident. Oh good. That left me.

I turned and started down the line. If I could just not fuck up, that would be really cool. But I also knew my luck, and despite how slow I was crawling along, it was just a matter of time before I fell.

Sure enough, I grabbed Josh's shoulder and nearly tripped over my own feet. As I started tipping back too far, Josh grabbed my shirt to pull me up. But I panicked and gripped his arm, and instead the two of us ended up falling off the beam together.

We hit the ground, Josh on his side and me and on my back. He released my shirt and glared at me.

"I hope that wasn't your idea of a romantic fall," he said.

"That was my idea of why gym should be illegal in schools," I said.

"Physical education. Gym is a place," Coach Barton said, standing over us. "Good work, though. I was expecting more of you to fall."

"Thanks for the confidence," Piers said.

"Well, I figured you would've just sat down and called it quits without trying," Coach said. "Now, are you two alright? Do I need to call the nurse?"

"That depends. Can she fix my dignity?" I asked. "I think I broke it."

"You never had it to begin with," Josh said, pushing himself to his feet. He offered me his hand, but I ignored it and used the beam to pull myself up.

"I'll take that as a no. Good work. Don't get discoura- ah, darn, another one down. Ava! You can't just jump on the rope!" Coach scurried his way over to another group, leaving us to ourselves.

"Well, at least you tried to help," I said leaning against the beam as the others sat on it.

"Your faith in me is inspiring," Josh said dryly.

I reached out and brushed some grass and dirt off of his shirt. He watched me silently, just giving me that look that said he remembered when an incident like this would've had us laughing and teasing each other for hours.

Now, I just turned away from him when I was done. Wally hopped down off the beam and came to stand next to me.

"Are you okay?" he asked, smacking grass off my shirt.

"Unfortunately I survived the fall," I said.

Wally brightened. "Good."

"Not good, Wally. I didn't want to survive the fall," I said.

"Well I wanted you to survive the fall," he said. "Who else will text me at 3 in the morning about comic books?"

"I'm sure you could find somebody," I said. "Probably not someone with my abusive use of capital letters. But someone."

Josh grabbed my arm, spinning me to face him. Totally not obvious about his jealousy or anything. That was Josh; smooth and unreadable.

"Come over afterschool," he said.

"Or I could go home and sleep," I said.

"Robin. Please." He met my eyes and I sighed.

"Fine, fine, I'll come over afterschool," I said. Great, afterschool bitch session with Josh.

Josh released my arm and walked away, off to join his other friends. Wally cocked his head to the side curiously, but I just shrugged.

"Man, you two have issues," Five said.

"Please don't remind me. I don't even want to think about it anymore." I shook my head a little.

"What, this wonderful bonding exercise didn't bring you two closer together?" Piers asked.

I gestured to the ground. "It brought us closer to Hell, where we both belong. But, like, separate corners of Hell. So we don't have to see each other."

"Why not just breakup?" Five said.

"Because I'm torn between strangling him and fucking him," I said.

"Why not both? I hear some people are into that," Piers said.

"I'm going to bathe both of you in holy water," Wally said.

"I'm not kinky, I'm just homicidal!" I said.

"I mean, is there really a difference?" Piers said.

"I'm going to leave this conversation and take Wally with me," Five said.

My friends knew that I wasn't breaking up with Josh anytime soon. He annoyed me and I wanted to hit most of the time, but we also still had moments where I remembered why I started dating him in the first place. Our relationship was damaged, not dead.

Coach began to call to everyone to go back inside, and we followed the crowd of kids. Wally nudged me as we walked.

"If things go horribly wrong at Josh's tonight, I have gelato in my freezer," he said.

I laughed a little. "How comforting. I'll let you know how things go tonight. I'll probably text you through the whole thing anyways. Think of a good topic."

The determination on his face said he hadn't quite caught on to the humor part of that. He nodded, the mess of hair on his head bouncing as he did so.

Maybe I couldn't always count on Josh to have my back, but Wally always would. We were a good balancing act; I tended to be a sarcastic asshole and Wally tended to be a decent human being.

We entered the school and Josh dropped back to me. "Afterschool," he reminded before disappearing with his friends again.

Well, that meant he probably wouldn't talk to me for the rest of the day. Hey, maybe today wouldn't be as terrible as I thought!