Chapter Text
School had barely started, and Kaden was already ready to go home. He’s not exaggerating, (he is,) when he says he just had the worst morning of his life. His alarm clock broke, so instead of waking up at 6:30 am like he usually does, he only managed to scramble out of bed at 7:23. For context, Kaden lives 30 minutes away from school, and school starts at 8:00. So Kaden had no time for a shower or breakfast. He barely had enough time to throw on his clothes, hastily brush his teeth, and book it out the door. It wouldn’t have been a problem if he had a car, but his family didn’t have that kind of money, so Kaden bikes to school.
And lucky him, some assholes drove by while he was biking and purposefully went through a puddle, spraying him with water. He’s pretty sure they were on the football team; no surprise there.
When Kaden finally got to school he had about 3 minutes to get to his first class. And because God hates him, someone tripped him as he was running, sending him tumbling to the floor, much to the amusement of the kids still in the hall. Kaden didn’t even look back to see who tripped him, he just jumped up and kept running.
“Seriously, how cliche can these jerks get? What will they do next, steal my lunch money?” He thought as he dodged students still lingering in the halls.
Kaden’s saving grace came in the form of Mrs. Radley, the history teacher, who didn’t even look up when he walked into class 2 minutes after the bell, during the pledge of allegiance.
So that brings us to the present moment; Kaden slumping into his chair, still uncomfortably damp from when those asshats splashed him. He ignored the snickers he could hear coming from the back of the class, no doubt about his slightly moist, disheveled appearance, and took out his notebook to copy down the daily prompt on the white board.
‘If you could return to any time in history, what era would you choose?’
After about 5 minutes of writing time, Mrs. Radley stood up and addressed the room, “Would anyone like to volunteer to share their thoughts?” Kaden, to no one's surprise, raised his hand. “Go ahead Kaden,” Mrs. Radley nodded towards him. Kaden opened his mouth to answer the question, but was cut off by a voice from the back of the room.
“Kaden would obviously go to ancient Greece, he’d fit in so well there.” Of course the guy to speak up was Justin. Asshole extraordinaire and a beloved member of the football team.
The classroom erupted into giggles at Justin’s sub-par gay joke. Kaden rolled his eyes and turned in his chair, meeting Justin’s stare head on.
“I assume you’ll be going to the stone age then? You’d fit in so well with all the cavemen.” Kaden dead panned, not breaking eye contact. The students in the room laughed even harder and Justin glared at Kaden.
Shit. He’d be paying for that later.
“Alright, enough.” Mrs. Radley spoke, “we’re just going to move on.” She picked up a stack of papers off her desk, and began passing them out.
“For the next week, we will be doing a project on different important revolutions throughout history. You will be in groups of two and each group will be doing a different revolution. I have already created your groups.” Groans filled the classroom, students having already looked to their friends to pair up.
Mrs. Radley put the list of pairs on the smartboard next to the list of different revolutions they could pick from. Kaden quickly found his name and- of course.. Donovan Miller. The football team's quarterback and Justin’s best friend. Well, at least he wasn’t paired with Justin himself.
Kaden looked back and found Donovan already looking his way, an indecipherable expression on his face. Kaden made no move to stand, hoping that Donovan would come to the front instead of making Kaden come sit with the rest of the jocks. Luckily, his prayers were answered as Donovan grabbed his stuff and sat in the empty chair next to Kaden.
As soon as Donovan sat down, Kaden began speaking. “I think we should do the Haitian revolution. It was a huge slave revolution against the French that fundamentally changed colonialism and slavery across the world.” To Kaden’s surprise, Donovan nodded along as he talked, actually listening to what Kaden was saying.
“Sure, I’m down. I love hating the French, so it’s perfect.” Kaden, not expecting the joke, let out a loud laugh before clamping his hand over his mouth, his face heating up as several people shot him confused looks. Donovan smiled, a proud gleam in his eye.
Kaden informed Mrs. Radley of their pick and she crossed it off on the board. The pair then began to work, filling out the necessary info on their worksheets and opening up a word document to write down their research.
As class neared its end, and students began to pack up, Kaden turned to Donovan. “We’ll need to work outside of class time and I know the football team usually has a brief practice during free period and again after school so we’ll have to meet up after football practice at each other's houses.” Kaden rambled as he packed his belongings back into his backpack, Donovan doing the same next to him.
“You know our schedule by heart huh? Let me guess, you’re secretly in love with me and you’ve been stalking me for months.” Donovan teased, his grin widening when Kaden shot him an unimpressed look.
“Oh no! You’ve caught me!” Kaden said, his tone dripping with sarcasm. “I’m madly infatuated with you and I’ve already started planning our wedding. It’ll be in spring and my dog will be the ring bearer.” Donovan threw his head back laughing loudly.
“Only if my cat can be the flower girl.” Donovan said after calming down, and Kaden shoved his shoulder, rolling his eyes.
“Are you free this evening? I could come over after practice to work on the project if you are.” Donovan offered. Kaden nodded, “Sounds good to me. Let me give you my number, I’ll text you my address.”
Donovan smirked as he handed over his phone for Kaden to type in his number, “Asking for my number already Kaden? How forward.” Kaden just sighed and shook his head, as he sent himself a short text before handing the phone back to Donovan.
The bell rang and the two continued to talk as they both walked towards 2nd period Chemistry, another class they happened to share. Kaden was in the middle of explaining why Science was far superior to Math when an arm was thrown around his shoulder rather aggressively, causing him to stumble slightly. He wasn’t all that surprised when he turned his head to see Justin smiling towards him, a cruel look in his eye.
“Sup GAY-den, I hope you aren’t trying to shoot your shot with our quarterback. I hate to break it to you but you’re not exactly his type.” Justin’s hand was clamped down hard on his shoulder, a clear message; don’t even think about it.
Kaden scoffed and wiggled out from Justin’s grip. “Yeah, I’m good. Contrary to what you might believe, I’m not attracted to every single guy I talk to.” As confident as he tried to sound, Kaden felt very uneasy. He was practically surrounded by Justin’s friends, most of them being people who harassed him on the regular.
Justin rolled his eyes and looked at Kaden like he was stupid. “Maybe not, but there’s no way a fairy like you wouldn’t be drooling all over Donovan.” Before Kaden could make another clever retort that might get him punched in the stomach, Donovan spoke up,
“Knock it off Justin, we were just talking about the project. Don’t blow it out of proportion.” Justin just glowered and muttered a quiet “whatever…” before heading down a different hallway, the herd of jocks following him like loud annoying minions.
After walking in silence for a couple more seconds, Kaden spoke, “Why did you lie?” Donovan just looked at him, confused. “You told Justin we were talking about the project,” Kaden elaborated, “But we weren’t. Why did you lie to him?”
Donovan just shrugged. “I didn’t feel like dealing with his bullshit so I said it to make him fuck off.”
“Isn’t he your best friend?” Kaden asked. Donovan shook his head, chuckling. “We just happen to be in the same friend group. I probably wouldn’t talk to him if it wasn’t for football.”
Well, in the span of about an hour, Kaden's entire perception of Donovan had been flipped on its head. Apparently, Donovan wasn’t as much of an ass as he thought. Kaden wonders what else he might learn about Donovan as they continue to talk all the way to 2nd period.