Chapter 1:

Cheez-Its n' E-Cigs.

Vending Machines


In the hallways of a certain high school, a group of boys are walking to the cafeteria to grab some grub when one of the boys break away in another direction.

"Hey! Where are you off to?" One of the group calls out to the escapee.

The escapee in question, Kade, stops to give a shrug followed by a thumb over the shoulder in the direction he was heading. "Forgot to mention, but I'm seeing this girl, and she takes up my lunch slot on Wednesdays. Sorry guys."

A series of cheers ring out from the crowd. Then the same group member silences everyone. "Don't let us keep you then, but share the details with us later today. Capeesh?"

Kade grimaces and clasps his hands together. "I'm afraid I can't do that. Keeping it on the low until things seem official. You know what I mean?"

"Weird, but whatever. See you later."

Kade waves and powerwalks away until the group is out of sight, and that's when he drops the facade. He slows to a regular pace and sighs. "Can't believe that worked."

Amongst his peers, Kade is just a cheerful boy who can get a long with anybody. He's always at the center of conversation in a group of friends, bouncing back at everyone with his brightest self, so much so that it'd make most people's head spin, but behind the curtains, he's about as dead and buried as a person whose head actually got twisted off. So, in search of peace in the afterlife of social drain, he looks for a place to rest, and that's when he happens upon a couple of vending machines and a bench.

***

There he stands; just before the colorful array of drinks bathed in cold, blue light. His eyes aren't searching the gallery for anything of particular taste, they only lock on to the interface as he flips out a rugged wallet for a dollar. He slips it into the machine after a few misses. His choice: A bottle of water.

It falls into a vibrating thud at the retrieval door, and Kade pulls it out and gives it a singular juggle, only to feel the weight for no particular reason. 

He shimmies over to the next machine, one that consists of food items, which is the type he has to stop and ponder the choice of. He chooses the upper-left-most item, a bag of Cheez-Its, based on a game of elimination he impulsively set for himself. The rules are that with each visit, he has to try the options in order until he reaches the end. He slips a dollar in and presses on the pad while watching the spiral mechanism inside turn to release the bag over the edge. It crashes with a shorter lived but more violent crunch, and he takes it out, shaking the bag to hear the quantity and consistency of its contents.

Teetering on the fine line of satisfaction and disappointment with his purchase, he sits at the aforementioned bench and places the bag to his side so he can focus on the first obstacle of snacking; opening a plastic bottle. His free hand twists around the top with the same force of opening a pickle jar, but the flimsy bottle wins, and he is left believing his hand isn't dry enough. So, he wipes his hand up and down a pant leg and tries again, his face turning red from the amount of pressure being applied. There's some give after what felt like endless struggle, allowing him to exhale some built up tension, and as a reward for all his effort, the remainder of the job was a walk in the park. The cap rolls off and into his palm, and he clenches it to a fist as an affirmation of victory.

He indulges in the spoils of the battle by taking a swig, then a refreshed sigh leaves him when he puts the cap back on.

The Cheez-Its are the next victim of his munchies as he proceeds to pinch the front and back faces so he can pull it open. The bag pops and the contents reveal to be about as modest in portion as he assumed from the feel, but he can’t complain about the sole purpose of it being labeled a snack.

Amidst his thorough inspection of the bag, he hears the clack of heels coming from the way he came. It tenses him up, and he decides to hide by sliding towards the end of the bench that is closest to the vending machines. It's not as though he's somewhere he shouldn't be, but something inside him rejects the possibility of interacting with another human for the foreseeable hour.

Rounding the corner of the hallway that meets this cove is a short and visibly furious girl who treads the area carefully; likely on the lookout for any signs of life. It’s clearly the setup for someone going to do shady things, so he stops his gaze to avoid any trouble.

The girl halts at the opposite end of the vending machines and starts digging through her schoolbag. It starts as an orchestra of supplies tumbling about, with even some recurring notes that imply a reinvestigation of the same places, and at a level of rising aggression that could end in the bag torn to shreds. 

Eventually the rummaging brings her to a boiling point, and she mumbles a few curses; quiet enough to not be discernable, but loud enough to hear the frustration. Then a couple more shuffles of pens and pencils results in a loud cry of "Where the fuck," which is not very clandestine of her.

Kade is frozen with the bottle and bag in each hand like he's a figure of religion to snacks across the globe, but unlike an unbothered, omnipotent deity, he can be killed by curiosity, so he takes a peek around the vending machine.

The situation is just as he imagined; a girl practically hammering at the insides of a schoolbag, but she isn't exactly dressed as punk as her attitude lead him to believe. it's more-so the opposite.

There's a pause in her search, and the angry expression quickly shifts to calm. "Finally," she says while pulling out a small object, which nearly brought Kade into her sight, so he retreats again. "I was about to kill myself."

The exclamation bewilders Kade. It was clearly an exaggeration, but again her way of speech is severely tarnishing the image. The two never met before, but it was his best bet that he is the sole witness of this side of her. Following her discovery, he even feels the same relief, mainly because she wouldn't cause any more commotion, or so he thought.

After a moment of silence, the faint sound of sizzling—like an egg being fried—tickles his ears. It's coming from the girl, and not long after, she is thrown into a coughing fit, one that lasts a little too long for his comfort.

The girl, hunched over and punching her chest, coughs out bursts of white vapor, only to suddenly stop, sizzle some more, and then return to an even worse coughing fit. 

Kade wasn’t a stranger to things like vaping, nor to the susceptible personalities that are prayed upon by the cheap escapes. The idea of hitting a stick of brain-fogger has crossed his mind much more than once, but what tugs his heart the most is the familiar sight of desperation to smoothen the bumpy ride of life. When he saw that, he made a decision he wouldn’t change in a million years. He’d sacrifice his time of peace for this complete stranger, and hopefully save them from the spiral that’ll push them off the edge.

"Excuse me." Kade calls out to the girl, which is a mistake to do so suddenly.

She shrieks and turns to pitch her device at breakneck speed towards him, an instinctual defense mechanism, and, bullseye, a direct hit of commendable measure, right between the eyes. It breaks into its few parts and hits the tile floor with a scattering crackle.

Kade, with a freshly stamped red mark, covers the impact area with his cool bottle and winces through the sting.

The girl gasps, then switches back into her state of fury. She moves with a determinedly vengeful gait until in position to loom over Kade, an additional slam of her fist against the vending machine to sell the displeasure. "Hey creep! You got any clue what you just did?”

Kade is still dazed by the sting. “Huh?”

“The stuff on the ground. You made me throw it, so you better pay up. That’ll be One-hundred dollars," she holds out her other hand and grabs at the air like a crab claw.

Pressing his back into the bench, it'd be otherwise hard to tell that he was in any form distressed, but that's an ability unlocked from years of playing it up for his friends. If it weren't for her lack of intimidating appearance, being only a head above him while he is sat and sporting an indisputably cute style, he'd be nauseas and slurring his words.

"I don't have a hundred, and even if I did, I wouldn't give it up for someone's self-destructive path." He rolls his eyes.

"God. you sound like such a nerd. Give it up or you'll be in deep shit."

"For what?" He becomes a bit confrontational in tone, hoping it'll scare her off, "What are you gonna do, tell people I broke something you're not supposed to have," 

It's too bad she's just as stubborn as her bark. She grabs at his collar and tugs as hard she can, but he doesn’t budge, so she just comes in closer. “Listen dumbass. Today has been an absolute pain in the neck. The last thing I want is back-talk from a creep," she pokes him on the chest, "so can it," then points the same finger up as warning, "and give me my money before I tear you a new one.”

He calmly surrenders. “Alright, alright. You win. but I really don’t have a hundred dollars to spare.” He shrugs, but just as quickly searches for a solution, the sight of his Cheez-Its sparking an idea. “How about I pay you back with a snack? It’s a whole lot better than coughing for an hour straight.”

She scoffs at the sight. “A snack? Shitty joke. That bag is no less than a a hundredth of what you owe me.”

It takes him a moment as he scratches his chin to think of another answer, but once it arrives, his eyes become livelier with a sense of confidence only found in unsuspecting failures. “Then how about a hundred snacks, all on me?” He points a thumb at himself and smirks. “I wont have the spare allowance to make it up straight away, so why not drop by for a free treat? I’m gonna be here every Wednesday." He relaxes as if he won a major legal case, then reawakens to an impulsive request. "Just as a small favor, keep away from the illegal stuff.”

Barely listening, she mocks his speech by mouthing them silently and rocking her head at each word. “Why the hell do you care? You’re a next level creep to think I’d go with your stupid favor.”

“Well… I think you’re cute.” He blurts, brain fried by the prolonged people exposure.

She lets go of his collar and shakes her hand as if it were covered in dirt. “Just as I thought, a complete pervert.”

“So it’s a no?” His own question bewilders him, at a loss for what he’s doing.

“It’s a no times a million. You wouldn’t catch me dead at these vending machines. You hear? It’s a big fat no.”

“Your loss.”

“As if. You were born a creep.”

“I broke your thing and all I gotta do to repay is nothing? Sounds like I stay winning.” He snaps his fingers and points.

“Give me those.” She snatches them right out of his blatantly un guarding hand. “I’m only taking these because you don’t deserve ‘em.”

“That works for me too.”

“Shut up!” She storms off, and he collapses on the bench. 

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