How to Make a Friend 101

It was only Blake’s second day at the new school, and already he was causing his parents concern. They were worried someone was coercing him into bringing them food, even though he insisted he wanted to pack the extra lunch, and it was super important.

Secretly, he was very excited to surprise the ginger-haired boy. Even if he ran off again, Blake could always try again the next day, too. He’d have to wait until lunch period, though, which would probably be really hard. In the meantime, he found his seat in class, and made a point to give the other boy a wave. 

He seemed surprised, for a moment, before frowning at him and roughly turning away. Blake wasn’t discouraged! Sometimes, that was how shy people acted. 

“Here!” He greeted, finally finding the boy’s hiding spot. Apparently the ginger didn’t stay in the cafeteria during lunch like they’d been told, and none of the teachers seemed bothered that he was gone, so Blake figure it was okay for him to leave, too. Still, it had taken some looking before he found him sitting on top of the monkey bars outside. 

The boy leaned over, eyebrows raised as he looked down at the sandwich Blake was holding out. His eyes flicked to Blake’s, narrowing. 

“What’s this for?” He spoke in harsh tones. 

“Well ‘cause you wanted a lunch, right? I brought one for you!”

Like the day before, he seemed to have taken the other boy entirely off-guard. He furrowed his brows, looking more perplexed than angry.

“What’s with you? I fuckin’ tried to steal your money!”

Blake gave an involuntary shudder at the curse word, but was determined to hand over the sandwich, so he kept it to himself. 

“Well, I thought, if you had a lunch then you wouldn’t need to do that, right?” 

The other boy frowned down at him, then eyed the food. It looked like he really wanted it, so it confused Blake why he didn’t come down. 

“That doesn’t make any sense.” He finally replied.

“Yuh-huh! I just said it!”

“No, ‘cause I was bein’ mean! So why aren’t you mean back?”

“What? I don’t want to be mean.” Now it was Blake’s turn to furrow his brow, distressed by the thought. The ginger was regarding him with narrowed eyes again, and Blake started to feel uncomfortable. He shifted the sandwich between hands, as his arm was starting to get fuzzy from being held up.

His mood was instantly lifted by the other boy finally relenting, dropping down from the structure and taking the sandwich. Blake smiled like mad and pulled out his own sandwich to match. The boy frowned at the plastic-wrapped food in his hands, as if he wasn’t really sure what to do with it. When Blake moved to sit against the play-structure, he watched pensively, then silently joined him. 

“What’s your name, by the way? I’m Blake!”

“I know, you said that yesterday,” He grumbled, finally pulling the sandwich from its bag. “...I’m Wyatt.”

“Well, nice to meet you, mister Wyatt.” Blake grinned. Wyatt snorted at him.

“That’s not how you use ‘mister’,” He said. 

Blake learned that Wyatt was a very fast eater, as he finished his sandwich before Blake even got halfway through his. But he didn’t leave, and that made Blake very happy. He also learned that Wyatt was kind of funny, even though it was often at the expense of their teachers, which made Blake feel a little bad. He also learned that Wyatt lived with lots of other kids, but none of them were his brothers or sisters. 

“Is that why you don’t have lunch?” He’d asked.

“Yeah, pretty much,” the other boy shrugged, then paused. “How’d you guess that?”

“Well, they probably all need food too, so I thought maybe they took too much.”

“Huh. You secretly smart or something?”

“No way!” Blake laughed, and Wyatt even cracked a smile at him.