The Greatest Force Ch. 01

"Jett! I need you," my buddy of 5 years jogged up to me while I entered the cafeteria at West High. We joined hands and bumped chests. Parker was a cool guy; always getting the ladies, always winning titles for Most Popular, always partying up on the weekends, never having a bad day. Everything in his life was perfect in the moment and he always got what he wanted. We weren't very alike, but they say opposites attract. He threw me an incredible 18th birthday party that he funded all on his own, which made me appreciate him more than before, as you can imagine. After that I always felt like I owed him.

"Yeah, man. What's up? Someone need a beating?" I laughed, walking towards my group of friends that sat on the brick wall, leaning against the cement board, chewing toothpicks and nudging passerby-ers with their chunky boots and shadow of facial hair. The guys didn't take very good care of themselves, so I ended up looking like their lead man even though it wasn't my aim. Compared to their disheveled appearances and ragged clothing, my baseball-tee and Vans with short feathery hair resembled a gem amongst dirt rocks.

I stopped halfway to my crew so the guys wouldn't tease Parker when we got there.

"Someone needs a beating, and they need it well done," Parker licked his lips as though he had hunger for blood. "Jenna told me about this guy, he deserves this, dude, he's a little bitch."

Jenna was Parker's current girlfriend. He usually scored around 5 or 6 girls per school year, but this one seemed to stick around longer than the others and it was obvious that Parker felt attachment. Never did he care about what any of them said, and usually just used them for good sex. If a girl didn't fit the bill, he'd swiftly move on to the next, which wasn't a hassle because girls were dying to get in his pants for even 5 minutes. But Jenna bore huge, globe shaped jugs - wide, swaying hips - long, silky legs – shiny, platinum blond hair – and a habit of constantly caressing Parker in public and looking at him with sensual, batting eyes. Parker couldn't help it, and honestly, what guy would be able to? Their relationship was the entertainment of the school, and sometimes one of the nerds would flick a boner and turn red at the sight of them.

Jenna was part of the popular group, who she appeared to be the orchestrator of. Her circle of friends was merciless and cruel, and gossiped 8 days a week, 25 hours a day. For Jenna to say this kid needed a beating probably wasn't the most valid reason, but I went with it for Parker.

"Alright, sure, if you say so," I shrugged, ripping a piece of bread with my teeth and examining it. "Where and when is this gonna go down?"

"His last class is Forensics, so if you wait outside the hall of Room 860 with a couple of your guys and knock him out that'd be beautiful!" he pinched his thumb and index finger together and winked an eye at me as to say perfection. "There's gonna be a bucket of ice cold water waiting on the door so make sure you don't run into that," he warned.

I covered my mouth with a limp hand and rumbled with laughter. "You're as shitty as I am, dude," I shook my head, still grinning. "We'll be there."

Zipper and Tommy and I stalled around the hallway exit, waiting for the door to open which would dump an ice cold bucket on this idiot kid, who I imagined in my head to be some cocky ass know it all who thought he was hot shit. I looked for Parker's signal as he sat perched on the roof like a cheetah. Suddenly, he waved a hand and jumped to the bucket. Zipper and Tommy flanked to the sides of the exit as a familiar face walked down the pathway. Parker dumped the whole entire ice bucket right away, so that the kid practically walked into the waterfall of chill a second after it was dropped. At first, the kid was mobile and moving around in attempt to assess what had just happened in 2 seconds. But then came the roaring laughter from all sides, which made him freeze, allowing Zipper and Tommy to pound him to the floor.

I couldn't move a muscle. I stood, staring in disbelief at not necessarily what we had done, but who we had done it to. I was still for about 10 seconds. "Oh, holy fucking shit, no," I whispered, dropping my bag and sprinting towards the circle that had formed around the fight.

"GET THE HELL OFF!" I boomed, shoving through the crowd and yanking Zipper and Tommy off of the kid. "Ohh," I grabbed my head in my hands at the sight of his battered up face and bloody lip that ran down his chin with the cold water. His eye was already purple and I could see it swell right in front of my eyes. He choked and trembled and slowly backed away on the floor. I spotted Parker outside of the laughing and taunting group, and hurriedly made my way to him. By the time I reached them, the sound of the roaring crowd was lessened and distant.

"Aw shit, man, aw shit, that was a bad move," I said. Parker stood behind Jenna, rubbing his hands up and down her thighs in that tiny, skin tight dress. She wore a blissful smile with gently closed eyes, a deceiving look on such a devilish human. She caressed his neck and bit her lip, slightly looking up to him every time his hands drew a little closer to what kept her around.

"Thank you soooooo much, Jett Foster," she cooed at me, winking one of those angel eyes in my direction. "You did us all a huge favor, you know," she said in a sultry tone.

"Thanks man, you always come through," Parker slapped Jenna's bottom from behind, making her gasp and sending her in a giggling fit. Parker nodded at me, oblivious to my obvious upset state.

"You're not listening to me, you made a mistake," I threw up helpless hands. Me trying to explain why and who and what would be of no use – the popular group remains the popular group – including Parker. I waited a couple of seconds before Parker and Jenna began intensely sucking each other's faces, and then I sighed and made my way back to the group.

When I got there, all that was left was the rallying group, and the kid was nowhere to be found. Tommy and Zipper shrugged their shoulders in question, "What the fuck was that all about?"

I pulled them aside and began to explain. "That kid was Alec Astor,"

Zipper and Tommy stared at me blankly with face that gave away that they were not catching on.

"Alec? Remember? We all had him for English last year? When his friend spilled that Alec's parents practically abandoned him and moved to Brazil and left him the house and like, monthly checks or something?"

Zipper and Tommy slowly began to nod, their eyes searching for more information.

"That fucked him up, dude," I shook my head, recalling when the events took place. "He had nobody. At least he could drive and take care of himself, but then his girlfriend of 2 years split and joined Jenna's group and taunted him nonstop about things they didn't even know for sure. It got worse, man, his emotional state totally crumbled. I think he really loved this girl and that made it hard for him to deal with, or I'm guessing. His friends started dropping, ditching him and never meeting up. He went from this 5 foot 10 guy of maybe 140 pounds to what looks like 125 now, and it looks like he never sleeps, man, Jesus," I was so lost in the story that I didn't realize Zipper and Tommy getting bored. I sighed and waved a hand.

"Forget it; it doesn't really matter, does it?" I frowned and looked away, disappointed that my friends were such airheads and wouldn't understand. It was ultimately my fault for choosing to befriend such ignorant groups of people. "I'll see you guys tomorrow, yeah?"

Suddenly the two came to life and exuberantly nodded and smiled, slowly backing away while pointing at me and making their way to wherever they intended on heading. I smothered a heavy hand across my tired face and widened my eyes with stress. I picked up my backpack and headed down the road to go home.

But not even 10 minutes into my walk home, I looked across the street to the sidewalk parallel to mine and saw Alec, still soaked from head to toe, leaving behind a trail of water on the cement due to his soggy shoes. He was bent forward with his hands around his waist, walking with lag. It was a perfect 70 degrees Fahrenheit out that day, but I could imagine Alec wishing it was more on the warm side. Before I knew it, I was sprinting across the street to get to him. A car I didn't see coming nearly hit me head on, but I hurriedly apologized and staggered forward, in desperation to catch up to Alec. The car honked and the driver threw up an upset hand, yelling something I couldn't catch in time.

I jogged up to him and he did not turn around. From behind I could examine how soaked he was. His navy blue shirt clung to him so closely that I could see his skin, and his black jeans began to reveal little silver fibers full of water. His back muscles tightened and relaxed constantly, and I could see the tips of his fingers squeezing his sides so tight that the color from them had run out and were ghost white.

"Alec?"

He turned around slowly and then turned frontwards again when he saw who I was. He rubbed his face as I quickly stepped in front of him and came to a stop in hopes that he would talk to me. He walked into me before I put a hand on his shoulder and held him in place. His face was so close to mine and in such nonchalance. For a split second I felt like grabbing him and never letting go. Something about the ratio of his helpless physique against my toned structure sent a warm tingle down my spine. He adjusted his vision and murmured "oh" then backed away a little.

"Alec, I'm sorry," I apologized. I didn't know what to say – I didn't even know why I was so anxious to apologize since I wasn't fully responsible. I felt so out of my element and lost. "That shouldn't have happened, it was my fault, and I know I can't take it back but I'm so sorry, Alec, I am,"

Astor raised his eyebrows and we made eye contact. "It's fine, I just wanna go home," he relaxed his eyebrows and started walking again, but I stopped him. I caught sight of his hardened nipples, standing out against his smoothed shirt and almost forgot what I was going to say. He was shaking lightly, probably from being cold.

"Please, let me do something to make up for it, I feel," I guiltily half-laughed, "so, so bad."

Alec began walking again, leaving me a few paces behind. He turned around halfway to tell me in a slow, slurred voice that glinted of struggle to keep happy: "It's okay. I'm used to it. I just wanna go home."

It didn't feel right. I couldn't leave him beaten up and bruised and freezing all alone in his house. I wasn't exactly a morally driven person, but something told me to help him home and attempt to mend what I had ruined. A guy with so many horrible experiences might break under pressure one day and I didn't want to be the reason why Alec Astor collapsed in surrender.

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This first part is pretty slow - I wanted to build on characters. Part 2 is more exciting.