“Hey, watch it!.” 

“Slow down, man!"

Tons of students dashed towards the front gate, some even climbed over the metallic bars. The walkway was like a bunch of bumper cars crashing into each other with no intent to stop. "Hey, ouch, watch you're going!" yelled the students who were simply chatting on the side. While the others were sprinting through and tumbling over one another.

I gasped as some of the students up ahead fell over each other, and I jumped over them barely. "Sorry, coming through!" The landing was terrible with the slam then vibrating across my soles. "That's going to hurt later." I raced again for the front gate as other students caught up. My breath kept escaping me by the second. The entire soccer field was a cloud of dust as the rumbling of sneakers and sports shoes grew more intense.

"Out of the way, those bouquets are mine!"

"Nah bro! I'm getting them for my girl!"

"Idiots, the whole stand will be mine!

"Stand aside, you low lifes don't deserve those flowers."

"Like you're one to talk, Diego!" One of the other students shouted.

I kept running with these guys coming in not far behind. They were so annoying with all that bravado talk.

Diego, the student closing in the quickest, recognized me and approached from the side. "Well, well, Jake Knight, getting tired already? Why don't you slow down, and I'll buy the flowers in your stead?"

I sighed, "Nah I'm good Diego, see ya," I tried running faster, but I wasn't exactly the fastest.

Diego chuckled and sped up, quickly passing me. "Running is all about setting a goal for yourself and taking it before anyone else does. Join Cross Country, and you'll see what I mean. But for now, I'll be winning the best flowers. Good day, Jake." Deigo suddenly ran even faster, it was crazy how he didn't seem tired.

"Hey, no fair, I'm not in Cross Country!" I shouted, and soon the other guys began passing me too. "Shit! Eileen will run out of the best flowers by this point! Come on!" I groaned to myself as Julian came to my side.

"Ha! Dumbass, you thought you could win! Why don't you lose a little weight next time, Jake?" Julian, another student, shouted as he passed me.

"What's with these guys?" I remarked.

"Hey, all of you!" Yelled one of the security guards in their golf carts. "Semester is over, but the rules remain the same! No running on school grounds!" Five security golf carts appeared behind the stampede of students. Everyone screamed and ran even faster to the gates.

Julian glanced back before running faster. "Sorry Jake! You're on your own man!" He panted and caught up to Diego who was now pacing through the classroom sector.

The security guards' golf carts were closing in fast, and while they would never run us over, it almost felt like students were bounced back all the way to Behavioral Central by them. We were like a couple of bowling pins waiting to be struck by simple golf carts. "Shit! No, no, no, please, no! I have to get flowers for..." The golf carts halted students, with the security guards grabbing students by their collars or hoods. Caesar, the biggest security guard, was blasting through side of the crowd.

"Alright, you punks! Time for a late P.E lesson!" Caesar pressed a button on his golf cart, and dozens of metallic hands sprang out from the sides. Each hand snatched students who ran since that was against school policy.

"Holy crap, its Ceasar! Everyone run!" Even the students who weren't part of the stampede began running.

Kind of ironic that Caesar was only making matters worse here. One by one, each student got snatched and thrown all the way back to Behavioral Central. How was this even allowed at a high school? Though Caesar didn’t care, to him, a punk was a punk. 

“Every last one of you will beg for mercy!” The robot arms sprang out further, spiraling out of control to the point of madness. The stampeding crowd of students broke apart like tumbling dominoes. I couldn’t hold my breath any longer, and my chest hurts. I barely managed to dodge the swipes that came at me. Almost like Ceasar was try to kill us! “Well, well, well, what do we have here?”

I gasped and placed my backpack over my head. “Oh no, he saw my face!” 

“Jake Knight is it? And here I thought you were part of the good bunch!” One robot hand jolted all the way back and darted towards me. 

“Ah!” I tried running even faster, but the hand was already right above my head. “I’m done for, I won’t get those flowers…”

Then, another golf cart raced from the sidelines, and a real hand emerged from it. “Jake hop in!” The hand clasped mine and I was pulled onto the cart’s backseat. Caesar’s robot hand slammed the ground where I was, cracking a small crater into existence. 

“Damn punk! You’ll pay for this Zuniga!”

Roger Zuniga, the driver, also my crazy friend, slipped out a questionable finger gesture. “See ya Ceasar!” Roger punched the accelerator pedal and blasted us away from Ceasar’s carnage. “Hold on tight bros!”

“Roger what are you thinking! You can’t just steal a golf cart!”

“Nah don’t worry Jake brother, no one was using it! Besides, these carts are meant to drive around, it’s sad seeing them all powered down!” he argued.

“Yo, Jake, haven’t seen you all day my guy.” A slouchy voice sounded next to me in the backseats. I got spooked since my body was still tense from almost getting caved by Caesar’s robot hands. 

I was surprised to see Nathan here since he never agreed with Roger’s antics.“Nathan? What are you doing here?”

“For the record, I tried talking sense into this dude, but he never listens. Anyways, so you’re on your way to get flowers?” The cart bumped and shook alot as we zoomed down the classroom section. Roger avoided hitting students and staff with crazy wheel turns. 

“Its probably that girl with the bob cut in our history class! He’s always staring at her like he’s never seen a girl before!” Roger’s grin grew wider as he enjoyed the thrill of the situation and my drama. 

“What did you just say, that’s completely wrong! Look Im not sure if you guys remember but…” Roger made a sharp turn past the last classroom building. He then performed a screeching drift to avoid hitting a group of students walking in our way. We passed Julian and Diego who had the most blankest of faces. 

Julian freaked out, “What the hell, you guys are dumbasses!” 

“Suck on this Juli!” Roger made another questionable finger gesture. As we passed Diego, he chuckled when he saw Nathan.

“Well now Cortez, that’s not really a good look on you is it?”

Nathan glanced up with a cool head, “And, you’re not really one to talk either with that dirty secret of yours.” 

Diego’s brows narrowed and he scoffed, “Watch yourself Cortez, say, why don’t you join cross country next semester? Maybe we can settle things then.”

“Sorry, but I don’t have time to waste on the likes of you.” As our golf cart drove even faster, Nathan gave Diego a peace sign as a send off. 

Diego laughed as dust clouds got blown into his face. “That guy never changes.”

Now that we were ahead of the crowd, the front gate was in view. “Alright, there’s the gate Jake!”

I perked up after turning around in my seat. “Wait, Roger, you have to slow down!”

“Slow down, you hear this guy Nathan?” Roger grinned again before slamming the stop pedal and drifting the cart. The momentum this time was too much and flung Nathan and I over the front gate. In that moment, we joined the seagulls and became a part of their flock. Eileen, the flower stand owner, along with the students in line, all slowly gazed upwards at the two freakishly big seagulls soaring. Though before I could even think, Nathan managed to perfectly capture his footing, while my face became a lawnmower. Roger’s golf cart had tumbled over and crashed into the gate’s fence, scurrying away the entire flower stand line. 

“The fuck was that dumbass?” Some of the students laughed at my face getting dragged in the dirt. Although a few were kind enough to approach me to help, Nathan told them not to get closer. He then pulled me up with ease and dusted off dirt from my shoulders. I could help but cough from the all of the dust too. 

“Sorry man, Roger doesn’t deserve a license.”

“What in the world just happened?” My head was pounding from all of the confusion. Roger hopped off his wrecked golf cart, taking in the sight of his supposed accomplishment. “I can’t believe we did this.”

“On the bright side, at least we had tons of fun!” Roger smiled with a thumbs-up.

Nathan rubbed his own forehead, “I don’t think thats something you should be proud of Roger. We should…”

Nathan was cut off by the stomp of Eileen’s sneakers. She practically had smoke popping out of her ears. “What’s your guys’ problem! Seriously, you have any idea of what you’ve done!”

“Um, hey Eileen, sorry its just…”

“Ask the idiot over there, I’m sure he’ll give a good explanation.” Nathan pointed at Roger, who came over with a proud smile.

“Yo Eileen! How’s it going sis!” 

Eileen huffed, “Quit with the buddy act Roger! Look, I don’t care whose crazy idea this was; the fact is that you nearly killed everyone in line and scared the rest off! You guys should be expelled!”

I started sweating profusely when Eileen said that. She was normally chill, but we really pissed her off this time. “Wait, Eileen, please don’t get us in trouble.” I just wanted to buy flowers, really, how did I end up in this situation?

Eileen sighed and went to sit down at a bench next to her stand. “Seriously, what am I going to do with you three?” She threw herself onto the bench and crossed her arms. After groaning and taking some time to process the circus show just now, she finally calmed down. “Jake, if this is about the flowers, I’ve told you already, I’ll always have some reserved for you.”

“I know, its just, my anxiety was playing with me since its the holidays. And I just want to make sure that I don’t mess up.” I told her.

Eileen unfolded her arms, “I get what you’re saying, but in your case, I understand completely. As I said, we’re friends, just hit me up, and I’ll give you those flowers.”

“Really?” Eileen’s chill side was starting to shine. I’ve known her for a few years, so it was nice we were still considered friends.

“At a discounted price of course!” She said with her index finger pointing upward. My hope then shattered into thousands of pieces. After all I was thinking, she ended up saying that, but then again, it made sense.

Nathan tilted his head and remarked, “That’s kind of fucked up, don’t you think?”

“Hey, I have clubs to pay for, and the school’s been on my ass the past month for better revenue. But I promise you, Jake, I’ll throw in the best flowers for you. It's the least I can do.” She sounded really genuine there.

I appreciated her words, and the tension died down so we could relax again. “Thanks, Eileen.” She went through her flowers and picked out the newest, most beautiful kind. She carefully prepared the bouquet and held it out. 

“See, I wasn’t lying.” The bouquet was a combination of roses, sunflowers, and white lilies. They were perfectly arranged and handled with the best of care. I paid Eileen and took hold of the bouquet. It wasn’t just the fact she gave me exclusive flowers, but her smile really made my day after the insanity from before. 

“These are perfect, thanks again.” I said.

“For sure!” Eileen winked before Roger chimed in all of a sudden.

“So who’s the lucky girl!”

“Roger…” Nathan nodded no and told him to drop it. “What?” Eileen “coughed” multiple times to signal Roger. He finally understood, “Oh, right. Well, good luck then Jake!” He smacked my back which hurt a little.

“Jeez, thanks.” That really hurt like crazy, Roger doesn't know his own strength.

Nathan than suggested, “Why don’t we head to Sam’s Burgers first? Since it's winter break, we should start it off with a get-together.”

“That sounds nice Nate, but I want to get over there as soon as possible. I’ll join you guys next time though."

“Its all good man.” Nathan nodded in approval.

“Go take care of that, then, Jake. We’ll treat you to a big dinner on the next hangout,” Roger said.

“I still have to get my customers back, so you guys can enjoy yourselves. Merry Christmas then.” Eileen said sweetly, the three of us then returned the phrase at the same time. “Merry Christmas!” With that, I turned around and began walking towards the bus stop. It was nice seeing my friends for a little just before setting off. As I left in the opposite direction, Roger was just about to start walking to Sam’s Burgers when Nathan stopped for a moment. “What’s wrong Nathan?”

“We should postpone the hangout, honestly, it wouldn’t be right.”

Roger turned to him and thought for a moment. “I was looking forward to that burger but I guess you’re right. We should head home then.”

“Guess I’ll go check on Jake then, that way someone’s there for support.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, sorry Roger.”

“Nah its all good, just let me know when’s a good day for all of us to get together. See ya on the flipside then Nate!” As they parted, the sky above began to haul dark clouds together, the perfect mood for visiting a cemetery.