"Yeah, Mr. Andres, Gabe wasn't feeling so hot, he ducked to the bathroom." So Jared was covering for the dude long enough to get in, and figured that made a good excuse. Jared wasn't always above the small white lies, what teenager was, and it wasn't like a teacher was going to check toilet bowls or whatnot.

World Lit was the sort of class that he didn't really need but took anyway, because it made him read books, as opposed to simply just getting through school, though the discussion was sometimes just too banal. Sometimes, Mr. Andres wanted to bore down into all the symbolism of every line and, in Jared's opinion, overthought the whole thing. When he said that early this year to a kid, the kid snottily replied, "I cannot think of the downside of ever over-thinking something." 

It was just one of those moments of total pomposity that stuck out in his mind. But hey. Come to think of it, that kid wasn't there, and there was shouting out in the hallway. Jared realized it was a chant of 'fight! fight! fight!' and that caused Mr. Andres to dip out into the hallway, ironically just as Gabe was sliding in the door-- Jared thought for a moment that it was Gabe in a fight, but the guy looked fine, "Dude, I covered for you with Andres." All the joking aside in the last class, he wasn't about to leave Gabe hanging on dumb shit like that.

"Yeah, uh, thanks dude." He didn't look too good, come to think of it.

"You sure you okay? You look like something happened." He could always get the guy on the Justin Timberlake ringtone at another time -- that sort of thing had a shelflife of decades -- but he was making sure his teammate wasn't in some kind of trouble.

"It's nothing dude," Gabe reassured him, "no worries."

After a moment, Gabe shifted gears. "So, did you get far in this book? Cause there's sex all over it."

"Yeah, how'd that get past the PTA."

"Easy, dude. PTA around here is a bunch of moms that dream of a poolboy seduction and read fifty shades while riding the dryer, they probably loved the fucking novel, sex and all..."