[ WP ] Your best friend is shooting up your middle school , and hands you a gun , without your prior knowledge to the event .

`` You have to make your decision now, Daniel.'' 
 
 The guidance counselor is looking at me, exasperated. From behind his desk he pulls two brochures. One is for a magnet school. The other, for a vocational school. What he's asking me, I figure, is if I want to be a genius or a jerkoff. At least that's how he presents it. 
 
 `` You're such a bright boy. A magnet school would be good for you. It would open up so many doors.'' 
 
 I tell him I want to think about it. 
 
 `` The time for thinking is over, Daniel. You've had your whole life to think about something like this.'' He collects both brochures and hands them to me. The one for the magnet school is on top, with its stock photos of happy students. I start to wonder if these people had ever been students at the school, with their perfect skin and hair. I think about how this picture was more likely the work of photographers, make-up artists, aspiring models, and other jerkoffs. The counselor says, `` I want both of those back by the end of the day, along with your decision.'' 
 
 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 
 
 Lunch period, and I can barely eat. The pamphlets in my bag seem to weigh heavier than my textbooks. The counselor, Mr. Schwartz, is an incompetent fuck. Perhaps decades ago he gave a shit, but now it's just a routine for him. He gives these kids the same two schools. Anybody that does well, he tells them that a magnet school is going to be so good for them. He lectures and cajoles them, out of some hope that maybe someone will graduate from the high school and go on to great things. Vicarious glory. 
 
 I fit into that category, but I wish I did n't. I want to work on cars. I like them, and I hardly think being intelligent would hurt my chances in that endeavor. Maybe I should have played stupid this year. Schwartz does n't give two shits for the kids that do n't do well, so his sessions with them are always short. I look across the table at Jake, who looks just as lost as I do. At least he can eat. At least his session with Schwartz was only two minutes instead of twenty. I envy him. 
 
 The bell rings, and I walk with Jake towards the classrooms. He stops me in the hallway, and his eyes are empty. His expression, it's empty. My back is flat against the wall, and we're just looking at each other. The crowd of students shuffle past us. Mags and Vocs. Geniuses and jerkoffs. The last day that they would all mingle as equals. Their last meal here. Before long, everyone has passed us and left us in the empty hallway. 
 
 And Jake, he reaches into his bag. Without a word, he pulls out a pistol. He holds it out toward me, but his eyes are still cold, still locked with mine. Silently, I take it. The brochures, they do n't feel so heavy anymore. Jake's eyes glaze over, and the slightest of smiles makes its way onto his face. He puts his hand on my shoulder, the one with the pistol in my hand. 
 
 He leans in and he whispers to me, and his voice is breaking as he says it, `` You have to make your decision now, Daniel.''
