Adam and Sam make their way out the front door of their school.

Taking a seat on the side of the stairs leading down towards the school gate where kids were being picked up by a sea of butlers and personal drivers.

“Your mom picking you up today?” Sam asks Adam.

“Yeah. You?” Adam replies

“My brother.”

“So he’s coming to pick you up in that minivan of his?”

“Unfortunately, I can only expect so.”

“I’m still surprised he thinks there isn’t anything wrong with driving a blacked out minivan into a school area like that.”

“At this point, I think he does it just to embarass me.” Sam replies with a shiver.

Adam takes something out of his jacket and holds it in front of him.

It took Sam a minute to figure out just what it was, but once he saw the round metal face of the object and the straps attached on the two opposite ends, he recognized it was an analog wristwatch.

A very cheap one at that.

No, it was clearly a fake version of one of the more expensive brands he had seen the kids around school wearing.

Adam’s replica was so covered in rust that Sam could barely tell the material it was made out of. Let alone the time through the almost completely blurred out glass.

“Where’d you get that from, the dollar store?” Sam jokes.

Adam turns to him and casually replied “Oh, this? Yeah, actually. Well, technically my dad bought it for me, but im pretty sure that’s where he got it.”

“Really dude? That thing looks older than my grandpa and it looks faker than the interest that girls pretend to have in me.” Sam replies.

Adam laughs.

“Well I don’t think it matters how expensive it is, right?”

“Dude, it’s not just about that, its more like how you could even bring yourself to wear it in public. Being cheap is one thing, but a cheap knockoff of something original? In a place like this?” Sam gestures to the school building behind them. A school that was widely regarded to accept the foulest, most silver-spooned and privileged kids of the nation.

“It’s like you’re asking to be judged. Or worse yet, bullied.”

Adam thinks for a second, but replies slightly confused.

“But it’s just a watch.

It tells the time, like the rest of theirs do.

It wraps around my wrist conveniently, like the rest of theirs do.

It’s got the same name on it, not that I care, just like the rest of theirs do.

And my dad got it for me as a birthday gift last week, the day before he went back to the army.”

Sam stares at Adam, unsure of how to reply.

“You’re not wrong, but im just saying, don’t you feel embarassed? Or at least a little worried that they will pick on you for it not being the real deal? What if they pick on you, and decide to pick on me too? Simply because i’m always next to you! Don’t you care about me?”

A look of fear begins to dawn on Sams face as realization strikes. He starts imagining countless scenarios in which he gets regarded as collateral damage, simply for being associated with his childhood friend and his fake watch.

Adam laughs as he puts a hand on Sam’s shoulder, whose face was paling from his exaggerated – but growing – worry.

“You know what my dad told me the day he gave me this watch?” Adam asks his friend.

“What.” Sam replies in a defeated tone, as if he had accepted the new fate of his friendship.

“An item need not be real for it to have value,

for that value to hold meaning,

and for that meaning to be love.

Because value doesn’t dictate worth.

Any more than an item’s authenticity dictates the genuinity of one’s actions and their intentions”

Adam finishes by wrapping the rusted watch around his wrist, fastening the ends and raising his arm high towards the sky.

“I treasure this watch, because it was a gift from my father, who I am not sure if i’ll ever see again.

I appreciate this watch, because it holds within it the last lesson he taught me before he left.

I love this watch. Because I love the man who gave it to me.”

“Okay, okay.” Sam says, pulling Adam’s arm down, “Relax there Shakespeare, you’re gonna get us both stuffed in lockers.”

Sam sighs and throws an an arm around his friend.

“Whatever man. I still don’t see why he couldn’t have just bought you a real one.”

Adam turns back to his friend. He opens his mouth to give his answer but decides on another one instead.

“Well, then he wouldn’t have been able to teach me the same lesson.” Adam replies.

A moment of silence passes before Adam adds,

“That, and he forgot his wallet and only had like 2 dollars in his pocket.”

Sam scoffs, “What happened to the other dollar?”

“He bought the same one for my mom too.” Adam answers with a smile.