Blood in the Water

Chapter 3

My alarm rings, signaling that I should get up and ready for the day. I throw on a black hoodie and dark blue jeans that I bought yesterday at the store. I go into the bathroom and run my fingers through my hair. I grab some hair gel and brush my hair up into a soft point on the top. I change my earring by putting in a black circular one. I grab my backpack and double check if I have everything I need, and head downstairs for some breakfast.

My dad has already head to work and my mom is usually sleeping so I'm surprised to see her this morning. I grab a bowl and some cereal and sit at the kitchen island.

"I didn't expect you to be up," I say between mouthfuls of food. 

"Well, I wanted to see you off on your first day of school." She yawns.

"You can go back to bed, it's okay," I tell her. She nods and waves good bye to me. I finish up and go out the door to my car. I follow the instructions I found online to my new school and didn't realize how big it was. I park my car in the parking lot and start walking up to the school. The building is two stories high, made out of brick and concrete. There's lots of students outside of the school socializing and I walk right past them and find my way to the office. I turn right down a hallway and find the office a couple rooms down. 

"Hello, there. What do you need?" A secretary asks me, it catches me off guard. 

"I'm new here, Max Killips," I answer her.

"Oh, right. Head right through that door to the principal and she'll explain the rules." I follow her instructions and head into the room in front of me. 

I step into the room to be stared at by a young looking woman, just a few years older than I am. Her hair is tied back into a tight bun, colored black and wearing circular glasses. Her name being Ms. Harolds. 

"Hi, Max. I'm Ms. Harolds." She holds out her hand and I shake it. "Here's your class schedule."

I take the piece of paper she hands me. "Hi, the lady out there said you would explain the rules to me?"

"Ah, yes. Your top three classes are on the second level and your last three are on the bottom or this level. Your locker is number 54 and is right down this hallway and your lunch is at 12:15 to 12:50. Does that make sense?"

"Yes, ma'am." I answer and leave the room. The school bell rings and I walk down to my locker to look inside it. On my way, I'm observing my surroundings, such as the tile floors and pale orange walls. Why pale orange? I think. I finish at my locker and head to find the staircase to get to the second floor for 12th grade English, AP Calculus and History. I find the staircase and make my way up, passing people joking as I go by. I find the English classroom and a few kids are already in it. The class is situated by desks and I find on in the back of the room and sit down by myself. The second bell rings and the teacher tells the class to settle down for attendance. 

"Ah, looks like we got a new student," the class murmurs at the sound of that, "Max Killips?"

I raise my hand and the whole class looks in my direction. "Right here, sir." 

"Nice to meet you, Max. I'm Mr. Lynch." 

"Nice to meet you as well. Class, I expect you to be nice to him." The class nods in agreement and I'm quiet for the rest of the hour. At the end of class as I'm walking out of room, a smaller guy walks up to me and says hello.

"Hi, I'm Sam," He says. He's a few inches shorter than I am, has black glasses and dark brown hair.

"Hey, Sam, how are you?" I ask as I look my schedule.

"Just fine, what's your next class, maybe I can help you find it."

"History with Mrs. France, do you know where that is?"

"Yeah and cool we have it together. But you don't have to sit next to me, I'm more on the nerdy side and new kids don't want to be associated with me."

"It's cool, you seem nice." 

"Cool, I'll lead you the class. Follow me." 

He leads me to the History class and we sit in the middle row on the left side. He explains to me how this class works because she is a different type of teacher. 

"She's more on the stricter side, basically her way or the highway. I know from experience." Sam explains.

"Oh, let's hope everything works out, now shall we?" I respond. 

Before I know it, it's lunch hour and the cafeteria is more crowded than I ever thought it could be. Sam leads me over to a table with his friends. He shockingly has quite a few, the way he sounded, I thought he only had like two. I sit down and realize a lot of the females in this school are staring at me and whispering.

"Melanie, Charlie, Heaven, and Skylar, this is Max, he's new here and one of my new friends."

They all wave at me. Melanie has black hair with bangs, a nose ring, and brown eyes. Charlie has ginger hair that falls under one of his eyes, light ginger freckles, and a smile that is lowkey cute. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention I'm confused about my sexuality and I don't like labels, well now you know. Heaven has a boy cut with blonde hair and a couple streaks of dark blue in it, as with light blue eyes. Skylar has brown hair with your basic brown eyes and round glasses. 

"Hi, everyone." I sit down next to Charlie, I need to gain his trust first.

"Why did you move here?" Heaven asks me. 

"My dad got a new job," I answer plain and simple.

"Do you know where your next classes are?" Charlie asks me and I hand him my schedule. "Cool, we have the rest together!" 

"Cool, someone I know. Or relatively know." I laugh it off.

The bell rings and I follow Charlie to the next class, which is Photography. The class is in the art room and the tables are long with rickety metal chairs. I follow Charlie to one side of the room without a lot of people sitting. The teacher notices me and walks over to introduce himself. 

"I'm Mr. Stowe, you must be Max," He exclaims and holds out his hand. I grab it and shake it and nod in response. "If you have any questions, just ask me or Charlie here." I nod and sit down. 

"Oh great, they're in this class," Charlie mumbles and I look in the direction he does. In walks a bunch of jock boys in sports coats. They look like the type of people to do swirly's in toilets and laugh about it. "Please don't notice me, please don't notice me." But they notice him and they all walk over. 

"What's up, fag?" One says. 

"Yo, congrats bro, you came out! What are you, gay?" I defend Charlie. 

"What? No, I'm not. Why would you say that?" The guy asks confused, who's name I later learn is Mike.

"Well you said the f-slur, so I would just assume you're part of the lgbt plus community. God, you seem dumber than you look."

"Look, I don't know who you are, but that's not how I get treated around here." He shoves me into the table. 

"Well someone sure needs to treat you like that." I shove him back. Mr. Stowe rushes over and breaks up the fight between us. Mike glares me down as he walks away to the other side of the table. 

"Thank you," Charlie tells me.

"Anytime. So are you in the community?" I ask.

"Yeah, actually. Pansexual." He explains.

"Cool, dude. " I place a hand on his shoulder. 

It turns out the next couple of classes are study hall type of classes so they go by pretty quickly. I say good bye to my  new friends and drive home. I get home and tell my mom and dad about my day then head up to my room. I need to think about my plans for a certain someone tonight.