He Loves Me Not

The First Day Of School

City of Saint Louis, Golden Isle

February 18th, Monday Morning

Changing cities has never been an easy decision, let alone changing countries, especially when you are a teenager, underage and dependent on your parents, you are forced to follow the boat wherever it goes. Having to get rid of your usual routine and give up a whole life full of great friendships is quite painful, especially when one of those friendships left behind is the love of your life. If it were up to me, obviously I would choose to stay in San Francisco, California, close to everything I know and love, such as Kelvin and all my friends, but at the same time, I can't think only about myself, this job is a not-to-be-missed opportunity for my father, to be recognized as a renowned perfumer, seeing his fragrance brands selling worldwide has always been his greatest dream and the Avallon perfumery is one of the most important of the segment and can provide this possibility for him, make him lose an opportunity of this magnitude just because of my problems would be very selfish, not to mention that I would be a bad son. My father has given me a lot of strength my all life and has always supported all my decisions, so the most I could do for him was to support him as well.

"Is everything okay, buddy?" my father asked me, looking at me closely as he tried to keep control of the steering wheel, waking me up from my reveries.

"Yes, don't worry, I'm fine." I answered seriously, trying to be firm with my words, but even I didn't believe in that answer, and knowing me the way my father knew me, I am pretty sure that he also understood.

As much as I tried to hide my pain and inner sadness in order not to make my father feel bad for forcing me to take this trip and stay away from the love of my life and my friends, it was being difficult to control myself and the worst is that my father could see that.

"Are you sure?" he insisted, alternating his gaze between the road and me as he drove.

I could have sworn that at that moment he was hoping I would open up and confess how unhappy I was, but in doing so I would end his life's dream and that is what I wanted least of all. It hurt too much to see that look of guilt on his face every time he looked at me, for having to see me suffer for something he had dreamed of all his life.

Absolutely, Dad, you can rest assured." I answered with a forced smile, to show him that everything was fine, after leaning my head on the windows and keeping a lost look at the view of the houses and that didn't seem to convince my father one bit.

We were on our way to the new school. Today is my first day of school at an elite school called Collinwood, an institution where there are only bunch of mallrats, all the spoiled brats of the Saint Louis elite study there. To tell the truth, I did not have much patience to face this new phase, and the worst of all is the fact that I would have to repeat the second year of high school again, when in the United States I was already almost half way through the first semester. This island follows a very different school system, here classes start from February to October of the same year unlike in North America and Europe.

South America was quite different from the United States, especially this island, I don't mean just by the seasons, here it is a sunny summer and in the United States we leave a cracking winter, what I mean is, here everything was strange to me, although there was even the beach that resembled San Francisco, and everything, but it was still strange to be here because in reality, this city was not my home.

The silence in the car during the whole trip was uncomfortable, I didn't want in any way to be bad with my father because of this, since our relationship had always been very close, but at this point there wasn't much left to do, so I preferred to leave it alone, until we finally arrived at the Collinwood High School.