A Chance Encounter

The First Sight

Most of my morning went by quickly, as it was the first day, and most teachers had just gone over the syllabus. I got ready to leave my 3rd-period class to go to the cafeteria for lunch period, slipping my bag on my shoulder and walking out, leaving before Genesis could finish packing her stuff up. 'I am starving,' i mentally say to myself, as I wasn't accustomed to waiting till this time to eat lunch... I guess this is something I'm going to have to get used to this kind of schedule. I finally make it to the cafeteria and walk my way to the lunch line, genesis and a few others joining behind me. I pick up a simple grilled cheese sandwich, and some juice that I'm was pretty sure was watermelon flavored or something along with that. I spot an empty table take a seat, and start nibbling on my food as my only friend in the school so far sits across from me. I could feel a bunch of people's eyes land on me and genesis, and they're probably wondering why she's with me, the new person.
    "Silas do you mind if I invited some of my other friends to sit with us today ?" she says as she slightly furrows her eyebrows, worrying that she did something without my consent. "I kinda already sent a text to a group chat with my friends telling them to sit with me, and I just realized I didn't ask you if you were comfortable with that."
    " I don't mind Genesis. Anyone who's your friend is my friend, am I right ?" I say, shooting her a soft smile while I embarrassingly struggled to open my juice. I knew something was off about the bottle of juice.
     "I hope so, I'd love for you to be able to have some more friends other than me while you're here," she said with a slight worry in her voice, a pout showing clear as day on her face.
    Eventually, a few kids, whom I assume to be her friends, sat at the table, and they all start to converse with each other for some time.
"So you're Silas? Why'd you decide to come to school here? " someone named Noah, which I found out from the last part of the conversation earlier, randomly asks.
"Oh, my foster parents decided they wanted to send me to public school so that forming a social life would be a bit easier for me," I said, looking down at my hand. I was hoping he wouldn't ask the question people usually bring up as I wouldn't say I like talking about it, you know. Like I wasn't ready to tell anyone outside of my family about my abusive dad and that the reason I was abused was that I was nonbinary, genderfluid, and liked boys. I wasn't ready to come out of the closet like that.
"Foster parents?" Noah repeats in confusion. " why are you in foster ca-" he starts to say before getting cut off as we catch a glimpse at some new students who were beginning to sit one table away from us. The first one had soft but spikey like hair, she was very short, like shorter than me and I was 5'4". She had to have been roughly 4'10", and she also had a petite figure, she seems to have a very energetic aura, and her movements look as if she's gliding. She was holding hands with someone else just a little behind her. It was a guy who was almost 5'11" and had similar shoulder-length wavy hair like me, except it was blond. He was wearing this weary look on his face as if he was in pain almost. Next behind was a blonde girl, and to be honest, if she wasn't a high school student, the girl could have passed for a model. She has this very posh but still nonchalant feel to her, holding hands with another girl. It made me glad to know I wouldn't be the only lgbtq+ student here. The girl whose hands she was intertwining with them sported a deep crimson red hair that was shoulder length. I also noticed that she was not the same race as the others; she seems Asian? Both girls seem taller and filled out than the first girl, but they still had a petite or fit build. Behind them followed two boys, one was about 6'0 ft, and he had this bronze-like messy hair, it was like a mixture of ginger and blonde.. and he looks towards my direction as if he hears something before sitting with the rest of them. The last one had short curly wavy hair, and he looked huge, like huge enough to not be considered a high school student, honestly. But he was hot as fuck. Did I think that to myself? Silas, why are you having thoughts like that at the moment. But as if on cue, as they all sat down at their table, Nova tells us all the gossip on the new people who just disrupted the entire lunch period as the cafeteria burst into thousands of conversations.
   "Those are the Cullens. They're the new students here this year," she starts, " apparently, they're all adopted by the new doctor at the hospital and his wife. The two blonde ones are fraternal twins, and they're like the niece and nephew of the wife or something. It's nice she took them in after their parents died." she rambled.
  "Are you gonna tell us their name or what ?" Olivia blurts out, impatient because she cares more about their name than their backstory.
    "If you'd let me finish, I'd get to that, you know." she said in annoyance as she continues, "Their name is Jasper and Rosalie Hale. The smallest one of the group is Alice Cullen, and she and Jasper are like a thing.. which is weird cause they live together, so is Akira, that's the Asian one, she's with Rosalie... it's nice that a lesbian couple is open about being together here, honestly. " she says sweetly.
  "You guys don't find that weird ?" Liam slips in.
  "What's weird about someone openly loving who they love ?" I blurt out without a thought.
   "That's like a whole sin... That's not normal." He responds in annoyance. Here Liam goes with the whole religious escapade that everyone hates. The entire table sighed violently.
   " You know what's also a sin? Judging people as if you're god himself," I started. "Like didn't you tell us how you fucked some girl named Sofia a week before school started, you know fornication, which is sex before marriage, that's also a sin. But nobody's telling you that you're going to hell for that." I finish nonchalantly.
   His jaw drops at my response. He didn't expect me to call out his bullshit. I didn't mean to go off like that, but after all the stuff my biological family put me through, it's like his statement triggered some kind of anger in me.
"Finish what you were saying, Nova," I add softly, not wanting her to feel bad for such an interruption. But from the corner of my eyes, I could see the last two of the group and Rosalie looking in our direction. I hadn't realized Liam's outburst had caught their attention.
    "The last two, the one with the bronze-looking hair, is Edward, and the one behind him, the cute one who seriously looks way too old to be here, that's Emmett." Nova finally finishes with a giggle.
   I felt a little jealousy in my stomach at the thought of Nova finding the same guy I liked attractive, and I didn't even know the guy. But what am I kidding? He probably wouldn't want someone like me. Every time I told someone in town around my age that I was enby, they'd look at me weirdly after as if their feelings for me did a 180. Heck, Genesis is the only one at this table who knows. The bell rings, indicating that lunch is over, and we all get up to go to our lockers and get ready to go to our next class.