Strings || Jasper Hale

New School, Same Me

Creed Monk had never been a good sleeper; Renée often mentioned it when she spoke of his childhood. He was rarely loud or disruptive, he just couldn't sleep. Over time, he'd gotten better at managing it, but it seemed that whenever he was nervous, he reverted back into his old habits. He would lie awake at night, and stare at the ceiling, alone with his thoughts.

When his alarm blared, he was already awake, and so swung his legs over the side of the bed without prompting. It was foggy that morning, and Creed didn't particularly want to get out of the house. Breakfast was a solemn event, eating completely alone, until Charlie joined him at the kitchen table. By that point, he'd already been up for three hours, listening to his music softly, planning his route to school.

He'd forgotten to unplug his MP3 player from the speaker. Charlie didn't seem to complain as his taste was as eclectic as zebra in a straw hat. Everything from Green Day to John Denver hit them until Charlie waved goodbye, and wished him good luck for his first day.

Creed still had five minutes before he needed to leave. He didn't want to be insanely early, it would only label him a nerd, and he didn't need that. As he waited, he looked at the framed photographs which lined one of the cabinets. They hadn't been taken down despite being so outdated.

     Renée and Charlie on their wedding day in Las Vegas; Bella and their parents the day after she was born, so tiny in the arms of her mother; and so many from her school years that had been sent over. Admittedly, Creed was sad that there were only a few of him, but in his tween years, he had been living on and off with his biological father in Ireland.

     However, the ones that were there made him grin. One or two of his schooling, the same as Bella, and one of him and Charlie. It was the day he caught his first fish, a meagre little thing, but he was only seven. His Dad had been so proud.

     Creed wandered over to the door, checking over his lilac backpack, before picking up his guitar case from the linoleum floor. If he could, he would try and find an empty practice room in the music department, or just a classroom in disuse. He didn't want to bother Charlie in the dead of night when he couldn't sleep to practice.

     It was raining; he could have guessed. He grabbed his coat, which wasn't too dissimilar from a bright red anorak, before heading out of the door. It was a fairly short walk to the school, but it would have been much shorter if he was able to drive. Renée didn't like it when he drove, she said he wasn't stable enough.

     His shoes seemed to drown in the puddles as there wasn't enough sidewalk to avoid them. Even his socks were damp, and soon enough, everything below the ankle was completely soaked. Creed sighed. Now he would have to walk around all day with wet feet.

     There were many shrubberies surrounding the school itself, hiding it away from prying eyes. It made the whole building rather difficult to look at, and Creed was unsure as of yet now he felt about it. However, it did have less of a prison-like sense about it, but that didn't taint his vision for a moment.

Creed wandered around for a short while, having arrived a little earlier than expected, so that he might find the Front Office with time to spare. It had been labelled quite blatantly.

He felt quite awkward, and he probably looked it to. Bella was rubbing off on him, he was sure of it. The squeaks and creaks of the doors as he pulled them open made him grimace. If anyone was there, they would see him. It took him a minute or two to really get a feel for the place, otherwise he would make one or two rash decisions which could be avoided.

The bottom line was simple; the school looked like an 80s sitcom. It clearly hadn't been renovated since it was built, whenever that was, but the staff seemed to live in that same decade. The women behind the desk were wearing thick rimmed glasses.