𝚃𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚊𝚒𝚗'𝚝 𝚊 𝚍𝚛𝚘𝚙 𝚘𝚏 𝚋𝚊𝚍 𝚋𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚍.

Introduction

𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐃𝐔𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍

The Beginning
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Everything is fine.
Everything will be fine.
No one will even notice your presents.

But the teachers need to take attendance.
It would be rude not to answer.
Your voice will crack when that happens.

I'll just raise my hand.

Don't do that, no one else would do that.
—

"James, hurry out of the shower, I'm almost finished with breakfast." A nice, feminine voice raised from behind the bathroom door.

"I'll be out in a minute." The so called 'James' called back from beyond the shower curtain.

Waiting the extra moment, James let the water run down his face to distract from the thoughts prior to being called and shut the water off after the minute was up.

He grabbed the towel from the bathroom floor and stepped out onto the bath mat placed just outside the tub all while wrapping the towel around his midsection and securing it in place by folding over the top.

He didn't leave the bathroom right away and instead made the last minute decision to style his short, green tipped hair a little; nothing too big, just a light spraying of watered down conditioner and curling it with a brush while blow drying it, even if his hair was naturally curly it was nice for it to be at least a little tame on occasion.

"You have fifteen minutes" The lady's voice called threw the door again.

Turning the dryer off James replied with a simple "just one more second" before opening the bathroom door and rushing to his bedroom right across from it to quickly change into the old white pants and grey button up he had chosen to wear the other day and right before he left his room he grabbed his glasses and ratty, black zip up sweater.

"You're going to be late if you don't start eating your pancakes." A tan lady in a nice dark orange suit and white turtle neck shirt mumbles threw eating her stack of chocolate chip pancakes smothered in syrup and strawberries.

"If I don't have time for breakfast then I just don't have time." James replied already tying the laces on his dirty white canvas sneakers. "Thanks for making them, Charlotte, but I-

"You can eat them on the way." 'Charlotte' stated rinsing her dirty dishes in the sink before turning to slip her black flats on by the door to the cozy, one room, apartment.

With a mix of a sigh and groan James took a napkin and two, still warm, pancakes and left with the business women shouting a quick "goodbye" into the room; almost forgetting his backpack by the door.

James locked the door and caught up with Charlotte, who didn't bother waiting for him, by the set of carpeted stairs.

The two only had to go down two floors before reaching the lobby, James taking a second to check his mailbox, and heading out the door to a light grey VW Beetle.

Obviously, Charlotte sat in the driver's seat and James sat passenger, but some day he hoped to be able to drive this exact car.

The ride was a short and silent one, taking fifteen minutes with the early morning New York traffic, as soon as the duo pulled up to Roosevelt High School James opened the creaky door.

Prior to exiting the old car, Charlotte put a hand on James' arm to gain his attention.

"Remember, if you feel an anxiety attack or mental breakdown coming along raise your hand and go to use the office phone to call me." She stated as if telling him this information for the hundredth time. She was.

With a nod James left the car and slammed the door shut; he walked up the steps to the school with what he thought was false confidence but was really a resting bitch face that 'ran in his family'; it said "talk to me and I'll bite your face off".

His immediate reaction to seeing all of the teenagers flooding the halls was to pull out his earbuds and blast music; which he did in fluid motions as if he had practiced it many times previous to this moment.

He wandered the halls of the school, never having been in it before, but eventually he found the office and outside of the glass window he saw a row of papers with names and classrooms beside them.

Taking a closer look and trailing a finger down he eventually found 'Lockhart James - Room 149'.

Finding what he was looking for, and not being a complete sociopath, he turned to walk away but paused when he noticed the schools motto written above the office doors.

"Aut dus Aut dise." He muttered quietly to himself with a contemplative look crossing his eyes, if he remembered correctly that was Latin but that didn't mean he knew what it meant. "Doubt it's better then the Addams Family motto."

With a shake of his head he was once again focused of heading to the classroom he had already forgotten about, so, with one more quick glance he was on his way down the halls with no idea where he was going.

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