If I Had A Girlfriend

Way back when

It is August 28, 2021, and everyone is supposed to go back to school. Mat jumps out of his mother's car as he waves goodbye but automatically changes mood when she leaves, he begins to look at the floor and grips tight to his backpack. He continues to walk forward as he sees his cousins with their friends Steven with Sel, Kevin, Jacob, Cris, Aaron, Sage, and the Garcias and Sofiya with her friends. Mat walks up a hill as he passes by a girl, he recognizes her face but can't quite put his finger on her name, they make eye contact but Mat continues to walk, now faster.

He meets up with his best friend Jason and they begin to talk and goof around, playing games on their phone and sharing funny videos that they have seen on the internet. "I gotta go, let's talk later though." Jason says as he runs over to a girl and they begin to laugh. Mat begins to smile but deep down there is a sense of jealousy, of course, he wants Jason to be happy but he also doesn't think it's fair for some rando to steal his time with him. He shakes his head vigorously. "Get your shit together Lopez!" He says to himself and plugs in his earbuds and music.

He reads the schedule that tells him about his homeroom teacher. "Ms. Parker's class can now enter the building!" A man with a megaphone yelled as Mat unplugs his earbuds and enters the building, the bright yellow lights blind him at the entrance as music and the latest news about the town blasted on the loudspeakers. He enters his homeroom and takes a spot near the front left side of the room and puts his dark blue bag on the heater that has been in the school longer than he has ever existed.

He sees some familiar faces, that of one from his elementary school, Keyin, along with some of Steven's friends. He also spots someone else by the name of Rei, they knew each other and they were both in the same friend group but they weren't all that close. Rei was very much different from Mat. He was fit, popular, social, and sort of just rolled with things while Mat was more reserved, and although yes he knew a lot of stuff, interacting with others and sharing things with others was not his strong suit. Regardless Rei chose to sit with the chubby, antisocial, anime lover that we all know as Mat Lopez.

At first, Mat didn't say much to Rei but they had too many classes with each other that it would be awkward if they didn't talk to each other at all and when they got to know each other they found out that they had quite a lot of things in common. They both liked watching Marvel movies, they both liked the Star Wars series, they both liked anime, and they liked a lot of video games that the other person had played.

They became partners and that's when Sel got added to the mix. Rei and Sel knew each other from the year prior and Sel also liked a lot of the same things as Mat. Sel was skinny, had glasses, long hair swooping to the side, and constantly wore hoodies. Mat and him soon got along and they always joked about being in a relationship and pretended to kiss each other literally every other period. Since Sel was a part of Steven's friend group and Jason had a couple of classes with Steven, Mat and Steven's friends began to become friends with each other and they soon became a bigger group. This is then when the trio, Mat, Rei, and Sel, became good friends with Sage, Aaron, and Kevin. Sage and Aaron were in the same homeroom as Mat, Sel, and Rei and had a few classes together so when they were tasked with a big group project they went to each other and they became friends with Kevin, becoming a part of the group due to Steven and him knowing each other and Kevin having a class with Mat.

Mat had friends, somewhere where he belonged, and this soon got bigger with the creation of...BLOCK 8!!! Block 8 was formed by Kevin, Sel, Rei, and Vinny and was both an after-school and online chatting session with the whole friend group + more. This was where Mat really got to be himself, without the worries of starting conversations, social anxiety, talking to people, and showing his face he got to show his true self to a multitude of people some of them not even being a part of his school. This was also around the time that Ruri became good friends with Rei and they eventually started dating.

Everyone in the school or at least everyone in their extended friend group had a crush on Ruri at least once in their life. Mat didn't really get all the hype though, yeah, she was pretty but was she really that attractive to get 5 guys crushing on her in the span of 3 months? She had black hair, was quite skinny, and wore practically the same thing every day. This knowledge of Ruri was also when Mat found out that the girl he saw on the first day of school on the hill was actually her and then after thinking about it he found that they knew each other before then and Ruri and Sofiya were actually friends.

Rei and Ruri seemed like a good match for each other, I mean they were pretty good as friends at least, but they came to the conclusion that they were better off as friends. Neither of them really knew what a relationship was and Rei didn't really give Ruri enough time to spend with him, Ruri just didn't want to say anything so they broke up. This break-up between Ruri and Rei was what pushed Steven to admit that he liked Ruri and for Sofiya to admit that she liked Rei, but they never admitted it to the opposite person.

Mat after getting to know all these people and spending a lot of time with Rei and Sel then began to notice that he felt weird when around him, it was similar to that of what he felt when he saw Jason run to go meet up with that girl. Mat was confused but more so scared and after looking into this feeling and learning that Sel was LGBTQ he reluctantly admitted that he was bisexual and when he eventually told everyone in Block 8 he was scared of which people would turn against him and how many people would think differently of him but the reception was amazing and a lot of people were supportive especially Rei, Sel, and Aaron.

After meeting a lot of Block 8 in real life at the mall Mat found that the anxiety that was once there when talking with people was finally gone and it was genuinely one of the first times he actually felt happy not only did he find good friends, a place to express himself, and who he really was he also found...his family.