strangers | newtmas

one

A/N: Apologies for such a short chapter! I want to see if this gets any traction before I really dive deep into the story first, and any feedback is appreciated! Thanks for reading!

Being alone isn't abnormal to me. If anything, I enjoy my time alone- even though that's how all my time seems to be spent. The past two years have been like this, and I've grown accustomed to it. If anything, it's weird for me to be around a bunch of people outside of school. I appreciate a calm and quiet setting. Sure, deep down there is a part of me that yearns to be in one of those friend groups that hangs out every weekend, living "the life", but doesn't that get boring? Personally, I can't imagine enjoying a life where I just party every weekend. Although I've never been to one, I just know that it's not my scene. I'm not very outgoing and would just end up going home if I'm being honest. When I'm by myself, I don't have to worry about what others want to do. It's all up to me. And I like it that way. I kind of have to like it that way. I definitely could make more of an effort to insert myself into groups at school, but it doesn't really feel worth it, because in the end, all I want is to just be in my room, in the comfort of my own solitude, something I've been used to for a while now.

In Willowbrook, I'm seen as "odd". Here, everyone knows one another and it's almost impossible to not have many friends, so me being alone all the time really isn't normal. To be fair, I get it. I understand that how I live isn't how most teenagers do, but I'm content with my life. I mean, I used to have somewhat of a friend group when I was younger- Gally, Chuck, Ben, and Fry- so that counts as something, but it's pretty typical for friend groups to drift apart over time, and there are no hard feelings.

When we were younger, almost every day we'd spend the afternoon and one of our houses for hours, but as we got older and our schedules became busier, we just couldn't find enough time for each other as often. We had stayed friends for a long time, but eventually, we all really had to put effort into the friend group to keep us together, and it just wasn't working.

It was the beginning of our sophomore year when we had officially stopped being a friend group, as we hadn't really hung out much during the summer, and everyone seemed to find a group that they fit in with.

Except for me.

Turns out that making friends when you're eleven is a whole lot easier than when you're sixteen. When I moved to America when I was eleven, making friends had never been easier. Not only was I at that prime age where you could just ask someone, "Do you want to be friends?", but my English accent really helped me. It just made me interesting to kids, but now, people my age could care less about accents, because now it's all about who you know and what you know. Both things have never helped me.

Now I'm in my junior year, which is filled with lunches at tables with no one but me and classes where I only ever make small talk to the people I'm sat by- and that's only when I really have to- like during group projects, which I hate, by the way. Assigned groups don't bother me much since I don't have to rely on chance, but when the opportunity arises for us to form our own groups and I'm left unchosen, it serves as a reminder of my constant solitude.

I miss the times when I'd look forward to lunch every day with my friends, everyone always having something to say about the previous weekend or what had happened that school day so far. Our table would constantly erupt with laughter, provoking weird looks from people around us, but we never cared, and we always had a good time. Eating alone these past two years has really put in perspective how different my life is from theirs, and with so much time alone, I've had a lot of time to think of things I could've done differently, but now these cliques have been established, and I really feel that I've missed out. While I don't really care for the whole "teenage experience", part of me wonders what my life would be like if I actually lived a life, but again, I don't mind how I live my life, I just fear that I may be missing out on things that I don't even realize.