No Matter What (Jaspar AU)

3. Torture

Caspar Lee
The new house wasn't small, my new room wasn't ugly, the new neighbourhood wasn't terrible, our new neighbours weren't horrible and my new school wasn't awful; but nothing was good or great or big or beautiful. It was all average and it was all plain. And I wasn't happy and I wasn't sad. I was numb.

It's hard to explain what I was going through at the time, since I didn't really understand it myself. But the easiest way to explain it, is that I was just putting up with everything for my parents's sake. I didn't want to be in London but I didn't want to be in South Africa either. The truth is, I didn't really know what I wanted or where I wanted to be. But it definitely wasn't there. It took me two months of torturous school to realise that maybe things weren't going to be so bad. But I did have to go through those months first. So I'll tell you about them, I just as well. But let me warn you, they aren't the most interesting.

Monday 10th November - The first day of torture.
That morning, I woke up and threw in an old pair of jeans and the first t-shirt I put my hands on. We didn't have uniform since I was in sixth form. I was year 12. (Sixth form is year 12 and 13. This is made up of 16, 17 and 18 year olds. In case you didn't know.)

I didn't bother to try and look by best since I wasn't trying to impress anyone, but I did style my hair like I usually do. I put on some socks and my dirty, white converse, then grabbed £10 from my dads wallet for lunch, slung my backpack onto my back and wandered down the stairs.
I shouted "I'm leaving!" to my family, and I heard my mum call "Good luck!" From the kitchen.

I opened my front door and began the five minute walk to my new school. The house we had bought was a medium sized one, which was only just around the corner from the school. You could literally see some of the classrooms from my bedroom window at the back of the house. I didn't mind that so much actually, at least I could have more time to sleep in the morning and more time to play FIFA in the evening. Yeah, I had such a fun life. That was sarcasm by the way, if you couldn't tell already.

One thing I had noticed about England is that it was very cold. I regretted not bringing a coat and contemplated going back to get one. I decided that there wasn't much point as I was going to be spending most of the day inside. Plus I had a jacket in my bag. I took it out and put it on. I gave me little warmth. I shrugged internally. I would just have to remember a coat next time.

I pushed open the door to the front office of the school. The receptionist was a stern looking woman, with crow feet wrinkles around her eyes and short, grey, curly hair. She was sat bolt upright on her chair and her dull grey eyes stared straight at me as I entered the room. The look she gave me sent anxiety shooting through my body. But I ignored it and stepped up to the desk. She continued tapping away at her computer as she had been doing before I entered, seemingly ignoring my presence.

"Ehem." I coughed, to get her attention. She slowly looked up at me, moving only her eyes and not her head. She pursed her lips and seemed to be studying me. After a few seconds she sighed.
"Well, what do you want?" She snapped. I pinched my eyebrows together in the middle and looked at her for a second. I was disgusted by her rudeness. Then I remembered her question.
"Oh right. I'm Caspar Lee. I'm new here and I... Well I don't really know what I'm supposed to do or where I'm supposed to be right now so I was wondering if you could help me." I said, sounding flustered at first, but gradually starting to sound like an annoyed prick. She nodded slowly, as if she was thinking very hard about something. Then she wordlessly began typing something into her computer. I stood there for what seemed like hours, but was really only minutes, waiting for her to find whatever she was looking for.

When it had reached the point when I thought she had actually forgotten that I was standing there, she finally looked up at me and handed me piece of paper with a room number and a name scrawled across it. She then pointed one long, wrinkly finger down the corridor to my left.
"Thanks." I said almost sarcastically. She ignored me anyway, so I didn't really care if she noticed. She went back to tapping away on her computer and left me to find my own way to my classroom.
"Jeez," I thought to myself as I walked off, "if everyone in this school is like that, I'm going to hate it here."

But, with the sight of the smile on my teachers face as I entered the classroom, I knew that wasn't going to be the case. She had long straight brown hair, dark green-brown eyes and a warm smile. She was a plump woman, and she was about a foot shorter than me, but as soon as I entered, her already smiley face lit up and she walked over to me.
"Hello darling, I'm Mrs Bromley! You must be Caspar!" She said joyously. Just the sight of her happiness made me smile.
"That's me." I said. She raised her eyebrows when I spoke.
"What a lovely accent you have! Where are you from love?" She asked.
"South Africa." I said quickly, suddenly remembering why I was here.
"Wow!" She exclaimed, she seemed genuinely excited about it as well. I could tell that this teacher had kids of some sort, the kind female ones usually did.

"Well Caspar, there are two spare seats, one next to Joe," she said motioning to a short, shy looking boy in one corner, "and one next to Marcus." She pointed over to the opposite corner of the room.  The boy she called Marcus looked more like a man than a 17 year old boy. He had huge broad shoulders and muscly arms. He had a prominent jaw line and a tall blonde quiff.

Joe, on the other hand, looked about 12. He had a small frame and skinny arms. His hair was a light brown colour and was a floppy mess. But he had an older face, it looked like it had been forced to age quickly or that he had been getting little sleep. He had frown lines on his forehead and bags under his eyes. He held a book in his hands and looked up only for a second when his name was called, after that second, he continued to read. But Marcus stared at me the whole time.

I decided I would probably get more of a conversation out of Marcus so I made my way over to his desk, pulled out the chair and sat on it, slinging my bag onto the floor under the desk as I did so.
"Alright mate?" I heard him say. I nodded.
"Yeah I'm good, you?" I asked, only to be polite, not because I actually cared that much.
"I'm alright, only problem I've got is this class." He said, laughing slightly.
"Oh." I said quietly. The teacher coughed and the whole class went silent. I guessed that was her signal for quiet. She began taking the register. I tried to pay attention to the people around me. In front of me was a kid called Alfie and next to Alfie was someone called Troye. On the desk to my left were Niomi and Connor. They were all the ones I could really remember. Once the register had finished everyone turned to each other and began talking again.

Marcus turned to me.
"Good choice, sitting over here." He said like a 13 year old girl trying to stir up gossip.
"Why's that?" I asked.
"Joe is Alfie's girlfriend's brother and he's kind of a loser." He told me. Alfie turned around when he heard his name, as did Troye, Niomi and Connor.
"Marcus, don't be such a dick, Joe's a nice guy when you get to know him!" Niomi snapped.
"He's a loser Nim, just admit it." Marcus replied.
"No he isn't!" She said.
"He is a bit of a loser Niomi." Alfie said, obviously trying to get Marcus out of trouble.
"He's not that bad." Connor sighed.
"Don't let Zoe hear you calling him that, you know how protective she is." Troye interrupted.
"Is she in this class?" I asked, looking around to see if I could spot anyone looking this way. But Troye shook his head.
"She's in the year above with a load more of our friends." He said.
"Oh." I said, slowly nodding my head.
"Yeah and she can be a right bitch when she wants to be." Marcus said to us all. Alfie shot him an angry look.
"I would prefer it if you didn't insult my girlfriend, thank you very much." Alfie said angrily.

For some reason, this made me laugh.
"Something funny Caspar?" Asked Alfie. I shook my head.
"I was just wondering if you always argue like this." I said, I expected him to get angry at me. But he didn't, he started to laugh and the others joined in.
"You'd be surprised." Connor told me with a smile.

Throughout that first class, I chatted with the five of them. I learned that Marcus and Niomi are together and that Troye is with a boy in Zoe's year called Tyler. There is also another couple in Zoe's year that they are all really close with, they are called Jim and Tanya. I learned that Zoe's best friend is called Louise and she is also friends with the five people surrounding me. I soon realised that once I had met the others, I would have made ten friends already today. That's more than I had added together in South Africa, since, other than Josh and Gaby, I only had about five other close friends.

But it turns out, it wasn't all fun and games having all these friends, since in my next lesson, there was only one space for me to sit.

And it was next to Joe.

This was going to make things difficult.

A/N
Not really sure if I like this chapter but oh well. I'm sure it's fine. I'm trying not to rush things too much because I feel like I have slightly. I just have sooooo many ideas that I can't wait to write out. So yeah.
Thanks for reading.
Meg xx