Helping The New Kid

Chapter 1- New Encounter

"The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun." - Christopher Mccandleuss

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6:02 a.m. "Five more minutes," I mumbled to myself. "Why the hell do I need to be up this early?!?!." I dreaded this day to come, today's the first day of my sophomore year. It's not like this year is going be different from the last. I hate school, I hate everyone in it, and I especiallly hate Jack Walsch. Who's Jack Walsch you may ask? Only the most homophobic straight jerk there is to ever been born on this planet. Ever since I came out last year, everyday was full of neverending remarks and punches to different parts of my body; my face, my stomach, you name it, he's punched it.

I know that I should tell a responsible adult to deal with this conflict maturely, but honestly I've given up. I decided to stop fighting back because that only makes things worse. I don't want to tell anyone else because I don't wanna anyone innocent to get involved. "I'll just get through it," I told myself. "Three more years..." I kept repeating that short sentence, predisposed to the idea that the more I say it to myself, the shorter the span really becomes. But who am I fooling? Three years is three years.

Squinting my eyes to get rid of the exhaustion from them as I step inside the hellish building they call a high school, I can already feel that today isn't going to go so well. "Welcome to Wisteria High School!" I hear the seniors say as they welcome the incoming freshmen. The one thing I only like about this school is that the name sounds like hysteria. Everything else, I'm not so fond of.

"Well, look who decided to show his face today," I've heard that voice so many times, and each time my ears bleed from the flashback of the memories. I'm honestly not prepared to do this right now. "Hey Jack." I said with an uncomfortable laughing afterwards.
"Don't hey Jack me, faggot! I don't want to catch your gayness." Jack replied soon followed by aggreing mumbles from the guys behind him.
"You can't catch gayness Jack, just like you can't catch the ball in football when someone passes it to you," Wow, even I admit I'm surprised I said that.
"Why you little bitch..." he screamed as he clenches his hand and raises it.
I knew what was coming next, it always came. I closed my eyes and prepared for the hit. 1...2...3...seconds, shouldn't he have hit me by now? I cautiously opened my eyes and the first thing I saw was the back of someone. From the view I have, he's tall, skinny, with black hair, pale skin, and wearing a red t-shirt with basketball shorts.
"Let's go!" he whispered to me. And right after, he grabbed me by the wrist and started dragging me with him. Each second, our pace got faster until I couldn't see Jack anymore.

Panting from running basically across the school, I finally stood up and got a better look at him. "Um, thanks." I said to the boy. "No problem, it looked like you needed help." he replied.
"Yeah," I said with a laugh. "Bye." I turned around not expecting him to grab my hand to stop me. "Hey, wait up!" he said a smile etched on his face...he has dimples. I started to feel weird when I realized he still held my hand in his. "Uh, what?" I asked, taking my hand back. In no time, missing the warmth around my fingertips. "My name's Dylan Barker. And yours?" he asked shortly. Why is he still talking to me? Why did he help me? Why am I still talking to him? All these questions recurring in my head. Yeah I find him cute and felt something when he helped me, but that was all in the spur of the moment. "Zach McCallister." I answered.
"Nice to meet you. Well, this is kinda weird seeing as to we just met and all, but could you help me find my classes. I'm new here." Doubt clouded my thoughts, I was hesistant to saying yes because I barely know this kid, Dylan. Well this guy since it's obvious he's at least a year older than me. "I guess." I don't know what I'm doing right now with agreeing to help him, but I just hope I don't regret this.