New School

Chapter 3: Break time

It's amazing how a simple 15 minutes can change your life forever.

I entered the lunch room and sat down on one of the long, black tables. Nobody had talked to me all day, so I was not ready for the wave of faces that now surrounded me and shouted questions at me. My ears were ringing at the noise, and I couldn't understand anyone. Out of nowhere, a piece of tin foil was thrown at me, and everything escalated from there.

I was trapped by all of the people around me, and they were laughing at me. Laughing at how embarrassed I was. Laughing at how confused I was. Laughing at how tin foil had just hit my face. Laughing at how I had glasses. There was one person who caught my eye in particular as he mocked me. His name was Josh. The same Josh that caught my eye during roll call. I didn't like Josh, and soon enough he would find out that I didn't like like him. He'd find out the hard way, too.

After what felt like an hour of shouting while I cowered behind my bag, someone, who seemed to be a cool, important student, broke up the group mocking me. Everyone listened to him, because he was rich and he was better than everyone. Finally, there was silence. At first, I liked this person, mainly because he broke up the group. There was an awkward silence in the room as he began a conversation with me. He told me his name was Clyde, and he never really let me speak or answer his questions, which I didn't really mind. He was a welcoming person at first, and I grew to like him during the conversation.

By now, I was almost sure the fifteen minutes were up. Oh how wrong was I. Clyde, with the group of people that surrounded me minutes ago behind him, out of nowhere just spat in my face. Disgusting right? I was not expecting it at all, he just spat at me in the middle of our conversation. I wiped the saliva off of my face and scowled at him. He exclaimed: 'Don't look at me in that tone of voice!', something which was apparently funny to everyone else around him, again showing that everyone bowed down to this cocky piece of shit.

He continued to mock me, though just minutes ago he was chatting nicely to me. I didn't know why he suddenly changed his attitude towards me, but it made me change my attitude towards him. When I couldn't hold my anger anymore, I swiped at him. I caught him square in the face with my right fist, and from that point, there was no stopping me. I kept hitting him, punching and kicking him, while shrugging off people who tried to stop me.

I stopped hitting him when I came to my senses and realised what I was doing. I saw the pain he was in, lying on the floor with a broken nose and clutching his hip. I felt bad, yet felt powerful, that I stood up to someone who everyone seemed to like and beat the shit out of him. You could hear a pin drop in the room, and everyone stared at me panting and looking around anxiously. The bell rang, and a teacher came in to get us all out and back to class. She hadn't noticed Clyde behind the people crowding out of the room, but I saw someone talking to her, and I knew what they were talking to her about.

'CONOR BRENNAN! OFFICE, NOW!'