The Ones That Got Away

"Hi, Im Rome."

"Good job, Ro. You got lost." I mutter to myself. Today is my first day at my new school. It's the first day for everyone but everyone else was here last year. I look at my schedule again. Where the hell is Ms. Reinback's class? I turned a corner only getting myself more lost.

"I swear this school needs to consider getting maps." I mutter again turning another corner, running right into another student. I stumble backwards, trying not to drop binder. "I'm so sorry," I apologize to the stranger. I look up only to see a tall boy smiling at me. "No, I'm sorry. I should've paid more attention to where I was going." He looked at me more closely, his bright green eyes studying my face. "What?" I asked feeling self-conscious. "Are you new here?" He replies. "Um, yeah. I'm a little lost too," I admit.

"What class do you have?" He asks. "I'll walk you there." Now it's my turn to study him. "What?" He asks with a small smile. "You don't have to go out of your way to help me." I answer as I look at the ground. "You're right," He says. "But I want to go out of my way to help you." He finishes. "Fine," I look up at him again. "I have math with Ms. Reinback." He smiles again. "What?" I ask, his smile is contagious. "That's my first class too."

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

"We're almost there." He says. "Only a few more doors then we'll be officially locked in this prison for the next 9 months." I laughed at that. "Can I ask you a question?" He looks at me. "Well you already did so I guess so." He responds through a smile. "Do you have a name or should I call you the tall, smiley guy? Ooh! Or maybe the human wall?" I ask smiling back at him. "My name's Sam." He says as we turn into a classroom. "And yours?" I hesitate. People never believe me when I tell them my name. I'm just going to hope he doesn't laugh or question me about it. "I'm Rome."

"Nice to meet you, Rome!" Sam holds out a hand for me to shake it. I grab his hand and shake it. "Nice to meet you too, Sam." We both find a place to sit and wait for class to start. Sam faces me and opens his mouth to tell me something but is interrupted by the teacher. "Hello class!" Ms. Reinback is a short, young woman with blonde hair. She's wearing a yellow sundress with a black cardigan over it and black flats. A few of guys from the class wolf whistled.

"We have a new student this year!" She continues, ignoring the students who whistled. "Rome Harris, can you please stand up and tell the class a few things about yourself?" I stand up shyly. Ms. Reinback smiles at me, probably trying to encourage me to speak. "Hi," I mumble awkwardly. "I'm Rome and I don't know what else to say." I look at Ms. Reinback. "How about you tell us your favorite subject?" She offers. "Um," I start just as awkward as before. "My favorite subject is art." Someone throws a paper airplane at me. I sit back down and Ms. Reinback gives the paper airplane kid a look. "Thank you, Rome." She says looking at me again.

"So, class!" She walks behind her desk to the white board. "We," she starts scribbling words on the board. "Are going to go around the room to say our name and our favorite thing that happened this summer!" On the board she wrote the words "name" and "summer" in orange dry erase marker. "Rome, would you like to go first?" She looks at me. Then the whole class looks at me. "No thank you." I respond quietly, but I don't think I have a choice. "Rome, would you like to go first?" She repeats. "Fine, sure." I stand up again. "My name is Rome and my favorite thing that happened this summer is art camp." I tell the class, trying not to sound forced.

I sit back down and listen to Sam's turn. "Hi!" He announces still smiling. "I'm Sam and my favorite thing that happened this summer was traveling and going on vacation." But as he was talking someone behind through a pencil at my back. I turn to see who threw it at me and see a guy with tan skin and brown hair glaring at me; he looked deeply angered at my existence. "Please stop throwing stuff at me." I ask him politely. He picks up another pencil and flings it at me. I glare back at him. "I didn't throw it." He says, putting his hands up in defense. I roll my eyes and turn around again, ignoring him for the rest of class.

heyyyyy so uh... I posted this first chapter in august of 2016.... it is july 2018 and im going through my book and editing and tweaking and *possibly* adding more content. I took like a year and a half break of writing TOTGA bc I didn't really have a plan when I wrote it... I might have a plan now. and that plan will probably change. we'll see. 

sorry- holly