My Own Stunts

Chapter One

James's POV
Insomnia gets boring over time, the fact that I have to sit on my bed and stare at the ceiling doing nothing isn't something I look for at the end of the day. What I look for is a night of sleep without the need of medication. There's times when I do get to that point of closing my eyes, but that first November week I didn't even get close to think about sitting down. Sophia wouldn't stop budging the idea of a new school. I was satisfied enough with homeschooling but her standards weren't down for that.
The alarm woke me up immediately. Most of my morning thoughts are about hunger but this time I was feeling nauseous. Sophia's face was peeking from the door.
"Morning, someone looks excited," she said with silent claps. "You should go to school, it'd be fatal for you not to go."
Here we go again. Her tone makes it sound like I stay home all day and do nothing productive. She was the one that signed me up for homeschooling because she thought I had a mental illness. Now that I'm older she finally realized insomnia is a common disorder that can be mildly controlled with a handful of pills.
"Plus all your other friends are going to be there," she continued on, "like Roger."
When I finally got my first car. I decided to drive up the hill where I lived and sat down on the edge of a beautiful body of water called the Raginyte Lake. The view was so spectacular, and the length of it so long that you couldn't even come close to seeing the other side. The time I spent there was long enough to avoid Sophia and Michael for the rest of daylight. She thought I was having one night stands with girls, when I didn't even have friends. One of those days I got home way too late with my hair standing out on every side according to her. It raised her eyebrow. What really went on that evening was that I met my first friends by almost running them over. The wheels of my car were the only thing that could be heard in an isolated hill.
"Hey asshole, be careful!" I heard a distant voice. He had dirty blonde hair, and his pupils covered his blue irises. Roger Sandoval, my former best friend and the first one I had.
They beckoned me over. It was a mistake to get out of my car because as soon as I did they handed me one of their paper bag bottles. It wasn't my first time drinking beer but indeed it was the first time I got drunk. I felt guilty for spilling beer over my favorite lake but then again I wasn't in the right mind to do anything correctly. Driving under the influence was not something I wanted to do, Roger assured me everything was good and I felt the least reluctant and drove them to the house the shaggy browned hair guy was yelling directions to. His name was Aaron Stone, the only one of them who had lively eyes and a bright smile. Aaron's parents were barely home so we spent almost all of our time there after we became friends. A few days in their circle Tesla Young, a tanned guy with short dreadlocks, was rolling up some paper. He was entertained by origami I thought until he lit it up, and that was a different story. They were passing it around.
"Here," offered Roger, "it's marihuana, no harm will be done." He was convincing so I went ahead. I cough uncontrollably while they laughed at me. I tried to laugh along but my eyeballs were about to pop out. After that day everything started to go smoothly.
Roger and I started hanging out more often. He brought random girls, I never had the chance to talk to his 'companies' because his tongue was down their throats. I felt like a third wheel, Aaron and Tesla weren't around anymore. Unlike his constant changing girlfriends I got to meet his parents. They were very strict with him, and that's when I learned that all of those Sundays he wasn't around, he was practicing and training for football. They noticed Roger was slacking off, and blamed it on me. Roger tried standing up for me, but his dad stepped all over on his say.
We started talking less and less until we stopped altogether. I never talked to him again. I saw him a few times last year at a cafe with some of his other friends. He looked sloppier and taller.
"I'm trying my best as an adoptive parent-"
"And you've been great, I'll go and if all fails I'm staying with Rhonda," I patted Sophia's shoulder in a distant hug and rushed out the door. I sure was going to miss Rhonda and her reinforcement in Math. I spent half of the day waiting for her. She was also my therapist, and the only person who kept me sane.
A twenty minute drive always seemed to relax me because I can put jazzy songs and tap the wheel to the beat. That time I couldn't stay with the rhythm and turned it off. The ride was already screwed up enough with my sensitive eyes. The sun was penetrating through my cornea like a butterknife. I went down the hill that led to my house and the sun was no longer on my face.
Finally there I picked the list of how many students and class schedules. There were about eighty students in the third year. They were divided in levels according to how good they were at something. Sophia knew I was really good at Math, and she almost lost her head when she learned I got in the advanced group. She should've waited for my decision before she started planning a celebration with her other tall, blonde friends because I decided to ride comfortable that year and chose to go with Algebra 2. I was tired of Calculus, two years straight of it gets boring. I know everyone can relate, math becomes way too easy over time.
I entered the school, the outside was just brick walls, and a rock pathway to the entrance. But the white walls inside the school looked like I was in a whole different building. The ceiling was too high to make out. I figured the school was three stories.
"Watch where you're going, no sense of normality huh?" said this squeaky voice. I looked up just a little to see her face clearly. "Silent apology accepted... shorty," she snorted a laugh and left, her black saggy boots crashing into each other. I kind of hoped she'd fell over.
Was it really necessary to point my average male height of five feet nine? I'm not short, it's not my fault most of the girls here in California look like giraffes, and are only about two inches taller than me.
I went up to the second floor, absent mindedly clutching on my messenger bag. The whole time I was hoping Roger wasn't in the class I was about to go into which was math. Better yet I was just hoping he decided to leave the country. There wasn't any labels on the door, but I instantly recognized a worn out math pun. Puns? Please subtract them out of my life.
The door was half open. I opened it slightly more and got a gust of sweat. Wasn't this the first period? Everyone's eyes darted my way. I look to the right side and recognize Aaron, whose eyes were as big as the breasts of the girl beside him. She started whispering things to him. I felt a sudden coldness inside me but then I looked to the table that was in front of me and located Roger. He was clenching his jaw and sitting next to a blonde girl. Her hands were almost down his pants, while looking at me with her small eyes. It was probably his girlfriend so I just looked away.
The teacher, who had a fresh stubble pulled me aside. The board read 'Mr. Tanner's Adventurous Classes'.
"James?" he whispered. I nodded pulling away from his face. "Everyone, the new student is here, James," he cleared his throat, "James Grabovski," his voice deepened. "Last seat is empty," he pointed at a table behind Aaron's. I thought the table was empty but as I got closer without Bella on the way I saw a girl with her head ducked under her arms.
"Students, students," Mr. Tanner flailed his arms to calm down the non existing racket. "I have to take a call from my wife, I'll leave you some work to do." He started handing out a worksheets with his cheeks squashed on the phone.
I was determined on finishing in less than seven minutes as it only had twenty exercises, it was my first time here, but these math excercises where some I have seen many times before. When I was halfway done with the first excersice Aaron turned around.
"Need some help?" Aaron asked.
The girl next to him turned around and stared at my paper, "doesn't look like it. I've heard quite a few things about you," she said.
I wondered of many ways she could've heard about me but Aaron was nodding along to what she said.
"Good things, trust me," Aaron said.
Out of the blue, the girl next to Roger started yelling my way.
"I bet the skank over there has bids on James," she pointed at the girl beside me, whose head finally rose up. The sun hit her aquamarine eyes. It was definitely a color I have never seen before. She looked tired, and her cheeks were blushing. She looked at me from the corner of her eyes, I could feel her uncomfortableness by my staring.
"Shut up," said Bella flipping her off. "Her name is Samantha Whorester," she quickly whispered to me, and craned her head back to Samantha.
"You shut it, Boobs McGee," said Samantha.
Bella started fixing her bra infront of me, and started hissing at the girl beside me, "don't let that thing insult you, it's getting boring," she said completely ignoring Samantha.
"Sorry," the girl croaked.
I looked at Bella for some explanation of what was going on, but she shrugged in response. Aaron on the other hand seemed to focus on copying my paper.
After that weird confrontation everyone went back to work like nothing happened. I guess it was not the first time. I was ready to hand in the paper after eight minutes. One minute too late for my record. Mr. Tanner was nowhere in sight, for the classroom to be silent they had a lot of respect for him. I looked beside me and the girl was staring at her handout blankly, as blank as her paper. She kept her hand cupped on her forehead and briefly looked around. I wanted to help her but she was looking at Roger and he was looking back at her every so often. When the period was over she dashed out, and Roger got a hold of her arm. She released herself and walked out.
"Hey!" Bella snapped her fingers, "we'll see you at lunch," she said.
"Yeah," Aaron agreed, "come on!" he hissed at Bella.
I went ahead and checked my schedule, still had fifteen minutes before a boring History lesson. I went down a floor, and opened my new locker. The whole hall was decorated with cobalt blue lockers, and the labels with the numbers weren't big enough so I spent half of my free time looking for it. I heard quick footsteps. Angry footsteps. I poked my head out of my locker in a subtle way and spotted Roger walking towards me. His varsity jacket looking suddenly more red than his trademark bloodshot eyes. He stood next to my locker waiting like I owed him something. Just two years ago I towered him by a couple of inches but he was now more than six feet. He sighed and pushed my locker door close.
"I would like to know why you're here," he casually said one his shoulder leaning against the lockers.
"Likewise," I challenged.
"That overdose didn't work at all, it was probably your substance abuse that made you immune to what actually should've happened," he paused and looked at me straight in the eye, "death," he suddenly grinned.
"We can't always get what we want."
"This elite school is very welcoming of failures like you, I mean you're eighteen shouldn't you be a senior?" He furrowed his eyebrows in fake distress. "Actually you should be in college."
I looked around and the first floor was completely empty. I guess the attraction was up on the second floor, and I kept gritting my teeth hard so they could teleport me over there with everyone else.
"I flunked the first grade because of personal reasons," I broke the silence. "You flunked the seventh grade but your dad paid out-"
"Listen," he smacked a locker door. I was expecting a small flinch from the pain but his face was completely frozen. "I would knock your teeth out but I don't want Sophia to see you crying, we know how she makes a dramatic play out of everything, just let that hot stuff know I said hi, as for you, you better watch your back, you've done enough and it's time to pay."
I was about to tell him how gross it was for him to talk about Sophia like that but he left. Sudden relief took over me. I checked my watch and I was only a minute late. The majority of the people were still cluttering around the halls. I dived quickly trying not to hit anyone. There were about two couples making out on each corner, and crumpled pieces of paper decorating the white floors. It somewhat looked like the movies I've seen.
My first three hours there were enough to know this school was full of snobs and guys that wore pastel colored shirts. Chemistry rolled by and I took it with Bella and Aaron. I was about to sit at the table in front of them but Bella grabbed my most accessible finger and pulled me. She pushed Aaron from beside her and told him to sit at the other table while she pointed at the seat next to her.
Chemistry flew by, and we barely learned anything. Half of it was my fault for talking to Bella almost the whole time about basic stuff, and the other half was Mrs. Calloway's never ending moping about how her cats always leave a mess around the house.
Lunch time finally came. I checked the menu first hand. Hamburgers, hot dogs and fries were among the greasy things
listed. I'm a vegetarian so none of these foods called to me. I finally looked at the beverage options and they had smoothies. While they were serving them to other people, I peeked to the lunch lady's work area and she was squirting syrup all over the smoothies. They were suppose to be one hundred percent fruit, well if the syrup was real fruit I would've took it. I decided to wait a few more hours until I got home. I'm not spoiled or anything but I have to be, well everyone has to be careful with what they put on their bodies. Hypocritical of me to be saying that, I take pills on a daily basis.
I got past all the sweaty people, and came to view the lunch area. It was as a huge as a football field with red benches and tables. They were too many to count, and too many to find Bella and Aaron. I didn't notice I was walking mindlessly until someone yanked my arm, "hold your horses," said Bella with a strong grip that scrunched up my jacket.
"Careful there, cowgirl," I patted my jacket and tried to straighten up.
Aaron arrived to the table, and behind him Tesla was following him. Well Aaron forgot a big detail to tell me. Anyway out of all the people that I could've expected... Tesla? That idea never came up because he use to be the guy obsessed with freedom, and Eltwood has dozens of strict rules.
"James, what the hell?" He chuckled holding up his much longer dreadlocks. I would've thought they'd be gone by now.
"Sophia told me today you guys were here," I said.
"She's hot," said Aaron taking a huge bite from his burger.
I got use to the attention Sophia gets. She's my foster mother so I still don't like to agree with what people say. Two years ago when I met them, Aaron and Tesla, they practically begged me to take them to my house so they could have an opportunity to talk to her. She wasn't even old enough to be my biological mother which made everything weirder than it really was.
"Please don't," I stared at their greasy food. The buns of Aaron's burgers reflected the sun's light, it looked like the grease was about to evaporate.
Aaron started looking around for something. Bella kept tapping his shoulder I didn't know what was going on but it looked like he was paranoid about something.
"Usually it's Roger's time to come out and pull Tesla's dreadlocks until he yanks them out," said Aaron still looking around.
I saw Roger just a few feet away whispering things at another table with Samantha. He stood up and stalked towards our table. He was staring at Aaron with a smirk and quickly changing his gaze to me. His point was to scare?
"Bella," said Roger approaching her. She wasn't looking back. She kind of froze in her seat, and her cheeks were flushing. He faced her and winked, with that he just left.
"She likes him," Tesla leaned on my shoulder. I tried moving a little to the other side, but I was stuck between him and Bella.
"I can hear you!" Bella whispered-shouted. "And no I don't," she continued in monotone, "he plays with every girl, mentally and phisically, and I will not fall for that, and nor I havent, so Tesla I would appreciate it if you'd stop saying that," she pointed a finger to his face. Being in the middle wasn't such a comfortable position.
"He's stable with Samantha, ain't he?" Aaron added.
"Stable?" said Bella with her eyes popping out. "Every guy in this school has seen every orifice she has, if anything is stable is her slut life-"
"The jealousy is so strong," Tesla slammed his fist on the table.
I was lost. They were randomly shouting at each other, and Aaron was completely out of the area. I wish I could've been on the opposite side of him. He looked like he was having fun by himself.
After a couple of minutes of bickering they stopped. Tesla finally moved to the other side. I could finally breathe in fresh air and not his dreadlocks. Roger was walking up and down and gazing for a few seconds at us. If he had anything to say why didn't he just say it? He had a guy following him most of the times. That guy was holding hands with the girl that sat next to me in Math.
I felt Bella breathing on me, and looking scared. "Don't stare, that's Joshua," she chuckled, "whatever opportunity he gets for a fight he takes, beware, two months ago he took Aaron's laptop and completely exposed his nudes, and journal entries-"
"Woah!" Aaron snapped out of his own world. "They weren't nudes, they were upper body pictures for an art project."
"You have a nice upper body," Tesla high fived him.
The whole time I was nodding to whatever they were saying. I was too uptight Bella suggested.
I told them I was going to take a bathroom break. But really I was going to go in the bathroom until those last ten minutes were over. Something about Bella's attitude made me feel like I was going to get beat up anytime soon. Thankfully I didn't, the day was almost over.
While on my search for a bathroom I could hide in nearby I saw the girl from math class two steps away from my locker, and my legs automatically walked faster. She was just three lockers away. Out of pure niceness I would've helped her with the mess of papers she had, but she was looking at me, again, through the corners of her eyes and her jaw shut tight.
"Hello," I said with hesitation, "you sit next to me in-"
She sighed, "yeah, you can make fun of my blank paper."
"None of that, I just wanted to introduce myself," I extended my hand.
"The name's Christina," she shook my hand but quickly let go of it and look at it weirdly. I put my hand back in my pocket, and tried to smile as warm as possible. The only reason I was being friendly with her was because she looked sad, and my biological father had always told me to never lend a hand to anyone because at the end they would turn their back on you. But somewhere in the world I had to prove him wrong, and by lending a hand and making a new friend that looked miserable was the least I could do to convince myself my biological father could at least be wrong once.
"I'm James, nice to meet you," I said. She sighed once again and turned back to her locker.
She wasn't interested on meeting me, so I went back to my own mess which look completely tamed compared to hers. She had a huge portfolio that had the words "MATH" hovering all over it in foam letters. Various papers were poking out of it, and for someone who left a fraction handout empty, all of her handouts were full of failed equations, which I figured they were a fail because they had big pencil marks all over them.
I gave in my laptop weight that was giving me a pinching pain and shoved it inside my locker.
"I wouldn't do that," she stared at my neatly placed laptop, "someone did it once, and ended up with a smashed screen and it's memory card stolen."
"Thanks for that advice," I mocked a salute to her strict tone.
"Locker thirteen at your service," she grinned sarcastically. "Welcome to Hellwood Academy, have a good one," she shut her locker door, and walked away.
I chuckled. It was a clever thing to say, I wouldn't have agreed with her if only Roger wasn't attending this school. He's a really persistent guy and if he threatens you, he'll make sure that threat becomes a traumatic moment in your life. Like that time I was driving him home, I took a wrong turn, and his too-drunk-to-function ass made me run over a poor dog. I wanted to stop and pull the dog to the driveway but he was yelling to much and was about to cause a scene so I let him have that one. I'll never forget the poor dog's whimper.
After school was finally over I spotted Bella, Aaron and Tesla in a circle, giggling with far away looks. Obviously getting caught smoking marihuana in school wasn't a worry for them. I ran to my car almost tripping over the uneven rocky floor. I had to give them a chance, and just not hop into conclusions just not that day. I took off in the same car I killed a Siberian Husky with, stealthly.
Something was telling me Sophia was going to be waiting for me and give me a warm welcome with a nasty scowl. That usually happens when I go to the grocery store to get my organic ingredients. Michael, my adoptive brother, makes up stories before I get there, and gets me into trouble with Sophia. I don't get mad about because Sophia usually "grounds" me. She's going to take my computer away? News flash I'm not into technology. No T.V? It rots the human brain, and as for my phone I have no friends to talk to.
I was right, she was there. Standing in the middle of the entrance hall. Under the huge chandelier she decided to buy as a Christmas gift to me. Who gifts a chandelier? I've never heard of such gift until I woke up to a box, two times taller than me. It wasn't a pleasant Christmas but it was my first.

"It reeks of weed!" she said. My body made no movement as I stared.
"And?"
"And?" her eyes widened, "for goodness sake James, it's easy for Michael to pick up on that, in your room next time!"
"What the actual hell? I was taking your overrated suggestion and went to that academy, so I'll have you know I wasn't here, and you forgot about Michael's dramatic fever attacks, he was here the whole day."
After my rant, Michael came down the stairs with a hand over his forehead, and extended moans on each step.
"Soph, is that weed again?" He croaked.
I looked at him as dark as I could. He wasn't getting away with this one, so the only way I could win was to play along. He obviously knew about marihuana, and I'm pretty sure it's residing in his body. Sophia started caressing his thick straight hair, and kissed his head. I was witnessing the most disturbing thing. She thinks he's a perfect child.
"Indeed, I found it in your room," I went up to him, and hit the back of his head with my fully loaded bag.
"You idiot!" He yelled and extended an arm to slap me but I was now too far away from him. His silk robes didn't give him much space to run.
"Ha!" I pointed at him. Sophia pinched his ears.
"You could barely walk an hour ago, did you have friends over? Tell me now because I'll get to the bottom of this," Sophia tried to sound like she had authority but Michael just rolled her eyes at her.
He lacked wit. He really did, and that caused Sophia to go up his room, and ransack his drawers. Michael was behind her, trying to stop her. All whilst I was downstairs sipping red wine. I heard Sophia's exhorbitant shoes click down the stairs rapidly. I put the glass down and shook my head when she held up a plastic bag with a substance I'm familiar with.
"The quality is horrible, look at hat yellow color all over it," I grabbed it. It didn't smell good, not saying that it had to but it smell literally fishy.
"That's not mine!" Michael's dry tears were starting to take course, "it's James, he set me up!"
"Sophia knows this," I shook the bag, and the foul smell penetrated my nose, "that's gross."
Sophia wasn't saying a word, she yanked the bag off my hands. The smile I had was wiped off when she served herself a shot of vodka and went up to her room. It wasn't normal for her to do that. Specially after her history as an alcoholic. Michael took notice of that too, and stopped forcing fake tears.
"Look at what you did!" He took his silk robe off and went straight ahead to her room. He wasn't going there to make her feel better, his selfish self was there to make himself feel better. It's the way people do it. Sometimes you do good things to make yourself feel better because of course at the end of the day you're going to pat yourself on the back. That's not how you should feel after doing a good deed. You should be too caught up to think about yourself.
I stayed in the living room, looking around in utter silence. I could hear the door slam a few times. The last time Sophia came down and sat next to me. She said nothing. She heaved a few sighs.
"I really try, and it's exhausting because neither of you respect me and that feels horrible," she ducked her head on her arms. I didn't know what to say or do that would comfort her.
"Where's Edward?"
"He's doing extra hours today, or so I believe," she said.
Edward is Sophia's husband and unfortunately my other adopter. He's a well-known surgeon, and there's not a day when I don't think he cares more about his job than anything else. I don't want his attention, but I really want him to be here with Sophia. He's about twenty years older than her. Even if they have a big age difference, the problems don't stop there. It's a love and hate relationship of him being here. She's happy when he's here but they constantly argue too. Sophia wants to get herself a job but Edward pins her down, and tells her he just wants her to be here.
Sophia and I were just sitting down. I felt like I was in the living room, looking around in utter silence. In this household silence speaks better than anything else. We both jumped up a little bit when the doorbell went off. Sophia didn't stand up, and in reality I was going to be scared off my pants if it was Edward. Then we heard keys jingling, and it was Edward. In less than five seconds he came in. He set his suitcase with a loud THUMP! With that Sophia went to the kitchen. I didn't hear anything for a while but then it started.
"You're earlier than usual."
"Is that bad?"
His pure tone in animosity wasn't making their conversation any easier. The tension was so much it could be cut with a knife, and I was on the
other room. I went to the nearest window and opened the blinds. It was dark outside. I checked my watch and it was already 9p.m. About five hours had flown by.
There wasn't any arguing going on, a few indirect insults here and there, but it was peaceful. No surgeon related threats, or essays about how getting a maid will benefit our 'family'.
My watch kept ticking. Everyone was now in their rooms sleeping. All while I kept pacing back and forth in front of my window. I needed no light, the full moon was enough to light up the whole room. I usually took the nights to put thought in the past, but now I had something new to think about. Aaron, Tesla, and Bella were... my new friends.
And part of me felt calm, because this was an oppurtunity to prove my biological father wrong in any way I could. I started with the quiet girl at the lockers, and I'll try not to stop.