Scars To Your Beautiful

Start of Something New

The lyrics to P!nk's hit song 'Today's the Day' are,

'Today's the day I've been waiting for

Tomorrow won't come after all

Yesterday is so far away

And today is the only day

Somebody please stop the clock

Oh oh oh

Don't ever let this day stop

Oh oh oh

I never wanna go home.

As good as the lyrics are, and as much as it is Nate's favourite song at the moment, the lyrics did not describe the way he was feeling right now. Today was not the day he was waiting for after all. In fact he was dreading this day since mid June, the sixteenth exactly. Today is the first day of high school. Every teenager's nightmare, or at least Nate's. Nate graduated from Ridley Elementary School on the tenth of June and his last day was on the sixteenth. He was apart of such an amazing group of friends, let alone his entire grade. He formed friendships that were inseparable, at least until now. Nate's mom, Natasha Rodrigues, and his dad, Charlie Roy, dropped a bomb on him when he started his last year at Ridley Elementary that this would be the last time he would see anybody from that town, Stratford Ontario. They were moving to Burlington, which was only an hour away from Stratford. Nate was not pleased with this new move. Not one bit. He knew this would definitely be the end of his life, as the overdramatic teenager he was.

Once his grey and blue backpack was filled with essentials such as a pencil case, binders, markers and pencil crayons, and his lunch for the day, Nate zipped up his now mid heavy bag, picked it up, threw on his pride baseball cap and headed out the door. He pulled out his keys from his pocket and locked the door, walking off to the bus stop. Turning on his music with one earbud in and one earbud out, Nate began thinking of a million things, and they all had to do with high school. Is anyone going to like me? Is everyone homophobic? How big is the school? Are the teachers nice? Is everyone taller than me? These were just a few things out of the million that were racing through Nate's mind. Although he knew already most people are taller than him.

To get to his bus stop, Nate must hike through the church parking lot, take a left turn onto a brand new street, go down a couple blocks until he enters into an intersection, where he will cross right then cross left to the block diagonal from him. Confusing, right? Nate felt the same way. He had to take a walk with his parents a few times to the bus stop before school started so he wouldn't get lost on his very first day of high school! Once at the stop, he would wait for city bus 12, which would take him down several blocks where his new school is located. The amount of anxiety Nate was feeling at this moment was indescribable.

At last, the bus has arrived. It pulled up next to the curb. The doors swooshed wide open and Nate entered, placing his change into the small box next to the driver. He took a seat by himself and continued listening to his music. The bus took off. Down the line, two stops later, the bus stopped once more, to pick up another pedestrian. It was a young teenage boy most likely Nate's age. He was taller than Nate. He had short brown wavy hair, pretty brown eyes which were protected by prescription glasses that had squared lenses with black edges. He was wearing socks with sandals, blue jeans, and a white shirt covered by a black pull-over v-neck sweater, sporting the red American Eagle logo at the top of his chest on the right. He admitted his money just as Nate did and when he turned around he smirked at Nate, giving him a small wave. Nate smiled back. That's it. No wave. What was he supposed to do? Get up and give him a hug? Following that guy was a girl, only a little bit shorter than the guy before her, most likely around Nate's height. She had long black wavy hair, tanned skin and beautiful natural blue eyes. Nate smiled, and even waved this time, to the girl, but she didn't smile or wave. She just gave a cold dead stare, like she wanted to slit his throat. Nate felt shivers. The girl took a seat at the very back of the bus as it continued its route. He briefly took a look back, the girl facing upright and tall, ignoring his quick glance while her headset sat comfortably on her head. He then looked over to the boy who had waved at him and noticed him and he even smiled, showing his teeth this time. Nate smiled, again. He turned back to his original position. Is this what they call making a new friend? Nate thought. He hadn't made new friends since kindergarten, and at that time he was a toddler, asking questions like, 'What's your favourite colour?', 'What's your favourite food?' and 'How come your private part isn't the same as mine?'. The bus came to a stop. It had reached at its destination, or at least the destination for the students. Nate was closest to the front so he was the first student to exit, then when he looked back, the two others followed, along with a few other students that were already on the bus when he first got on. He returned his focus to the big building that would be his school for the next four years of his life. On the front of the building it read in black 'Corpus Christi Catholic Secondary School'. This was it folks. This was the start of Nathaniel Rodriguez's new chapter.