Welcome To My World

XXXVI-Back for the Ninth Time

"A Queen and a Joker...ouch, that's bad." Charles said, as I picked the cards that could tell my fate.
"What is it?" I was a bit skeptical about it, cards couldn't be able of telling my future.
"Well, you have the number...eleven." He reached for the notebook inside his pocket, where he had written what all those numbers meant. "It says here that you'll get what you deserve."
"And is that a bad thing?" I had to admit, I had done much shit in the past year, and I couldn't say I had gotten what I deserved.
"It depends. Have you done good things? Have you done bad things?" We stayed quiet for a couple of seconds, until Charles interrupted the silence with a simple "Who's next?"
The ninth grade had started a day ago, and against all my expectations, not much had changed. Josh had gotten out of the class, and that made everything much more quiet. It turned out that Mary that Mary wouldn't get out...
But there was one thing that happened as I expected. He was one of the people that I most wanted to meet, and I didn't know him, but it looked like I had known him for my entire life.
It didn't look like he noticed me, though. I would stop paying attention to the class, and when I realized it, I was staring at him.
I kept talking to Brian, commenting on him, and I would write about him on my notebook to remember all the little details.
But besides Josh getting out, and he getting in, nothing had changed. I was just sitting there next to Brian, with the anxiety of sometimes having to open the blinds, and failing miserably.
And then, there was something else changing. Alfred had came out of the closet to his family, and to everyone else. Jack was back to his friends, and everything was alright with Connor. Brian was also happy for coming back to school, and was starting to come out to some people, accepting his own sexuality. And I...well, I was happy to be with them, but I didn't accomplish anything that big. But what mattered was that we were all happy at the same time. Well, at least that's what they thought. We were all happy. Everyone...but Harry.
He was going through some hard time, and I wanted to help him, but I didn't really know how. I just tried my best. Sometimes it looked like it wasn't enough, but it was my best. Besides, things would really get worse if I left him.
But well, things couldn't stay like that for long...that's not how it works.
And everything changed with a little piece of paper, carried to us in the middle of an arts class.
I could've sat next to him, but instead I sat next to Donovan.
"Hasn't he done something to you? That made you uncomfortable?" I remembered something, but I didn't clearly know what he did.
And then my mind wandered to a certain "party", a year ago. "Oh, he was the one that grabbed your...oh."
That just made me want to get out of there. I had to. And besides, he shouldn't want to sit next to me. We were totally different.
But then, that little paper arrived. And it crushed one of the things I was hanging onto.
I wouldn't sit next to the cute one. I would sit next to Ross. Not that Ross was a bad person, but I had an image on my mind on how everything should play out.
But then, I still had the psychometric tests. I really wanted to do those. And I could still see almost everyone from where I sat. Including him.
We didn't really do anything during arts class. I just sat there, and then my mind trailed off. And when I noticed it, I was looking at him, but this time, I was met with a pair of dark eyes looking right back at me.
I quickly looked the other way, just hoping that he didn't notice. It made me remember the first time we looked at each other. The Chemistry class where we presented each other.
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The class wasn't being different from what I expected. Our chemistry teacher was as forward as always, asking him some questions. That wasn't bad, all information was great. But I didn't really pay attention to what he said, I was too busy looking at his face while he talked.
And then my turn to present myself came.
"Hey, I don't want you to keep saying that your favorite subject is Chemistry, I know when you're lying. Your turn Daniel."
"My name is Daniel, I'm fourteen years old, and my favorite subjects are English and Chemistry." I said, speaking so fast that he might have not understood anything. At the "Chemistry" part, I looked at the teacher, so he couldn't see the shade of pink growing in my cheeks.
"And he also talks really fast." Brian said, to break the tension.
This moment was a little embarrassing, but it was also the same time I saw his smile. And it was beautiful.
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I smiled thinking about the not at all distant memory, and the class was soon over.
I was excited for this break, we wouldn't have to have our next class, one thing we didn't do since our fifth grade. It was obvious that I didn't know how boring it would turn out to be.
The break was fun, at the beginning. Me, Alfred, Jack, Pearl, Brian, Charles, Alan, Agnes and Mary played a game called "most likely to". It was really fun.  Supposedly, Alfred was the most likely to survive Saw with all of his best friends there, I would be more likely to do drugs, Brian would be more likely to suck Adrien's dick, and so on...
But after lunch, it turned into hell. The group ended up just being me, Charles, Brian, Alan and Pearl.
I spent the rest of the break looking at him, and one of the only fun things about it was when I challenged Brian to ask the jocks if they wanted to get a ride on his roller coaster while pointing at his ass, during a game of truth or dare.
But then, the worst part of the day came. English class was my favorite class, but that one didn't go as expected.
It turned out that I wouldn't be sitting next to Ross, as the teacher had said during arts class. And as much as I wanted, I wasn't sitting next to him either.
We had to sit in the same places as last year. My place was perfect. I could see everyone from there, I had a place where I could charge my phone, the teachers would probably not look at me.
But my problem wasn't with my seat. It was with the person I sat next to.
Lewis was a great guy. I talked to him, we were friends (at least during class, not outside), he was funny...
But there was just one problem. A big problem. When I sat next to Lewis, I couldn't focus on anything. I would promise myself that I wouldn't talk to him, and when I noticed, the teachers were telling us to shut up.
And there was another problem. Whenever I was with him, I would constantly talk shit about everyone. He said that Jack was strange, I would, not without pointing out something even stranger about Pearl. And then I did many other things, maybe because I wanted him to like me. Damn, I hate pear pressure.
This time it was better than last year. I didn't say anything bad about my friends, that was an improvement.
But there were three times when I stopped working to talk to him, three times when the English teacher called our attention, and three times when I wanted to slap myself for not focusing.
Teachers usually say that when you're next to a friend you can't focus, but when you're next to a friend you don't have to try to make them like you, because they already do.
Two things had gotten bad this day, but as I mentioned before, I would still have the psychometric tests this year.
And the proof of that came in the end of the class. One of the school workers brought a piece of paper, with the people who had signed themselves for it.
At least I would know where I would have the tests. I looked at it in the end of the class, everyone was looking at it, and when they were all gone, I finally had the chance to look at my name.
"Where...the fuck...is my name?" I asked myself."No, really, where is it?"
It wasn't there. I looked at the list at least ten times, and each time I looked, it wasn't there.
This couldn't be happening. Not there and then. I started having an anxiety attack as I got out of the class.
My hands started shaking and I could feel my heart pounding against my chest.
"Oh my god, Jack, my name isn't there." I said, as I ran to get to him.
"Oh, it must be a mistake." He didn't even look at me as he said that. His eyes kept staring at the screen of his phone. I stood there for a few seconds, but I had to go away. Jack was probably too busy to worry about my problems, I couldn't be mad at him.
I told Brian that my name wasn't there.
"Dude, I'm hating this day! And it looks like I won't have the tests. How the hell am I supposed to decide what I want to do?"
"Really? That sucks. Today was a boring day." Brian stopped talking, as he looked at me "Did you see that?"
"What? He looked? I think that I'm a little too anxious for that, don't you think?"
I looked at the entrance, and there was Harry. He was getting out, but I really needed to talk to him.
"Dude, I'm having a breakdown rig-"
"Bye."
And without a word, he got out of school with his mom, leaving me there, all by myself.
I did something that I hadn't done before.
I grabbed my earbuds and played "Dark Paradise", by Lana Del Rey, on repeat. That song made me remember about my depression, and it had a calming effect on me.
While I listened to the song, I got a text from Harry apologizing for bailing on me. He just didn't want to talk to me next to his mom.
He helped me calm down, and he did his best.
But the thing that really made me feel great wasn't the song. It wasn't Harry.
It was the e-mail I received from my mom.
It looks like Jack was right. The school did made a mistake. I had signed up for the tests, and I'd be doing them in two days. 
Charles wasn't right. At least not now. The time would come, but I still hadn't gotten what I deserved.
I had forgotten how I liked writing this story. Wow, it's been a while, right?
Well, I hope that you enjoyed this chapter and I will try to update soon.