Impress

Chapter 6: School Daze

We had been in virginia or about 2 weeks. Two very uneventful weeks. Most of the time had been spent getting all of our things unpacked and organized. School was going to start the next day. I don't think I had ever been more excited to go back to school. But then again, most summers, I had my friends to hang out with, instead of spending all of my time in a mess of boxes.

I was in my bed, crying. It's a bad habit of mine. When I get really tired, I cry, even if there is nothing to be sad about. But at times like that night, there was something to be sad about, which only made falling asleep even more of challenge. I was frightened and sad and excited about school all at the same time. Then, just as I was about to drift off, I remembered something. My "new kid catchphrase". The thing I had come up with months ago when moving wasn't an actual possibility. It was still usable, in fact, my last thought before I fell asleep that night was, that catchphrase is my best hope for tomorrow.

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I woke up to an alarm. I was glad that we got to sleep in later in Virginia. Our school started at 9 as opposed to 7:40. I woke up at 7:40 now. I hopped out of bed and on my clothes. I finished getting ready and headed downstairs. I gobbled down my breakfast and started to leave the house. My dog barked after me as the door closed behind me. The bus left at 8:30. That's right, the bus. My mom had offered to drop me off on her way to work, but I was in high school, I needed to be independent. I reached the bus stop and waited for a good 10 mins until the bus came. I checked my phone. 5 minutes late. Was this how long it would usually take? I boarded the bus. A sigh of relief came out of me. There were enough seats so that I could sit alone. I put my earbuds in and played my music for the rest of the ride.

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I arrived at school. The day started with STING, which is basically just homeroom. They call it STING because we are the hornets. Yup, I know, the worst mascot ever. We hadn't been assigned lockers yet, so I headed straight to my STING classroom. I sat down in a seat. I looked around the room for potential friend candidates. Two kids were sitting close together chatting. One guy and one girl. I didn't want to assume things, but considering that I am bisexual, I thought I had pretty good gaydar, and the guy was definitely gay, or at least bi. I thought that they might make good friends. I guess I was just staring at them blankly for a while, but the girl noticed and scooted her chair towards mine.

"Hey! Can I see your schedule?" she asked. I was confused for a second but then I realized that she wanted to see if we had any classes together.

"S-sure." I replied, handing the paper over. Wow, way to look chill. Stuttering when you try to talk to someone. I thought. I looked up at the girl. She put down the paper and looked at me.

"We have math together." She paused and picked the paper back up. Suddenly a huge grin appeared on her face. "But more importantly... YOU'RE IN DRAMA?" Sweet! I thought. I'd met a drama kid already!

"Yeah, I'm super excited!" I responded with a smile. Then the guy she was with scooted his chair towards us.

"I'm Camilla." said the girl. She looked back to see the guy had joined us. She pointed to him, "And he's Greg."

"Hey." I said. Greg didn't respond, but instead whispered something to Camilla.

Camilla then smiled at me and said, "Catch ya on the flip side!" and scooted her chair back to where it was. I just sat there for a bit, but then our teacher, Mrs. Gale, started to call attendance.

Once she got through all of the names, I noticed that I hadn't heard Greg's. Greg raised his hand.

"Yes?" asked Mrs. Gale as she called on him.

"Um, I didn't hear my name." he said.

"Oh, what's your name?"

"Greg." Mrs. Gale looked at her attendance sheet for a bit before responding.

"Your name isn't on here. I think your in the wrong STING." She then told Greg to go to the office to find out what his real STING was. Greg left and never came back. I guess he found his STING.

To be honest, I was kind of relieved that he was gone. It seemed like he didn't want Camilla hanging out with me. After he left the room, I took his seat next to Camilla.

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For the first week of school, we had to spend all day with our STING. We didn't have normal classes. Instead we did some pointless "bonding activities". Because of this, lunch was also a little different. On the first day, I was walking to lunch with Camilla. She was telling me about which teachers were good and bad. When we got into the cafeteria, I noticed names on the tables. They were our STING teachers' names. I suddenly realized that my plan of sitting alone and being edgy and chill would not work out. At all. With this few tables and assigned class seats, no one was going to be sitting alone.

Feeling helpless, I followed Camilla to a table and sat next to her. I brought a lunch so I opened up my lunchbox and started to eat as Camilla told me about how creepy our guidance counselor was.

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Lunch and school continued like that for the whole week. When Friday came around, we were allowed to go outside for a short recess. Finally! I thought. This was my chance to meet people outside of my STING. When we got outside, Camilla introduced me to her friends, They were all really nice, but I didn't think that I would really be part of their group. Camilla then offered to introduce me to all of her other friends outside her group. I thanked her and we started walking towards the woods. They were clearly outside of the area we were supposed to be in so I turned to Camilla and asked, "We're not going in there, are we?"

She smiled at me and pointed at a picnic table near the edge of the woods, "No, see them? That's where we are going." I followed her, and she started a conversation with the group of kids. One of the girls had short hair and the other's was died a light blue. The guys looked fairly normal, but they all looked like people I would hang out with. Only problem, they didn't seem very approachable. I turned around to see three kids sitting on the playground and laughing. I don't why, but they caught my attention. When Camilla was finished talking, I tapped her on the shoulder and pointed to the three kids.

"Do you know them?"