Old Endings (adopted)

Chapter 4

Sixth grade started out better than Percy expected.

He hardly saw any of the kids from his elementary so no one was bullying him right off the bat.

He had managed to blend well. Simple t-shirts and jeans could do a lot, especially when your in a field of shy people who all happened to be just as nervous as Percy at the prospect of a new school. And he supposed they had a right to.

The new school was filled with older, taller kids who got into fights and made out in the hallway.

Percy found it nice, in a f***** up sort of way.

Here he was, last years target for horrible fifth graders, and yet able to blend in with the rest of the population after you added a few other misfits and what ever else the kids at school called themselves. 

He had managed to get only one rude look today, which was a new record.

The only struggle he had was when lunch came around.

As suspected, he had no one to sit with and he was perfectly content sitting alone in  a corner seat, yet there was no empty seats to be found.

The lunch room was crowded, many students simply sat on the steps or in the hallways near the cafeteria. 

A group of what looked like seventh graders huddled together on the floor.

Yet in all of this overcrowded fiasco, not one person sat alone, at least from what Percy could see.

To him, it seemed that everyone had at least a few people to talk to, and some were so popular they had to keep moving seats as people kept calling their name.

Percy decided there was absolutely no way he could walk into that cess pool of preteen drama. So, he went to the one play he knew he could seek solitude without looking like a complete loser.

The library.

The quiet place had worked so well to calm his ever rising anxiety, that he started going everyday.

There was no food or drinks aloud, so he started skipping lunch.

It became like clockwork. Percy would sit through 4 classes, escape to the library, and sit through 4 more.

It was Grover that had messed up Percy's clock.

Grover was the new kid at school. He had shown up towards the end of October. At first, he hadn't seemed like much, just a normal kid with a broken leg. 

Yet when people found out about Grover's muscle condition, they had one of two responses: they felt bad for him or they targeted him.

Both sucked for Grover.

Apparently, he had found the cafeteria inhabitable as much as Percy had, yet unlike Percy, he hadn't retreated to solitude.

No, Grover just had to find out some way to make friends at this school.

And Grover just had to sit at Percy's table in the cafeteria. and he just had to make funny, witty jokes and sneak in food for himself and his new friend.

Although a part of Percy hated Grover for it. Hated him becoming his friend, hated him for making Percy care again, hated him for making Percy laugh so hard he and Grover had been kicked out of the library for a week, he was great-full for the strange boy.

And eventually, he was great-full for the strange girl Grover had brought with him.

Together, Rachel and Grover became both Percy's friend and his sheild.

They kept him from forgetting what talking was like.

They kept him from getting bullied, thanks to Rachel's blue hairbrush.

They kept him from resigning himself to be alone. 

Yet with friends, came obligations to make excuses.

He had to lie about why he couldn't hang out.

He had to lie about bruises and long sleeves into late spring.

He had to lie about broken bones, and week long absences in the hospital.

And when the addiction started, he had to lie about that too.