Smoke

3: Class

Drama was my favorite subject at my old school, mostly because I got to hang out with my friends.
I walked into the classroom for the first time, my shoes dragging quietly against the carpeted floor. Everyone was sitting on short plastic chairs arranged randomly. Some were in groups, some were alone.

I sat in a chair by the wall, looking at everyone. Setting my bag down against the chair leg, I thought about this school. Nothing seemed weird so far. It was a regular school day, except I was with people I didn't recognize, away from everything I had ever known. I exhaled, blinking away my thought, and payed attention to the class.

Everyone was looking at me when the teacher announced they had a new student.
"I'm Cecil." I said quietly in response to their stares, their questions.
I probably looked sad, sitting there by myself. One kid could tell.

"Cecil?" A boy said my name quietly. I looked up, seeing his curly brown hair, his blue eyes looking right at me.
"Yeah?" I asked, my voice half out of breath, looking back. I glanced around nervously, maybe there was another Cecil in class or something, because I didn't know him and why would he be talking to me?

"You can join our group." He motioned over to him, another guy, and two girls. They all looked at him questioningly.
I was silent for a moment, breathing in the increasing discomfort from his group and from me.
"No, that's okay." I said, looking away from him, looking at the other chairs, at the ground.
"Come on." He smiled, quickly, awkwardly, moving his chair so I had room.

I looked at his group of wide-eyes confused kids and nodded, getting my stuff and picking up my chair, moving it to where he was sitting.

They were reading through a script that the teacher passed out; the teacher hadn't handed one to me. I watched them act it out for a few seconds, sitting there just as uncomfortable as I would have been if I was alone. The boy noticed and shared his script with me.

They wanted me to play the extra minor characters, and that's why he wanted me to come over here, I reasoned with myself, thinking away his niceness.

I said my lines quietly and stiffly when they came up, but they didn't mind and just continued reading through it normally.

The bell rang for lunch and I got up slowly, watching all of them walk quickly to the lunchroom. I followed them all, trudging alone through the campus, half-forgetting where the lunchroom was.

I adjusted my bag on my shoulder, thinking about how I used to talk with my friends on the way to lunch.