A Love I've Never Had Before

Chapter 1: The Beginning

*5 years ago*

It was that time of year where students begin a new first day of school, realizing that they had to wake up earlier to be on time. A moment where there are new people present which help you make new friends and forget about the old ones. Where relationships bloom and many die down. Where many find what their passion is while others experiment their sexuality and see how they would feel about it.

My middle school years didn't really revolve around any of that. I was just a casually weird middle schooler whose only importance in life was my education. My first two weeks were amazing as I started to make new friends and developed a small crush on someone. I got all my materials and at the end of the second week, I was called into the office. Why the office? I hadn't done anything to be called into the office, so I couldn't comprehend as to why I was being called there this early into the year. I walked slowly to the main building of the school as fear ran through my veins and sweat ran down my face like it was Niagara Falls. I walked in and tried looking for the office not knowing where it was located.

A nice staff member saw that I was lost and asked me if I needed help heading somewhere. Fear is all I felt. I told them that I was called into the counselors office. They let on a small grin and asked me to follow them into a medium, but large sized room. He then pointed into a smaller room telling me that I had to go inside there. That was where I encountered Mrs. Francisco. She was smiling at me and asked me to take a seat. I sat down slowly and began to fidget with my fingers due to the nervousness I had flowing through my body. She asked about my well-being which I answered "Good" in a soft, mellow voice because I was terrified by the unexpected.

She began telling me that she was going to switch my classes because she recently found out that I was in the GATE program. The Gifted and Talented Education Program. Why switch my classes now, if I already started on work I had for my previous classes? Couldn't they have done it any sooner? They were switching me out of the classes that I had with my crush Leonardo Matthews and didn't want them to change. She asked me if that was fine, but because of the fear I was experiencing I nodded my head in agreement. I would start my new classes on Monday, since it was already the end of the week when I was advised about my schedule change.

I spent the weekend doing homework I didn't have to turn in anymore because I was nervous about my new classes. Laying in bed, worrying about making new friends while thinking about my ability to do my work with students that I had to get to know. One of my problems was already resolved as I had the materials covered for my classes. I would just use the notebook I had assigned for a certain subject in the periods I had the class for. This way I wouldn't make my parents waste money on more school supplies.

My parents would get mad if I wasted money like that. Plus, it was common sense to use the same ones for those specified classes. Monday morning came as I only slept for four hours because I stayed up thinking about my new classes and how I wouldn't be capable of speaking to my new friends on a daily basis. As I walked to school, I looked at my program and saw that I had P.E period one. I walked over to the girl's locker room to change into my P.E. clothes and walked over to find the teacher I was assigned to. I looked around the field, then walked over to the teacher with my new schedule change.

He told me to go sit down on the number 64 which was the last number of students he had in the class. I walked to my number slowly while still fidgeting with my fingers because it was my first time meeting my new classmates. I wasn't sure about how to act, but soon I arrived at my number and sat down. My new P.E teacher, Mr. Barrios, started to take attendance while someone hurried to sit in their spot. That spot was in front of me and that was when I saw Eliot Zapata. That was when I was struck harder than ever. Struck. By. Love.