Bubble Wrap

Chapter One

As soon as I got inside the house I carried the box in my hands and half ran half jogged to my old room, ignoring my dad’s calls from downstairs to help him get the rest of the boxes inside. I had to do this acrobatic move with my leg to open the door since both of my hands were carrying the kinda heavy box and luckily for me, I did it without dropping it on the floor. A smile spread on my face as I was greeted with the exact room I left three years ago, minus the furniture of course.

As I walked inside, I carefully placed the box I was holding on the floor before sitting down in front of it. The box had my name written on it with a black marker, I recognized my dad’s handwriting. Pulling the box closer, I opened it and took out the snow globe, that was the thing I was afraid to break. My friends back in Boston gave it to me on the night we all got together one last time before I left. I shook the globe and admired the little fake snowflakes falling down inside. It was a snow globe of Boston, obviously enough, and I chuckled to myself knowing exactly which one of my friends offered the idea of giving me the snow globe.

"Alex!" That was my dad calling from downstairs, probably about to complain I’m not being helpful.

"What?" I yelled back, putting down the snow globe and looking what else was in the box I took.

"Would you come downstairs for a moment?" I groaned to myself, leaving the box and making my way back downstairs.

"What?"

"Since you’re not being a real help with the boxes, I need you to take these to the school so you could start this Monday." He said, handing me a bunch of pages with my information that he must have forgotten to mail on time. Being me I was about to start and complain, so I could get myself off of the job but stopped myself, remembering I wanted to make a visit to the school anyways.

"Yeah, sure." Taking the pages out of his hand I turned to leave the house and made my way towards the school. Our old house was actually rather close to the school, about a five minute walk if you take the secret shortcut behind the park. Walking around the neighborhood, nothing seemed to have changed much and actually stayed pretty much the same way. Even the secret shortcut stayed were it used to be and I could see the big gray building from afar already.

Entering the building I was starting to feel a little nostalgic, after all it has been three long years ever since I’ve been in my old school. Do I miss it? Not really, the teachers I had back in Boston were much better than the ones here but I did miss a certain three boys who I went to this school with. Which was the entire reason I even came and didn’t try to make my dad take the files instead of me, I couldn’t wait to surprise them and announce my official moving back into town.

I figured I should first hand the files dad gave me and walked towards were I remembered the school’s office was. Surely enough my memory didn’t betray me and after about a minute I already handed the secretary sitting at the office the files dad gave me. Theoretically, or more like actually, dad probably wanted me to come back straight after I handed the files but he probably figured I wouldn’t hurry to come back and help anyways so it won’t be that bad if I’ll stay and search for the boys instead of going straight home.

Making my way through the familiar hallways, I searched my eyes for those three faces I was looking for. While I sometimes tend to forget names, I never forget faces and there’s no way I wouldn’t be able to recognize these three. That’s when a certain boy caught my eye. He was wearing black skinny jeans to match his black T. His hair wasn’t as I remembered it though, it was unexpectedly lilac. But his face… He didn’t change much, I knew there’s no one else it could be.

"Your hair was blonde last time I saw you." I said as I got closer, trying to grasp his attention and away from his locker.

"My hair wasn’t blonde in a long time." He replied, not quite looking at me yet but I could hear the confusion in his tone, he was probably frowning to himself too.