Chances Are

Chapter 6 Beginning Anew

It was Milton Casper Carmichael's senior year and he was looking forward to his last year with the Carmichaels before going to college. Although he felt that he hadn't had the best family life growing up, he still loved his family so much and he knew he'd miss them when they're gone. He had excellent grades and continued to be the only candidate to be the school's valedictorian. He was obviously very smart, but he only had one consistent "true" friend in John Dylan Carter. Him and JD would always sit together in the cafeteria, and even if they sat on the far end of the cafeteria, as long as they were together, he would be fine. Unfortunately for him, his friend wasn't there on the first day of the new school year because he had chicken pox. Feeling alone in his table during lunch, he decided to skip it all together and stay in the library as it was his only refuge whenever his best friend wasn't around.

The school's library was actually a great haven for avid book readers as it housed rare fiction books from different genres aside from its plethora of educational material as well. Whilst perusing the fiction area of the library, Milton was unabashedly happy when he saw the Tales of Beedle the Bard as it was the only book left from the Harry Potter cannon that he wasn't able to read yet. He immediately checked out the book and excitedly went straight to the lockers when he inadvertently bumped himself to rich girl Kristina Marie Ramos-Rodriguez. It was Milton's fault because he wasn't looking where he was going but Kristina, who was not having a good day, decided to start screaming at this four-eyed loser for bumping himself at her. His eyeglasses fell to the floor and as he tried to apologize profusely, Kristina saw the eyeglasses first and broke it in half before giving it back to him. Kristina hissed: "Sorry is not going to cut it." She then pushed her to the floor as she went on her way.

Kristina was dreading her first day as a senior. In her mind, it was her last year as the school's queen bee. She didn't like the idea of facing the real world as she'd become quite accustomed to the level of popularity that she accrued at her beloved school. She was dating the most popular guy at the school, she was captain of the cheerleading squad and she had everyone that mattered in the palm of her hands because of her popularity. But tragedy struck as her jock boyfriend suddenly broke up with her out of the blue. He even broke up with her via text which humiliated her because her stupid ex-boyfriend couldn't even muster a conversation explaining why he would break up with her in the first place. To top it all off, her best friend Jean Carmichael was absent because she had the flu. It was more than her Gucci wearing heart could bear so she decided to skip the day and go home when she collided with a certain eyeglass wearing loser who was holding a Harry Potter book.

As their bodies collided and both fell to the floor, Kristina found herself screaming at this poor guy even though it was obviously an accident. As if on autopilot, she found herself grabbing his eyeglasses from the floor and breaking it in two as if it was his entire fault that she was having a horrible day. As if it was an out of body experiences, Kristina found herself shoving his broken sunglasses and pushing him to the floor as she uttered those hurtful words: "Sorry is not going to cut it!" As soon as they separated ways, she immediately regretted breaking his glasses but it was too late, he was already a long way away and she couldn't bring herself to come back and apologize for her mean behavior. Meanwhile...

As Milton tried to stand up, he began to lose his balance and fell faint on the floor. No one heed notice at him at first, but soon enough a few of the lower classmen helped him and brought him to the clinic. His vision was blurry, that one was definite, as his glasses were broken in two and he couldn't see clearly because of it. The nurse taped up his glasses and asked him questions why he fainted on the floor. Milton explained that his glasses were broken, and he was pushed to the floor by the girl he bumped himself into. As soon as he tried to stand up, he had difficulty breathing and felt like his heart was beating both incredibly fast and slow. It felt like he was trying to catch his breath until he could no longer manage to stand and that's when he fainted. The nurse showed a concerned look on her face and urged him to rest at the clinic until he was strong enough to go home. She decided that he could miss the rest of the day and told him to rest as long as possible until he felt better. So Milton stayed at the clinic the rest of the day and went home an hour after classes ended because he was still feeling weak. When he got home, his mother was already at the door with his arms crossed and her eyebrows raised.