Lab Partner

1: First Day

Russell

Walking into the building, I knew right away I was uncomfortable. There was a sea of kids, about 2,000 if I was correct, ranging from ages 14-18 or 19 all in the same building. I was friends with none of them except for one. My step sister Gracie. We grew up together since we were 3 and 4, me being the older one. 

Gracie's father married my mother when we were those ages and the rest was history. We never thought of each other as step siblings. We were always just brother and sister. 

"Ready for the first day of school, big bro?" Her voice asked next to me. Gracie was a sophomore this year and she was 16. She would've been a junior this year with me but due to her birthday being so late, she was a year behind of me. So she was a sophomore. 

Gracie was a beautiful girl. She had long blonde hair, light brown eyebrows, green eyes, tan skin. She was way more outgoing than I was and it was very easy for her to make friends. With me on the other hand, it was hard for me to. I looked like a stereotypical nerd. I had messy, brown hair, thick, black rimmed glasses, and always wore jeans and hoodies. No matter what the weather was. So no one really wanted to be my friend. But I liked studying, so I spent my time doing so. 

I shrugged, moving my green hoodie up and down. "I guess so. You seem like you are." I mentioned to her, when we starting walking on the pee colored tiles that was the floor. There were smaller, black tiles in between the pee colored ones, but that didn't make the floor look any better. I assume they were probably a creme color but with being walked on, dirt being tracked on them, and the building being a few years old. But even with it being established in 2003, and students coming in 2005, the floor shouldn't have looked as bad as it did. 

Gracie flashed her 1 million dollar smile at me. "Of course! I love school because I get to see my friends!" She laughed and shoved me with her shoulder, causing my step to falter and me almost falling. She laughed more when she noticed. "Too tall, I guess?" She joked as we walked into the hallway with all of the lockers. "My locker is A-210. What about you?" She asked me. "A-212." I told her. "That's cool. Our lockers are close together."

I nodded as the first bell of the day started. It buzzed through the halls, loud enough to hear from a mile away, it seemed like. Students started to rush and push past me to get to their lockers and classrooms. We still had a couple minutes to class. I thought to myself, starting to look for my locker. 

I finally found it but I almost missed it. The numbers were starting to rub off from many uses of it and I could barely make it out. But it was still present enough on the locker to know it was mine. And also it was 2 lockers down from Gracie's locker. 

I put my locker code into the lock. 21-17-2 was my combination. We got it about two weeks before school started and what our locker number was so I memorized it for the last two weeks. 

The locker opened with a creek and a groan before swinging open to reveal a small space with two metal hooks on either side of the locker and two shelves at the very top of the locker. I took my backpack off of me and hung it on one of the hooks and opened it to take out my first 2 books, notebooks, and folders along with my purple and blue pencil case. 

The second bell rung, indicating we should probably get to our classes. "Okay. I'll see you later, Russ. Love you." Gracie told me before giving me a squeeze and running down the hall to catch up with a group of what I assumed were sophomore girls. 

Luckily my first class, Biology, was in the same hallway as the lockers. But in the opposite direction my sister walked in. 

I rushed to the door and stepped in to see a classroom full of people and only one seat left next to some buff guy. He seemed nice enough but kind of looked like a jock. I never seen him before but I don't know a lot of faces due to being so many students.