A Way Back Home | Adopted by Gerard Way (Book Two)

The New Kid (46)

The school I now go to is a lot smaller than my old one, and I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. For one, large crowds scare me, and so does meeting too many people at once, so this situation is easier to deal with than it could be. But on the flip side, being in a small school means everyone knows about everyone else's business, so as soon as I got to first period and the teacher made me introduce myself, the rest of the school seemed to somehow know all about me, too.

"We have a new student joining us today," the teacher, Ms. Whatever-Her-Name-Was (I was too nervous in the moment to retain trivial details like names) had said. She gestured towards me and smiled with perfectly straight, white teeth and blonde hair in the style of what I could image a 50s housewife rocking. "Stand up and introduce yourself," she said pleasantly, though the words were anything but pleasant to my ears.

My hand went up to my necklace and I held it as a form of moral support, and I stood up on command, avoiding the gazes of the twenty-something other students in the room with their eyes scanning me, judging me. "Um, hi," I said, my nervousness obviously seeping into my voice. Then, remembering that I'm not supposed to be my old self anymore, I cleared my throat and said more confidently, "My name is Evelyn W- Barry. I just moved here last week from New Jersey."

"Why'd you move to here?" some kid called out.

I shrugged. "Why not?"

A few kids chuckled, and then another one called out, "Nice hair!" When I looked up, tucking a strand of red hair behind my ear, I saw that he had a lip ring and bleached blond hair falling into his eyes. I was immediately intrigued.

"Nice piercing," I shot back.

"Same to you." He grinned proudly. "Did mine myself."

"No you didn't, Ryder," the girl next to him rolled her eyes. "Stop telling people that."

The rest of the class laughed and then the teacher had to settle us all down. I sat down down again and we started English class. I was worried I'd be completely lost, but turns out they'd just finished reading The Hobbit, so my day started on a series of high notes I can only hope won't be ruined with the second half of the day. It's what I find myself thinking about as I sit at a lunch table alone eating my cheese sandwich, no one wanting to make the first move toward the new kid.

"Hey, New Kid."

I stand corrected.

I snap my head up to see that Ryder has decided to sit across from me.

"Hey," I say.

"You look familiar," he says, getting straight to the point.

Although I've been kept out of the public eye, not joined any social media, or attended any interviews with the band, paparazzi have caught us a couple times. Only a couple, but pictures of me do exist somewhere. As well as pictures fans have taken when I've been spotted at shows in the past. I can only hope he's not referring to any of those less-than-flattering pictures where my hair is disheveled in the wind or I have eyeliner smudged on my face.

He snaps his fingers. "You look like my cousin."

Oh.

"People usually say I look like an emo freak, but cousin works too."

"You don't look emo," he says, looking me up and down. That's when I remember the outfit I chose for myself this morning wasn't my usual black jeans and band tee, no choker, and I even held off on the eye-liner. Evelyn Barry's image is a lot different to Evelyn Way's.

"Oh," I say. "Well, then people usually say I look like a normal freak."

He lets out a short laugh. "Join the club, my friend," he says, then leans in closer from across the table, propped up on his elbows. "Why'd you really move here?"