The Substitute

Chapter 2 - Past Problems

A/N This guy right here is Cedric. You're probably thinking: 'Cedric? Who's Cedric?' Yeah, who could this mysterious guy be? We'll discover that soon!

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Today is Tuesday. I'm on my way to Mrs. Hudson. I feel uncomfortable talking to teachers about how everything is going, but that doesn't apply to Mrs. Hudson. She is such a nice woman. It's just impossible to dislike her.

I arrived in the classroom and knocked on the door before opening it. Mrs. Hudson sat behind her desk, seemingly checking tests.

When she saw me coming in, she stopped working and said: "Ah, Asher. It's nice to see you again. How are you?"

"Well, school is boring, as usual, but homework is going alright," I replied.

"Just wait until you get older." She chuckled. "It's good to hear that homework is going well. How is your first year at this school going so far? Are you able to get along with your classmates?"

"Everybody is much nicer here. It's still hard to socialize, though." I said.

I've always been a little introverted, but my third year of high school was harder on me than any other school year.

I attended a different school for my third year because my family and I had moved. We were new to the town and knew no one there.

At school, I was an outsider. I had a hard time connecting with people, and all my classmates seemed to have their friend group. They all knew each other and appeared to have fun.

I wanted to join them and always tried talking to people, but nobody showed any interest. Every time I tried starting a conversation, people ignored me. It was as if they couldn't hear me talking. And when they did hear me, the conversation ended in seconds. They went talking with their friends and ignored me all over again.

It was hard for me to socialize with people my age. I just wasn't good at it. I could never follow conversations, either, because I had no idea what they were discussing. My interests were nothing like theirs. They talked about games, people they like, sports, and sometimes weird topics. I didn't game, there was nobody I was interested in, and I had no interest in sports.

I liked reading and played guitar, but people rather discuss how good-looking the kid of two handsome boys would be. Why would you even talk about that anyway??

But there was more. As you know, every school has its jocks. There's nothing wrong with them, but just because they're okay in general doesn't mean they're alright at my old school. I never did anything to them, yet they still had something against me. And when the jocks had something against someone, the whole school had something against that person. Even when there were people that liked you, they had to pretend to dislike you. Or they should at least ignore you.

During lunch breaks, I always went to sit with more likable people because I didn't want to sit alone. Fortunately, they let me sit near them, but I would end up feeling left out and feeling like I still was alone. Mostly, they didn't talk to me, but sometimes I got lucky. Some people would talk to me and told me that they did not understand why the jocks disliked me. They didn't care about what the jocks said. They even said they enjoyed talking to me!

Those people really helped me get through the crap those bullies gave me.

That changed.

After 2 months of my third year, the bullies started to grow even more hate towards me. They started spreading false rumors about me to make sure that people would avoid me. They made up that I was gay and told that to as many people as they could. And, as you know, when rumors spread, people have an urge to twist them along the way.