°~Darryl~°

After a bit of wandering around the mere never-ending halls, I find room 414, my advisory.

I take a deep breath.

I'm already 2 periods in, as they went boringly well.

This will be no different.

My hand clutches the handle, and with one last exhale of stress, I push the door in.

It's not nearly as bad as I thought, the room being mostly tame, besides two kids arguing near the back of the room.

I quickly took a seat in the front of the class, my old instincts kicking in, telling me to avoid the two at all cost.

There's not many people in here. The class room is around a fourth filled, with most people spread out away from each other. I'm guessing most of them don't know anyone from last year.

Like me.

Last year I didn't really have many friends. Well, not real ones, I mean.

It was obvious, the fact they were only there, talking to me during lunch, because their algebra homework was too hard for them.

I'm not sure why I did it.
Maybe I thought if I kept doing it, they'd actually want to spend time with me.

Like maybe, just maybe, as they handed piles of homework over to me, they'd say "Hey, Darryl, wanna hang out after school?"

I was too gullible back then.

But this year, it's gonna be different.

I'm only gonna do people's homework if I know for sure that they're my friend.

I watch a few more people enter the room before hearing the bell ring, signifying that advisory has begun.

I now notice that the two in the back had stopped fighting. The one who had been more aggressive was sitting nonchalantly on the back right, while the other was to the far left, closer to the middle of the room.

I look back at the front of the room, and watch the teacher promptly leave the chair and walk to the whiteboard.

"Good morning, everyone. I'm your advisor, Mr-"

The door flung open, and a boy walked in nervously.

"I'm so, so sorry I couldn't find the room and earlier on accident I went to 314 which is in the other side of the school and I have that later but thought that was my advisory and-"

The advisor chuckled.
"It's fine, it's only orientation week after all. Student's tardies are excused for the first week."

The boy looked at my advisor then to the rest of the class.

"...Wait...really..?""

"Yep."

His face went bright red.
He turned toward the class and walked down the aisle, keeping his head down.

But then, perhaps by pure accident, he turned his head towards me.

Everything seemed to slow down.
His dark brown eyes searched my emerald ones, and swear I saw a something spark in his eyes.

The moment ended, and his eyes averted from mine back to the aisle, where he continued walking towards the back.

What was that?

\~Zak~/

I sit down, hoping I didn't just flush away all my chances of making friends this year.

I still feel the heat on my face from walking in, and I try my best to hide it behind my hands, hoping no one will see.

My eyes drift back over to the boy I made contact with barely a minute ago.

He had light brown hair that just barely brushed the top rim of his glasses, and and a green you'd find when you've stuck the jackpot deep in a mine.

Perhaps I could befriend him.

Who am I kidding? Like anyone would want to be my friend...

Memories of previous years began to dance in the back of my mind, rusty and bloody memories, ones that left my hands downing in the blood of others.

Memories I had tried too hard to bury.

I try to distract myself by pulling up my backpack and searching through it, seeing if I had indeed brought everything.

That won't happen again.

My hands ruffled through my bag further.

I've changed.

Thankfully, I had what I needed, minus a few books. Hopefully the teachers won't dive directly into the books on the first day of school.

I zipped my bag and sat, staring at my hands, flashes of blood covering them, my memories flooding back to me, much to my mental protest.

A loud, ringing noise echoed through the room, pulling me out of my ocean of thought.

Was that the bell?

A few simple minutes had really been thirty.

I sighed, leaning over and tossing my bag over my shoulder, merging into the traffic of people moving at turtle pace.

Hopefully this is a promising start to something new.

Words: 856