Sawyer headed upstairs after getting to school. On his way up the five flights, he still pinched his cheeks. Almost falling off a shelf in a supermarket, accidentally stealing from his parents, and having his dad shocked he actually brought him home was a fever dream.

"Nope, still real. Life feels really funny."

Him being the first one in the class that would usually arrive got blindsided by some of the girls: a tall dark skinned girl slightly higher than Samiya in length, another one four feet shorter than her, and one half his size, a tan skinned Hispanic girl that caught his eye, Moze Zabala, Hazel Juniper, and Santina Martinez, respectively.

"Oh, Sawyer, hey. Ha, we got here before you!"

"Hey," rolling the y and wondering what to say. "Y'all live nearby?"

"Yeah, I'm just lazy sometimes," Santina answered.

"She's so bad at this," Hazel's loud pitched voices added.

Moze yawned. "You finished your homework too? How do you always keep up?"

"Maybe he just does work and nothing else," Hazel guessed.

"No of course not, I just try my best. The more you do the easier it gets, right?"

"Ahh that rhymed," Hazel spat out, forcing him to just scratch his head and act like he planned that.

"Well we don't have to only talk about school if you want," scramble to think about something to talk about.

"Ask them if they did anything fun this weekend," came into earshot. He repeated it out loud.

"Nothing much, just watched my siblings."

"Oh," always wanting a sibling, "Glad they got a cool big sister to look up to."

"Stop~" rolling the p, about to respond when Ms. Mercado called them in. "We can talk at lunch," walking in with the trio.

He blinked, blowing a sigh of relief. "Did that just happen?"

"And here I thought you were the reserved type," Samiya yawned from behind, startling him. "Maybe you just need to open your can more."

"I guess. How long were you behind me?"

"Long enough. So," intrigued, "that girl in the middle lit you up, huh. She's like the smartest?"

"Well yeah," giving her a crooked smile. "I don't care too much but she gets her work done the most next to me and like four others."

"Oh, so she's my love rival huh? Guess you're mainly into smart girls?"

His cheeks bloated twice-fold. "Wait, what, she has a boyfriend!"

"So? That didn't stop Michael. Huh, he's your love rival for my heart too," she teased.

"Oh god no, I'd rather just date you to keep him away!"

Her face lit up with a smile as he realized what came out of his mouth. "Wait- I didn't mean ahhh," trying too hard to formulate a sentence until her hand crossed his shoulder.

"Just messing with you. Even if it was a race, a guy like him could never reach first place. Anyway, you have to beat your rival too, let's go!"

He followed after her.

In class, they were learning a series of new words for the week when Ms. Mercado asked for examples of how to use persuade in a sentence after defining.

Raymond, "Ray" Aerow got called on after getting distracted talking. "Um, to let me play on my iPad."

"Use the word in a sentence."

"Is you dumb Ray," Faith Forest casually slipped, eager when their teacher called on her after raising her hand. "I persuade my teacher to let me go to the bathroom. Can I go now?"

"Second period."

She sucked her teeth while Ray laughed at her expense.

"Shut up you bald-headed bi," lowering her tone of voice so Ms. M wouldn't hear it.

"Quiet, twig leaf!"

Samiya yawned. "Geez, they're really going at it," watching the two of them fight and argue.

Sawyer went to the next slide, trying to not pay them any mind. "They're always like this. He calls her skinny, she makes fun of his lack of hair, and they fight all the time. It's kinda annoying to be honest," listening to them curse at one another for a full minute.

"Geez they'll become witches at this rate. Hey, what's the difference between a witch and a wizard anyway?"

"I....huh, I'm not sure," watching Ms. M call them out. The moment she turned around, she flew to his seat to wail on him, he tried to kick her back, and she barely avoided falling on her way back to her seat. Both struck the middle finger at one another.

"Still, it's kinda cute. They hate each other, but always keep coming closer."

He groaned. "As if. If you hate someone, why do you enjoy being around them? I wouldn't want to say any of that stuff that comes out of their mouth to you," he casually spit out without noticing her reaction.

"Me? How come?"

"I don't enjoy hurting the people that I care about."

Her heart skipped a beat, lowering her head thinking about the last time the family were together.

"Me neither," smiling as he used her iPad to find the way to write her answer.

I was persuaded by a new friend to actually stay in a normal school for once.

During tech, Ms. Belowski pitted the classmates in two groups to find the most amount of viruses and fix them, making it an even split of thirteen kids, Sawyer being the only guy willing to join them to even up the odds. Samiya's brain broke trying to figure out what to do until seeing Santina's eyes try to keep up.

"I just saw the infected file pop up a second ago."

She had no idea what she was talking about as Sawyer took her side in trying to find it. Feeling out of place, Samiya was elected to lead until she noticed a red dot on the screen, leaning into the group.

"The virus attached came from an outside source," watching the green code continue through the screen until noticing a line glowing red. She counted in seconds, stopping at seven.

"Look, every seven seconds, the virus keeps spreading on the same code. We'll lose if it spreads, right?"

Sawyer and Santina took action, counting with her until they saw it too.

"Sawyer, type the code out, I'll upload the antivirus."

As he finished, he handed the keyboard to Santina, who typed in the anti-virus. Asking Samiya for help again, the athletic one helped them track down each one until they quarantined every virus on the website, while the guys had five viruses left.

"You're pretty good Samiya," Santina cheered.

'I didn't do much. Just got a bit reckless," humbly smiling.

Sawyer preferred the term risk taking. As much as he preferred to keep a quiet time not stepping on toes, Samiya was opening up to experiences he never thought was possible.