Chapter 1: Taylor

Denis's POV

This was the first day of my second year at this school. I doubted it would be any different than the last year. I probably wouldn't make any friends, I would probably be bullied. So I might as well make a statement.

Last year, I played it safe—I was quiet, I was shy, I didn't wear what I wanted to. However, towards the end of the year, I started experimenting with my wardrobe choices. I would wear fishnets, minnie shorts, and crop tops. Nothing too extreme, though.

Today, I plan on wearing pale, ripped jeans with fishnets underneath, a crop top, my leather jacket, wedges, and makeup. That's much more than I usually did, but I figured, it couldn't possibly get me in more trouble than I am already in.

Walking into school, I definitely got some looks. I heard a few people asking each other if I was new here. I guess they hadn't noticed me last year.

"Wow!" I heard someone call. I rolled my eyes and kept walking, seeing one of the most popular people at school ahead of me—Ben Bruce. He was bad news. He was into sex, drugs, and drinking. If he managed to graduate, I would be shocked. I, in general, disliked all of the popular kids, him included. They tended to treat any one who didn't worship them, even some of the ones that did, like shit.

I quickly headed to my locker and put my stuff away, praying that today wouldn't be too bad. I was generally good in school, I hated it, but I tried my absolute best. Last year was tough for me, I new very little English, so I had the worst grades I had ever received that year, though I managed to pull them up by the end, even if it was just a small bit.

Glancing down at my schedule, I realized that I had physics first period. That wasn't as bad as it could have been. Second period, I had PE, and third period… I had math. Math was a great subject, in my opinion, but a horrible class. I had never had a good teacher. Every one of them seemed to hate kids, and hate math even more, which made the class more boring than just about any other. I quickly glanced through my schedule, memorizing it to the best of my ability. After that, I grabbed a notebook for biology, my writing notebook (just in case I had some inspiration), some pencils, and my phone, heading to class a little early.

"Hello class, I know you're all excited to be back," the woman began, earning a mixture of laughs and groans, "I am Ms. Theros, I will be your biology teacher for the year. In this classroom, I will do my absolute best to treat everyone equally. In this classroom, I will not tolerate bullying, hate, or discrimination of any kind. Denis Shaforostov, I know English isn't your first language, if you need me to offer you any extra help, I am happy to do so."

"I think I'm good, but thank you." I said, I didn't like being singled out like that.

Ms. Theros continued talking about classroom policy and expectations for nearly 20 minutes, before she went into what we would be doing throughout the school year. "Project" was one of the few words I heard and remembered—I hated projects, especially group projects. I always ended up doing all of the work, and the other people I was working with would get a good grade for doing absolutely nothing.

"Alright everyone, stand up, I have a seating chart for you." The class moaned in unison, it was mildly amusing. What was not amusing was that I ended up sitting next to none other than Ben Bruce.

"Hey." He said, glancing me up and down.

"Hello…." I said back, slowly, my thick accent very apparent.

The rest of the class was spent by the teacher explaining that in two weeks time, we would be given our first project. We would be working with whoever we had been seated next to; I screamed internally.

In PE and math, I had a new girl in my class. Her name was Taylor, and she appeared to be goth. In math, we ended up sitting together.

"Hey, I'm Taylor," She said, holding out her hand to me. No one at this school had ever done that.

"Oh, hi Taylor, I'm Denis." I replied.

"First, I love your style, the winged eyeliner is beautiful, and second, where are you from Denis?"

"Thank you, I think most people here think my makeup is weird, and I'm from Ukraine. Also, if you want any friends at this school, I'm not your best bet. Most people here don't like me." I said, looking down and blushing slightly from the comment.

"Eh, most people have already, it seems, shot me nasty glances. Looking like me, it's usually the underdogs that don't give you shit for how you look. Besides, I don't particularly need to have a lot of friends. So… can I sit with you at lunch?"

"Yeah, sure, why not. I think I'd like that." I said, maybe, just maybe, this year would be better than the others.

Well... that was a sorry excuse for a chapter. Maybe it'll get better. Maybe it won't. If anyone reads this and has ideas for where it should go, feel free to leave them in the comments.