Tori P.O.V.
I'm finally starting high school, how exciting! I'm liking Canada. I look at my watch, it was 8:05. Good, I'm late for my first day at Degrassi Community School. This is bad. I run inside the building and I take my schedule out. My homeroom is in 112. I walk down the hall and see it. I go inside the room, closing the door behind me. I see a slender Asian woman at the front of the classroom.
"Hi, you must be our new student, my name is Mrs. Kwan, I teach English here at Degrassi," she says. I smile halfway.
"I'm Victoria Anthony," I say.
"There's an empty desk next to the young lady with the blue hat on," she says. I sit down next to her. She smiles at me. I look at what she's wearing. Low-riders with blue thongs showing. Anything for the boys, huh? I look at the front of the classroom and the Morning Announcements are on. I wasn't really paying attention to them anyhow. The bell rings and I walk out into the hallway. My next class is in 214. I see a man walking towards my way.
"Hi, I'm Mr. Raditch, the principal of Degrassi and I would like to say, welcome," he says. He hands me my locker info.
"I'm Victoria Anthony, call me Tori if you'd like," I say.
"Well, have a nice day, Tori."
"You too, Mr. Raditch," I turn around and the first thing I see is a tall guy socializing with his friends, a shorter guy with brown hair and two girls. They must be really well-known around here considering that almost every person that passed by said "Hello" to them. I go to locker 475, which is right in front of where they were standing at. I walk their way.
"Um, excuse me, my locker's right here," I say. They all moved a step away from me and I open my locker. I put my jacket in there and I close it and halfway do my combination again.
"You must me new here, hun," one of the girls say.
"Yeah, I am," I say.
"I'm Paige," she says.
"I'm Spinner," the boy with brown hair says.
"I'm Hazel," the other girl says.
"I'm, uh, Jimmy," the tall guy says.
"I'm Tori," I say.
"Nice to meet you, Tori," Paige says. "See ya around, hun." I watch them as they walk away. Jimmy turns around to look at me for a second and turns right around. Everyone moved away so the girl with the blue thongs could strut her way down the hall. She stops next to me and opens her locker. I don't do well with hundreds of drooling guys over my shoulder just to look at her. I walk away to my next class.
Jimmy P.O.V.
I down at a table with Spin, Hazel, and Paige. They were discussing a horror film we'd gone to see last Friday. We see Tori walking by with her tray.
"Tori!" Paige says. Tori looks at us. "Come sit here!" Paige scoots over and Tori sits down next to her.
"Hey," Tori says. There is silence.
"So where are you from?" I ask, breaking the silence.
"I'm from Michigan," she says. I nod my head.
"We were discussing this movie we saw last week, have you ever seem 'The Girl Next Door'?" I ask. Tori nods her head.
"Yeah, it was pretty good," she says. Her eyes are starting to sparkle. I just noticed they are Pacific Blue, just about the most amazing color. She looks down.
"So what was Michigan like?" Paige asks.
"Um, well the part where I'm from, it's all about the automobile. But yeah, it's pretty much how Canada is, cold during the winter. Hot during the summer," she says.
I walk out of school and I see Ashley waving at me. I look the other way. I hear my name being called. I look at Ashley again and then I look the other way again, where Jay was getting a hickey from Alex. I keep walking and I see Paige and Tori making friends, but Hazel's kind of out of the picture there.
"Ask her out," I hear Spinner say. "Ask Tori out. Come on, I saw you two at lunch. I hear wedding bells ringing!"
"Spin, I just met her," I say. "Give it time?"
"Oh, hurry up, looks like some other dude is trying to get up on her," Spinner says. I look and he's right, some senior's trying to hit on her, already. She looks at me and returns to her convo. I walk over there.
"Come on, it's just a ride home," he says.
"Look, thanks for the offer but I'm pretty fine right here," she says.
"Come on, it's just a short ride home," he says with a smile on his face… The smile that girls can't resist and only the ones that can't see through fall for.
"No," she says.
"Hey, guys what's up?" I ask.
"Brooks, we're having a conversation," he says. "Do you mind?"
"You know what? I'll just walk home with Jimmy instead," she says. She says bye to Paige and Hazel.
"Come on, walking?!" he asks as we leave. Once we get far enough from him, she starts to speak.
"Um, okay, looks like there's a ton of horndogs here," she says.
"Yeah, pretty much, just gotta keep your eye out for Spinner too because he can be a little freaky here and there," I say. Tori laughs a little bit.
"I see that you play basketball," she says.
"Yep, I sure do, I gotta passion for it," I say.
"So who was that dude?"
"Dunno, just a senior. Wait what grade are you in again?"
"9th grade… Grade 9, as you say it."
"Oh, well only a year difference, but that's no big deal."
"Yeah."
Tori P.O.V.
My first day, went well so far. Well, all my new friends consist of 4 10th graders… I mean Grade 10's. But Paige and Jimmy were especially welcoming today. Paige is really talkative and bubbly. Jimmy is laid back and pretty easy to look at… ha. Now, I return to my much comforting house with my aunt. She's sitting in the living room watching T.V.
"Hey, Tori, how was your first day?" she asks.
"It's going well, I met some pretty cool people," I say.
"Ooh, who?" she asks.
"They're names are Jimmy, Paige, Spinner, and Hazel. Um, they're all in 10th grade."
"Hangin' out with the cool kids. Nice."
"Yeah, homework awaits," I walk up into my room and take out all my books. I get a call from a restricted number. I curiously answer it. "Hello?"
"Tori! You get your dum—." I instantly hang up. It was my father. I need to get my number changed. I walk downstairs to my aunt. "Hey, Aunt Sadie? Can you change my number?"
"Why, honey?"
"My dad just called me," I say.
"Oh, honey, I'll get it changed for you tomorrow. Okay?" I nod and go back upstairs. I return to my homework.
That night, while I'm sleeping, images of my dad pop up in my head. I see him with his bottle of alcohol in his hand. I tell him about my grades… I tell him I get one B. I see him slapping me across my face. I hit the floor. I see him kicking me, but I don't feel anything. The last words "You're a worthless bitch" actually hurt me. I sit up in my bed and I feel my heart getting heavy, emotionally. I can feel a kick in my stomach too. I sit there with my head hanging low. My mind runs wild with memories of my dad beating me and throwing me against walls. At this point, I'd go to my mom's resting place, but since I moved away, I can't. When he was sober, he told me that drinking was the only way to deal with my mom's death. I used to look at him and forgive him. We used to do father-daughter things and be best friends. But once he picked up that wine bottle, he starts abusing me again. It was hard to be mad at him, I thought "well he's only drunk, right? This is how he acts". When he started getting abusive while he was sober and drunk, that crossed the line for me and I moved out.