Hi guys and welcome to chapter 2 of Water Under the Bridge. Let's crack on shall we!
The car park was now completely rammed, and to be honest, it was fitting the stereotype perfectly. Posh, fancy cars had now filled the once empty spaces, and to be honest, it made my car stick out like a sore thumb, but I wasn't ashamed of it. I loved my car. God, it got me from Minnesota to LA, so we'd been through a lot. I grabbed one of the trolleys that was on offer, and made my way to the boot, popping it open, and started to transfer my stuff onto the trolley. I didn't have too much, only one suitcase of clothes, my laptop, and a few smaller bags filled with other stuff like shoes, or photo frames etc. You know, little personal knick-knacks. I was pretty much in the zone when I heard a girl essentially shriek behind me. I turned to see a group of four, who guys and two girls.
One girl had fairly pale skin, long blonde hair, and brown eyes. The other girl was naturally tan, with black hair that has red streaks running it. She had brown eyes, and was about the same height as the girl before. What I would probably say was 5'5. To be honest, they were pretty, but I personally wouldn't say that they were anything special. The boy stood next to the blonde girl, was taller than her, if I had to guess, probably about 5'11, with dirty blond hair and green eyes. I wouldn't say he was buff, but from his t-shirt, you could see that he was toned, with pecs and a six-pack. Hot would be the way to describe him, but probably not my type. The other guy however, looked like a god. About 6'2, with beautiful brown hair, with bangs that flowed over his forehead, landing above his left eye. His eyes were a beautiful hazel colour that I could get lost in for hours, and he was definitely buff. His shirt clung to his body perfectly, leaving very little to the imagination. He was a lot more muscular than the other boy, again with pecs and a beautifully defined six-pack. Just looking at him put me into a trance, but it wasn't until the blonde girl spoke up that I was snapped out of it.
"What the hell is wrong with your car" she said, with a very condensing and snobby attitude.
"What do you mean? Nothing's wrong with my car." I replied, trying to say as civil as possible.
"But it's so old. Are you sure you're in the right place? This is a school, not a charity centre" she said, causing the other girl to snicker next to her.
"I'm sorry, but who are you exactly?" I responded, in a rather sarcastic tone, causing her to gasp.
"How dare you! I'm Jo Taylor" she replied, like her name was enough for me to recognise exactly who she was.
"So? Why should I care?" I responded, causing her to gasp again.
"You should care, cause my daddy runs the biggest car company in America. I bet the only reason you're here is because your dad sold his body for money" She replied, causing the other girl to laugh once again. The guys just stood there, every now and again a smirk growing on their faces, when Jo said something. I turned to the other girl, and she was now my focus.
"And you are?" I asked her, and she scoffed as well.
"I'm Lucy Stone" was her only response.
"Oh, so you're Jo's little toady right. I bet you do everything she wants right?" I chuckled to myself, as the two girls in front of me got very offended, very quickly. Now, it was the guys turn to speak up.
"Dude, that's my girlfriend you're talking about. You better watch yourself, or you'll regret It." the god-like being spoke up. I couldn't falter now, I had to keep up this confidence.
"God, I must have missed your names as well. Who are you?" I replied, and I could see the anger on their faces.
"I'm James Diamond, and he's Kendall Knight" he spoke up again, and I chuckled, turning to Kendall.
"So, you're his toady. Ok, so let me get this right. The leader is dating the toady. Got it" I replied, chuckling at myself again.
"No one here is a toady, you jackass" Kendall finally spoke up, and I chuckled. "You better watch yourself…" he said, but I still hadn't told them my name, so his sentence fell short.
"Ok, so let me get this straight. We've got Jo Taylor and Lucy Stone. Who, I'm guessing, are using daddy's money to buy their way through life. Then we've got Kendall Knight, daughter of Jennifer Knight, owner of the world's largest Tech Company, and we finally have James Diamond, son of Brooke Diamond, owner of Diamond Cosmetics. Oh god, I'm so privilege to meet you all. Please, let me kiss your boot, as a sign of my gratitude." I replied, in a sarcastic tone, clearly angering Kendall, Lucy and Jo. James however was just staring at me, no emotion showing on his face.
"You know who my mum is?" was James' only response, and I nodded.
"Dude, everyone from Minnesota, sorry the USA knows who your mum is. She owns the biggest building in Minneapolis for god sakes" I replied, seeing his facial expression to someone resembling a small smile.
"You're from Minnesota as well?" he asked, and this was becoming a very strange situation. What was once a berating match, had now become a normal conversation. I nodded, but before I could speak up, Lucy turned to James, and cut me off.
"James, why are you talking to his jackass? Come on, let's just get out of here" she said, basically dragging him away from the conversation. I saw his small smile drop as soon as she began to drag him, and I looked up to see Kendall giving me a death glare, before walking away with Jo. I quickly turned back to my car, placing the rest of my stuff on the trolley, but I couldn't help but feel like someone was staring at me. When I looked over my shoulder, I saw James staring at me, but as soon as we made eye contact, he looked away, and continued to walk with Lucy. 'Great, I've already made some enemies' I thought to myself, as I closed the boot, and began to roll the trolley to the dorm room.
It wasn't difficult to find my room. I headed towards block 2, seeing a load of other people doing the same as me, and after a short walk down the corridor, I eventually found room J. I tried the door first, only to find it was locked, meaning my roommate probably wasn't in. Resting on the trolley, I fumbled about, trying to grab the key from my pocket, and eventually unlocked my room. It was quite a nice room, with two single beds on either side. Each bed has small bedside cabinet next to it, and there were two chests of drawers, one for each person. The room then has a wardrobe on the left hand side of the room, which we would have to share, and on the right side was the shared en-suite, outfitted with a toilet, sink and shower. The bed doesn't come outfitted with anything, so luckily, I packed my own bedding and brought it with me.
The right hand side of the room was already occupied, with some personal items being unpacked, and a laptop was already present on the desk. From what I could see, it was a top of the range laptop, giving me some indication of who I would be sharing the room with. 'No, bad Logan. You're parents always taught you to never judge a book by its cover' I thought to myself, as I worked on the bottom sheet of the bed. Next was the pillows, which was a simple job, sliding the pillows into their respective cases, and placing them down.
"Now the challenging part" I said out loud, being faced with the bedsheet and the duvet. I always struggled with this, and usually had to get someone to help me, but not this time. I probably spent about 5 minutes, trying to sort this out, and I didn't notice my roommate had entered the room, until he cleared his throat. "Oh god, I'm so sorry. I didn't hear you come in" I said, only to turn around to face my biggest nightmare and greatest dream. The one and only James Diamond was stood at my door, well I guess our door. I saw his facial expression change as soon as he saw he turn around, but it was both a mixture of anger, and joy, which I found bizarre. "Oh, you've got to me kidding me, right? You're my roommate" I said, with a stern look on my face.
"Look…you. I've lived here for five years, so technically you're my roommate" he responded, and I laughed quite loudly. "What?" he asked, getting all defensive, and slightly nervous I think.
"You don't even know my name, do you? Do you even have a clue who I am?" I replied, seeing the nerves in his face grow more and more.
"Yeah, you're that obnoxious kid from the carpark. Just cause you told us your name, doesn't mean we will remember it" he replied, and I laughed once again, seeing the nerves grow more and more.
"Damn, you're so adamant that I told you my name, even though I didn't. What, did you day-dream about me or something" I replied, seeing his face go extremely red, probably from embarrassment. "Look, from your little show in the carpark, it's evident that you don't like me, for whatever reason. But, unfortunately fate has put us in the same room, so we're gonna have to live with it. Now, we can either be civil with one another…" I began, but before I could finish, he grabbed something off his desk, turned away, walking out of the door, and slammed it shut. "Or you can do that" I said to an empty room. To be honest, I was rather unfazed by what had happened, but by the looks if it, James wasn't too happy. 'Another fight, for another time' I thought to myself.
By 11:30, I was completely unpacked, and I texted Camille asking if she wanted to meet up. I got a fairly quick response saying she would love to, and that we should meet in the 'quad' of the school, as she called it. I grabbed the map from the welcome bag, as well as my timetable from the desk, and made my way out of the room, ensuring it was locked. The walk to the quad was finally giving off school vibes, with was kind of relaxing. People were stood by their lockers, chatting and gossiping about the new cute boys that had joined the school this year, and when I got outside, people were laid on the grass, chatting and catching up over the summer. As you would have expected, some of the jocks were kicking a football about, while others were all crowded around the table with their girlfriends on their lap. I couldn't help but feel watched, and I turned to see Lucy sat on James' lap, and Jo sat on Kendall's, all four of them staring at me. I saw Jo say something, but I was out of range to hear it. However, what I did hear was the laughter that followed from the statement. It was unusual however, because while Kendall, Jo and Lucy properly laughed, I couldn't help but notice that James was less malicious. It was more of a nervous laugh to fit in, rather than laughing at her statement.
'No, what am I thinking. All four of them are in this together. Just cause he's hot doesn't mean he's nice!' I snapped myself out of my own thoughts. I eventually found Camille, sat with another girl, who I'm guessing is her roommate. "Logan!" she shouted, as I slowly approached the table, and sat next to her. "Logan, this is Jenny, my roommate. Jenny, this is my friend Logan. We met this morning during orientation" Camille said, introducing us to each other. The usual small talk picked up from there. With only half an hour until our first class, we all compared timetables, seeing what everyone had. Camille had Performing Arts, which she was excited about, while Jenny had music. I, of course, had one of the most exciting subjects of all! Maths. I'm not gonna lie, I quite enjoyed maths, so I wasn't too fussed about it. Well, that was until I got to the lesson itself.
Finding the classroom wasn't too difficult, and when I arrived, it seemed like most of the class was already there, so I awkwardly had to walk in. As soon as I stepped one foot into the door, the second bell went, signalling that the lesson had begun, so the teacher stood up from the desk, ready to teach. As soon as he did, he looked me directly in the eyes, and smiled making my nerves calm down slightly.
"Ah, you must be Logan, correct." He said, and I nodded. "Well, let be me one of the first to welcome you to Palm Woods Academy." He said, extending his arm for a handshake. I took it quickly, giving a proper handshake, before he introduced me to the whole class, one of my more embarrassing moments that I knew would repeat in each of my classes. "Class, attention please." He said, causing all the whole room to go silent. I quickly scanned the room, seeing one lad sat at the front desk by himself, and directly at the back was James and Kendall. God, of course they would be in my class. Just perfect. "Class, this is another one of the new students, Logan Mitchell. Please try to make him feel welcome" the teacher said, causing my face to blush with embarrassment.
I looked to James who was smirking, as he now knew my name, sooner than I intended him too anyway. "Logan, why don't you take a seat" the teacher then said, and I decided to take a seat right at the front desk, with the lonely kid.
As soon as I sat next to him, I saw his face light up. "Hi, I'm Carlos" he said, as I pulled my notebooks out of bag, and sat them on the desk.
"Hi, Logan" I replied, chuckling slightly, since my name had already been announced.
"Don't worry. I'm new here as well. You just missed my little welcome speech" he joked, and I chuckled. Maths proceeded to go well. We were studying the quadratic formula, as a way to get two solutions from an equation. To be honest, it was new to me but I would like to think I picked up pretty quickly. Carlos not so much, but the whole time, he had a really positive attitude, which was nice, and we managed to finish the worksheet together pretty quickly. When the teacher asked for the answers at the end, he was selecting people at random to answer them. Of course, the last question on the page was the hardest, and while Carlos and I managed to do it, apparently the rest of the class hadn't.
"Logan, you've got an answer, don't you?" I heard the teacher say, and my face light up with embarrassment.
"Um, I got x=15 and y=-19" I replied, with an amount of nervousness in my voice.
"That is correct" he said, which released the nervousness from my body, and instead a smile grew. Well, that was only until I heard a familiar voice go "*cough* Nerd *cough*" from the back of the room, causing the whole class to erupt into laughter, while I just saw red.
"At least I can get the answer right. I bet all you did was sit there, and try to count how many fingers you have. Oh, it's eight by the way, with two thumbs" I responded, causing the whole class to turn to Kendall, and start to laugh at him.
"Why you little jackass…" he said, but before he could continue, the teacher spoke up.
"Alright, settle down. Mr Knight, knock it off" the teacher said, causing the class to quieten down, whereas Kendall was still seething with anger in the back. That made me chuckle slightly.
Anyway, we moved onto the next topic, and the rest of class continued. Due to today being the first day, we only had class until 2:00pm, allowing us to spend the evening socialising and settling in. Tomorrow, the day would be split into a 5 period timetable, going from 9:00am to 3:00pm, with two half an hour breaks. One at 11:00am and another 1:30pm. I suppose the timetable wasn't too bad, as sometimes we might have a free period instead of a lesson.
Anyway, Carlos and I spent some time together after class, and it started when we went over to my locker. Lots of girls kept walking past, and introducing themselves to me, which I wasn't used to. Normally, I was 'the nobody' at school, but by the time I had left my locker, three girls had already introduced themselves to me. By the time we had left main school building, three more had said "Hi" in passing, as well as little wave that they kept doing. I didn't think anything of it, but Carlos did apparently. "Sooo" was all he said, once we had taken a seat under one of the larger trees, providing us with some shade from the sun.
"So?" I replied, and he patted me on the arm as a joke.
"Someone's popular with the ladies" he continued and I chuckled.
"That's hardly true Carlos, everyone just being nice" I replied, and this time he laughed hard.
"Dude, you can't be that naïve! Since we've left maths, 6 girls have said hi to you. Plus, every girl that walks past shoots you a smile" he replied, causing me to blush. "What about her? Would you date her in the future?" Carlos said, pointing out a short black-haired girl.
"Carlos, I don't think I'm going to date any girls in the future" I replied, causing him to gasp slightly.
"Wait, are you gay as well" he said, before realising what he had said, and placing his hand over his mouth, a few small tears appearing in his eyes.
"Carlos, its ok if you are. You can tell me, and I promise I won't tell anyone" I replied, pulling him into a gentle hug. I heard him take a deep breath, before talking into my ear.
"Logan. I'm Gay" was all he said, and a small smile grew on my face.
"Carlos, I'm so proud of you. I know how difficult is it to come out, and I'm so proud of you ok" I said, patting his back, as we still hugged. After a minute, he pulled out, and I could see he still had a few tears in his eyes.
"You know, I never told anyone that before. I went through 3 years of school, keeping it to myself, as I didn't trust anyone. But, within 3 hours of meeting you, I trust you enough to tell you my biggest secret" he said, and that caused a few tears to well up in my eyes.
"Thank you, Carlos. I'm glad you feel comfortable around me, and I promise I won't tell a soul." I replied, and he nodded. Before long, we went back to normal conversation, with us sharing our pasts with each other. We were told during the induction that hockey try-outs were this afternoon, and we both decided to go for it, which was nice.
Anyway, we probably spent about an hour chatting with each other, before we decided to head back to our rooms. He still had a few things to unpack, and I had promised my mum a skype session early, so I decided now was a perfect time. I got back to the room, luckily to find that it was empty, and loaded up skype on my computer. Within two rings, both my parents answered, and they were sat on the sofa together, watching some TV. "Hi Mum, Hi Dad" I said, waving at them for some reason.
"Hi sweetie. How was your first day?" my mum asked, and now was my chance to ramble.
Ok, so I hope you enjoyed that chapter! So, we met Kendall, Jo, James and Lucy after Jo attacked Logan, and we also met Carlos and Jenny, two more of Logan's friends. James and Logan are room mates, and we also had Carlos come out as gay, shocker!
No joke though, I made Logan say 'I dont think I'll be dating any girls in the future' cause that's how I came out to the first person, so I thought it would be nice to include.
Apart from that, I'm sorry if the chapter ended in a weird place, but it'll make sense next week. So, until Thursday TTFN :D
