Jack woke to the sound of his alarm, chiming precisely at 6:00 A.M., just like he had set it the night before. He groaned loudly and slammed it with his fist, successfully shutting it off without breaking it. With a distressed sigh, he sat up slowly and rubbed his eyes with a yawn. The day had arrived. First day of Junior year at Burgess High School. Fantastic.

He pushed back his covers and swung his legs over the side of his bed. With one last stretch, he got up and made his way to the bathroom. Half awake, he turned on the shower to a verging on chilly spray and stripped his clothes off, stepped in, and just stood in the middle of the water, letting it cascade down his face with closed eyes. He loved his morning showers, but couldn't stay in for too long because his mother specifically told him to not use up all the hot water(like he used much) because his father and her had to get ready too. He washed quickly and exited, wrapping a towel around his waist and using another to dry his hair. He glanced at the mirror and cursed. Fumbling with the doorknob, he burst into his room to collect his contacts and ran back into the bathroom before anyone could claim it. Soon enough, he had bright blue eyes and finally looked at himself without contempt. Alright. I'm acceptable looking now.

He dressed in his go to outfit: a plain T-shirt, tight brown pants that were a little ragged at the ankles, and, of course, his signature blue hoodie. He made sure the sleeves were secured at his wrists and hauled his bag off the floor before heading to the living room. No one had woken up yet, so he enjoyed a short moment of silence before remembering with a start that he had forgotten to grab something. After fetching it from his drawer, he glanced at his phone and decided he'd walk to the bus stop now. After quietly slipping out the door and locking it, he walked down the street until he saw three other teenagers on a corner. There was a pair of twins, each listening to their music devices, and a beefy girl with short brown hair who look absolutely enraptured with a book titled Horses of the Past. They didn't budge an inch when he came up. How very typical.

The bus arrived shortly, and Jack took a seat near the middle. The whole bus ride, despite it getting rather crowded, no one sat next to him or even glanced his way. He tried to not let it get to him and decided to preoccupy himself with his schedule. The school was rather odd, running on days named 'A' and 'B'. Each one had four periods to it, each lasting over an hour. A plus to it, though, was that they had a 45-minute lunch. For the "A" day that Jack had ahead of him, American History was the first one. Then Algebra 2, lunch, Intermediate Painting(which was the only one he waslooking forward to out of his whole day), and then English. Not the best day, but it had his favorite medium. His next day, though (the "B" day), consisted of Intermediate Drawing, Beginning Sculpture, Beginning Ceramics, and a Forensic Science class which actually sounded particularly interesting to him.

After arriving at the school, he was instructed with a letter in the mail to go to the office with his contact information and they'd input it into the computer, introduce him to the councilor, and give him a map of the campus. On first impression, it was bigger than his old school, but considering that his last school had a grand total of 146 students it was no surprise. This one had approximately 750 students. It also looked like an old school that had had some remodeling over the past thirty years, with patches of chipped brick poking under newer walls and exposed bars of metal. The grounds weren't too large, but still well-kept and had many trees and flowers lining the fence that stated the boundaries. Behind the school was a rather dense forest area with tall old trees and a railroad that marked the opposite edge of the forest. Inside the school, the main hall was painted a light blue and the office was on the immediate left of the entrance with glass doors and a wall made mostly of windows. He entered it and walked up to the desk. The receptionist was currently talking on the phone, and she held up a finger to tell him she'd be "one minute". He nodded politely and took a step back to retrieve his papers. After several moments filled with her murmurs on the phone, she hung up and smiled at him.

"Hello. How could I help you, dear?" She crossed her arms on the desk and leaned forward.

"I was told to give you these." He said and offered the contact sheets to her, which she took with her left hand and looked at.

"Oh, yes. You're Mr. Frost. Welcome to Burgess." She smiled sweetly at him, and Jack noticed she had a lot of smile wrinkles around her mouth and chocolate brown eyes behind her thick framed black glasses.

"Thank you," he said and gave a half smile.

"Well, here's your map," she said while pulling out a sheet of paper from a drawer, "and I'm sorry to tell you that Mrs. Kelly isn't here quite yet. She's the counselor. But whenever you need to talk about classes or college, just pop on by and make an appointment, okay?"

Jack nodded again.

"Got any questions or concerns, dear?"

He shook his head.

"Well, don't be shy if you need anything." She gave him another smile before taking his paper and typing up the contents into the computer.

He exited the office and looked at his map. The first class was upstairs in room A 204. The one after that, room E 105. And his art classes; room B 113. He only really cared about them. He quickly found a hallway that was void of students chatting after months of not seeing each other, talking about all the places they went, what classes they had with who, and how much they hated waking up early. He slid down the wall onto his butt and rested the back of his head against the rough brick and closed his eyes. After giving himself a calming moment, he pulled his sketch book out of his bag and began to doodle until the bell rang and he decided he'd walk upstairs and meet Mr. Colson for a thrilling hour+ of history.

The period went by rather slow. He kept his head down in the back of the room, hunched over his pencil and drawing paper for most of the time, only raising his head to take the syllabus from the girl who sat in front of him and when the teacher's aide passed out the textbooks. He ended up filling two pages, front to back, before having to shuffle to Algebra, and repeating what he had gone through the last period, but this time filling two and a half pages. After the bell rang, half of the school, him included, were allowed to eat. Since he didn't much care for eating at school, he decided to tour the grounds before his first real class of the day. The grass was well groomed and perfectly green. Too bright and almost fake looking to him. He walked around to the back of the school, using a stick he found to drag against the fence like a bored child, one hand in his hoodie pocket. He wasn't paying much attention to his surroundings until the tink-tink-tink of the fence stopped abruptly. He backtracked and noticed that a good three foot wide gap was missing from it. With a glance at his phone, he decided that he had enough time to go exploring in the little forest before having to rush back.

He crouched down a bit to slip through the gap and yanked his bag to unhook it from where it caught on the ragged metal. Straightening up, he took one last glance around the perimeter to see if anyone was watching him. There was no one in sight. Perfect.

He went into the safe cover of the trees and felt the change of temperature. It was much darker under the thick foliage of leaves, and he felt much better about this town. There wasn't a good safe place at his old school. After walking for several minutes, he stopped and kneeled down to dig through his bag until he found what he had been looking forward to (second to his painting class) since he walked onto the bus.

He stuck the cigarette between his lips while trying to fish out his lighter from his front pocket. With a grin, he pulled it out and flicked it on. It had been his favorite lighter since he got it a year ago. It was light blue with snowflakes on it. It was odd for a lighter, considering the appearance contradicted and clashed with the contents, but that's what he loved most about it.

He brought it to the tip of the cigarette and inhaled. It caught, and he happily sucked in a lungful of smoke. He could feel it lazily travel down his throat and warm him up from the inside. It was fucking beautiful. People didn't understand smoking. Even some people who smoked didn't understand it. It was art. It was art that filled you up, got you warm, and expelled from the depths of you. It saw you, got close to your heart, and kissed the inside of your mouth. When it departed from your lips, it made beautiful clouds and he swore he could see his very soul reflected in its tendrils.

He took ten minutes to savor the feeling and slipped in to his zen mode. He closed his eyes and held the smoke inside him and blew it slowly from in-between his lips, barely opening them. When he finished it, he took out his phone only to realize that the bell had rang seven minutes ago.

"Fantastic," He mumbled and snatched his bag from the ground and brushed it off a bit before sprinting to the hole in the fence. He didn't stop running until he was right in front of the door. He popped a mint into his mouth to hopefully cover up the smell and with his head hung, he slowly opened it and silently begged that the teacher wouldn't yell at him. Thankfully, the class was already in a hustle instead of how his other classes had gone about. Some were walking back and forth, getting paint from the table at the front of the room. Most were chatting among themselves; laughing and smearing paint on each other while the teacher wasn't looking.

Speaking of, the teacher was currently walking towards him. He was of medium height with short cropped black hair and dark brown eyes.

"Get lost?" He asked and smiled.

Jack shrugged and nodded.

"Well, welcome, new student, to Painting." He gestured around with both hands. "Your name's Jackson, right? First year here?"

"It's Jack," He said. "I prefer Jack. And yes."

"Jack, okay, I'll try to remember that. Well, a lot of the kids here already know where the stuff is. I guess I could show you around and tell you what's up for this year." He clapped his hand on the teen's back and started to walk forward.

Across the room, a certain Jamie Bennett had perked up his head when he heard Mr. Reyes talking. To his surprise, the person he was talking to was a complete stranger. Strangers were not common to Burgess. Everyone who lived there had lived there since they were little. Jamie stood up to get a better look at the new kid. The most notable feature of his was a shock of white hair. Also, he was rather tall and skinny. He didn't look like he belonged there at all. And for some reason, Jamie felt himself wanting to get to know him. Not just because he was different and new and looked rather lonely. There was something else. Something he couldn't put his finger on.

He quickly got up and made his way over. He had never been a shy person. Occasionally reserved, but mostly open and all smiles.

"Hey Mr. Reyes," he greeted with a little wave. He hadn't gotten to say hello to him since the period started, so in a way he was killing two birds with one stone.

"Hey Jamie," He said with a smile. "How's it been going?"

"Pretty good. Had a nice summer."

"Great! Oh, pardon my manners, this is Jack." He patted his back and smiled.

"Hey, I'm Jamie." He said and stuck out his hand to shake. Jack hesitated before taking it and giving a slightly loose shake. Jamie looked back at Mr. Reyes. "I could show him around the room if you want? And tell him what we're doing."

The man clapped his hands together. "That'd be great. What do you say, Jack?"

The teen shrugged. "Yeah, okay."

"Jamie's a good kid. You guys'll get along swimmingly." He looked over to the table by the window and saw one of the girls waving her hand in the air. "If you need me, just ask." He said to Jack before walking over to her.

"Okay, so, the cabinet right here is for sculpture class," He patted the grey one that was right next to them. "So, we'll skip that."

Jack almost wanted to tell him that he was in that class, but the other boy had already started walking towards the front of the room.

"These two are for painting and drawing." He opened it up. "It's got extra paint, obviously, and paintbrushes. I don't recommend using them because they're old and crusty because kids don't like cleaning them. The top shelf has rulers and scissors. The bottom one has sketchbooks, but we don't use them in here. The shelves right in that corner have all the premade canvases and watercolor paper." He moved over to the second one.

"Here's the gesso and gloss medium, plus the big brushes. Oh, and the trays. He keeps a lot of examples in this cabinet, so you probably won't use it a lot. On that table over there in the front he sets out the paint and the trays and stuff, but you have to put the trays you use back into the cabinet. Okay, all the way over here we have our storage cabinets. It's just a free for all, so you can put your crap wherever. This one is for third period. Back in this corner we have the sinks. Mr. Reyes doesn't like it when they get messy, so don't let paint sit around and always clean the brushes." Jamie finished with a satisfied nod of his head. "I think that's it. Got it?"

Jack looked around the room and slowly nodded his head.

"Yeah, I think I got it."

"Cool. C'mon, I'll tell you what we're doing."

He walked back to his table, which didn't have anyone else at it. The class was rather small, actually, but the room was big enough to keep it from being crowded, even if they had ten more students. Jack followed him and stood at the chair across Jamie until the brown-haired boy gestured at it. Jack slowly slid into the seat.

The rest of the class went by rather fast. Jamie explained the assignment to Jack, letting him borrow his paintbrushes that were much better than the ones available there, and kept chatting through the whole period. He was amazed at Jack's talent. Even with the simple start of the year assignment, his skill couldn't help but show.

"Oh, uh, thanks," Jack has said rather modestly as Jamie complimented him at how perfectly the paint was blended together.

"I'm not very artsy myself," Jamie admitted. "I've been taking the painting class just for an easy B."

"Isn't the saying 'an easy A'?" Jack asked with a little smile.

"Not with the way I paint." Jamie said and chuckled.

Jack laughed-an actual laugh-for the first time in months. He caught himself in surprise and looked confused for a second before Jamie started talking again.

"But actually, Mr. Reyes is a really awesome teacher. He cares about his students."

Jack glanced out of the corner of his eye to look at the man. He was talking avidly to one of the students, before laughing loudly and high-fiving him.

Jack smiled and looked back at the brown-haired teen. Jamie grinned and went back to his painting but kept chatting.

When the bell rang, Jack was extremely disappointed. Even though the classes were longer than he was used to, it wasn't enough. He hadn't painted in forever and art was kind of his thing. And, to his surprise, he deeply enjoyed talking to Jamie. He hadn't realized how fantastic it was to talk to someone. He hadn't realized how lonely he really was. Human interaction had been scarce for some time.

And probably the weirdest, yet most amazing, thing he had experienced his first day was that Jamie actually noticed him. And appeared to enjoy talking to him. For once he was seen.

Jack could cry.

But he stuck with smiling like an idiot every time he thought about how awesome third period was.

*SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Smoking Causes Lung Cancer, Heart Disease, Emphysema, and May Complicate Pregnancy*

I feel like I need to post this?

10/10/18