Completely (Un)expected

After a last night of freedom, well spent might I add, it was more than difficult to get my ass out of bed the next morning.

Mikey knocked softly on my door at first, and though I was awake, I wasn’t quite ready to make the commitment to actually get out of bed, which only made him knock louder.

"Henri!" he yelled through the door. "Are you awake? Get up, we have school!"

I groaned in response, though he couldn’t hear me through all of his banging. Sometimes I just wished he would put his morals aside and open the damn door on his own. I reluctantly kicked off my blanket and padded over to the door. The sun hadn't fully risen yet, adding to my distaste and making the room dim and shadowed.

"Mikey!" I shouted back at him as I yanked open the door, obviously catching him off guard. He stumbled back slightly as his support was removed. "I'm awake, now quit all that banging."

"Alright, I didn’t know," he defended himself. "I just don't want to be late."

I rolled my eyes at Mikey's vain attempt at being prompt. No matter if I had already been dressed and ready to go at that very moment, Mikey would still find a way to make us late."Whatever," I replied apathetically. "Give me fifteen minutes."

I shut the door before Mikey had the chance to respond, cutting off the sentence he had only just started to fashion. Going about my normal, pre-school routine wasn’t quite the same this time around. It wasn’t my room, it wasn’t my house, it wasn’t my school. Everything was new, but here I was, the same, old Henri.

I wondered briefly if I should have done something spontaneous and wild, like chop off all of my hair moments before we were to leave or load on the black eye-shadow to give myself that edgy, don’t-mess-with-me look. I picked up the scissors then, thankfully, convinced myself it was a bad idea.

Setting down the blades, I peered into my closet and pulled out a dark piece which turned out to be an old Rolling Stones tee my dad had given me for Christmas one year. It was old and faded, but I refused to get rid of it; there was too much sentimental value in it. Getting rid of it was like getting rid of a part of my dad, and without seeing him for the next few months, I would take all the reminders I could get.

Band tee shirt and skinny jeans on, I ran a brush through my long hair, thankful my rational had let me keep it and deciding against tying it back despite the fact that early September still held onto the little remaining summer heat.

Mikey had only just gotten his license the year before but Aunt Donna trusted him enough to drive not only himself but me to school as well, but if Donna trusted him, then I had no reason not to. He was a good driver, slow but I think I'd rather take a while getting to school than have an accident along the way, especially since Mikey still seemed to be half asleep when we got into the car.

"You okay to drive?" I asked Mikey only being half serious since I knew he wouldn’t fall asleep at the wheel. That plus the fact that he'd driven home tipsy the night before and he was completely fine.

"Yeah," he said buckling his seatbelt and taking a gulp of coffee from his travel container. "Let's do this."

We headed off to school, music playing along the way and whatever space in the car wasn’t filled with Van Halen, Mikey and I made up for by belting out all of the words. Pulling into the school parking lot belting out the words to 'Jump' earned us more than a few stray looks from the other kids, and being the new kid, this was a great way to start off the year.

Mikey and I got out of the car and I instantly felt a little more self-conscious. Not only because of the fact that I'd just gone rock-star in the car with Mikey, but because the moment I stepped out of the car, my eyes landed on Frank. I tried to avert my gaze quickly yet as subtly as possible, trying to pretend that I hadn't noticed him, but my idiot cousin had to go and ruin it.

"Hey Frank!" he called out to the boy standing three spots over. Frank looked up and smiled to Mikey and me, but he obviously felt a little uneasy having me there. I heard a car door shut and a moment later saw Bob emerge from the drivers' side of his truck.

"Hey Mikey, Henri," Frank said back to us, tentatively walking over once Bob had caught up with him.

I said my shy hellos and the four of us made our way to the front of the school. I checked over my schedule and Mikey told me where my first period class was.

Walking into my English class, I sat down at a seat far in the back and stuck in my headphones. It's not that I was anti-social, but I just wasn't in the mood to play twenty questions with the hordes of sluts that would try and reel me into their little clique, so instead I made myself undesirable.

My first classes of the day were long and boring and I wanted nothing more than to get on with ending the day and getting back home to reinstate my personal policy of isolationism from the rest of the world.

Lunch came and I met Mikey, Bob and Frank in the cafeteria. Sitting with the awkward tension between Bob and I from unfamiliarity and Frank from, well, you know, was slightly shy of unbearable, but I made it through intact and finally got to go home and wait for the next nine months to pass….

Notes

Hey, so sorry the chapter is so short and so sucky and so late. The website was being weird before and I had finals to study for so I just waited to try again. Hopefully you like it anyway. You know the drill, leave a comment, send a message and I'll see ya next week!!!