We moved our stuff in on Friday, and today was Sunday. I’d lived one full day in the house, and I decided I liked living here in Monroeville much more than Newark. Back in Newark, I was the emo fag who had no friends, despite not being emo or a fag. Here, I was being offered a fresh start. My mom wouldn’t be starting her new job for 3 weeks but Mikey and I would be starting at Monroe High School tomorrow. We would be there for the first day of the new year, and I really appreciated Mom making the effort to get us here in time. Mikey and I were planning to drive down there today in my new car, just so we wouldn’t get lost tomorrow. We had to pick up some leaflets and shit that had been sent out to the other students at the start of the summer.

I stretched, arching my back away from the soft black sheets, and sat up in bed. I got dressed, surprised at how I was really keeping the place tidy. My attire was my usual, head to toe black, with a splash of colour in the form of red writing on my hoodie. I made my way upstairs and into the kitchen, where a rich smell drew me to the little silver machine on the countertop. I found my usual mug and placed it under the tap, pressing the button and watching as the brown liquid poured out like liquid happiness. Coffee, the only thing worth living for. I shuffled into the living room, my previous bedroom, where Mikey and my mom were excitedly sticking Mikey’s name on all of his new school books. The little dude was so excited, this was his first year in high school. I smiled, a rare occurrence. I plonked myself down on the couch and switched on the TV. There was nothing interesting on, but I watched it anyways. When Mikey seemed to be finished with his book labelling duties, I asked him if he was ready to come check out the school.

You’d swear he was being offered a unicorn on a stick. He jumped up so quick that I’m surprised he didn’t break his back, and squealed happily.

“I’ll be right back,” he said, “just gotta grab a hoodie.”

When he left the room, my mom came and sat beside me. She turned off the TV and looked right into my eyes.

“You know I did this for you Gee? I just want you to be happy, okay? I want you to really try to fit in. This is your senior year, I just want my boy to enjoy it.” she said, smiling.

She reached out and held my head in between her two soft hands, and kissed my forehead.

“And for God’s sake, don’t burst Mikey’s bubble. He’s so excited, he doesn’t need your high school horror stories!”

Mikey walked back into the room. “I’m ready Gee!” he beamed, pretty much jumping up and down with excitement.

I threw him my keys.

“Go sit shotgun, I’ll be out in a sec,” I said.

Once I heard the front door slam, I walked through into the kitchen, where my mom was cleaning our coffee cups.

“Thanks mom,” I said, really sincerely, “and don’t worry about Mikey… I’ll look after him.”

My mom shot me her best smile, and I found myself smiling back. So much smiling today. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.

***

It was surprisingly easy to find the high school. There was only one main street in Monroeville, and once you found that you could find anything. Mikey and I went into the school to be met by a plump lady dressed in pink and purple called Flora who we found out was the secretary. She handed us each an envelope with all of our information, homerooms, teachers, tutors, timetable and all that kind of thing. She wished us good luck in our new house and school and waddled off back into the main office. Mikey was eager to have a look around the school so I went with him. We managed to find most of our classrooms and our lockers, both quite close to each other. Mikey’s homeroom was on the second floor, right beside the chemistry lab, and mine was directly below it. The only room we couldn’t find was the art room, but I decided I’d find it tomorrow. We bumped into Flora on the way out and she said goodbye.

Mikey was buzzing the whole way home in the car, he pretty much levitated around the grocery store as we bought some food. I really hoped, for Mikey’s sake, that the people at this school were nice. It would kill me to see Mikey’s hopes crushed. He didn’t seem to care much about the people though. He gushed all his news to our mom when we got home, he was genuinely so excited. I realised his excitement was slowly rubbing off on me.

I went down to my room and sat at my desk and began to sketch, I didn’t know what. I drew a tree, with leaves just starting to brown. The wind was blowing lightly and a few crackly leaves had begun to gather underneath the tree in a pile. Sitting in the pile I drew Mikey, eyes down, totally engaged on something out of view on the ground. There was an excited and perplexed look on his face, just like this morning when he’d been labelling his books. I found some watercolour pencils and scratched some colour onto my drawing, using a paintbrush to blend the pencil into swirls of colour. By the time I’d finished, the pencill had smudged and turned Mikey’s expression into one of concentration and anger.

This made me angry, an hour’s work ruined. I pushed the paper to the top of my desk and it fell down the back. I stomped up the stairs to eat my dinner, my bad mood evaporating the second I saw how happy my mom and Mikey were.

I retreated back to my room after dinner, showering and laying out some clothes for tomorrow. I chose black skinny jeans, a black t-shirt and a dark blue hoodie. I didn’t even know where the hoodie had come from, but it was clean and so I’d wear it. I sunk into bed, extremely tired, but it took me a while to fall asleep because of the butterflies in my stomach.