King's Jewels

7- Firsts

Kade
   Taking Rafael to school had been a lot more difficult than we had originally thought, more on his part. Usually, he did whatever he thought we would want without any question. To see him putting up such a fight about the situation was difficult to process and deal with. At first, he wouldn't get up and out of bed. Then, he wouldn't eat his breakfast or take a shower or even get dressed. Rafael may have been a very quiet protester but he definitely made his point. He didn't want to do this. Even at eighteen, he still lacked exam results, and he needed to at least get those. This was my last year, after falling behind for a while when I was younger, and I would be around to help him if he wanted.
  "Have you been to school before?" Paps asked him from the front seat of the car, only receiving silence as his response. "This one is a good school. I think you'll like it more than you think."
  "All of my kids have been and will probably be coming here," Dad added, sighing as Paps finally pulled into the car park. Rafael didn't budge. He didn't even look out of the window or unbuckle his seatbelt when the car was parked. His eyes never left his feet. I leaned over, hoping that he would listen to me.
  "I'll be there with you. We've already got the schedules, we're in basically all the same classes." I whispered to him, seeing people finally piling through the gates, ten minutes until school started. Ten minutes to convince Rafe to get out of the car and follow me through the gates. "How can I help? I know you're scared but I don't know how to help."
  "Stay with me?" I nodded, relieved that he was at least thinking about it. The teachers I knew stated at the gates wouldn't hesitate to drag him out of the car, and I wouldn't hesitate to attack them for it.  "I went to school. It was bad."
  "It's not bad here. There are a few assholes, but it's not bad."
  "Yeah but it's different for you anyway," he mumbled, holding my hand. "You're strong enough to defend yourself if anything happened. We weren't allowed to know how to fight."
   After being told that he would be taught how to fight and defend himself, he finally agreed to get up. Grabbing the crutch from near his leg, he shuffled to the door and looked at me. His knee had been aching again, and the doctors thought that it would be best for him in the brace and on crutches for now. At least until he could walk without pain in his knee. Rafael stopped, looking at the gates and trying to take in the large building in front of him.
  "Make sure you've picked your lunches up," Dad whispered, watching us as we got out of the car.
  "They're in my bag." Rafael said back, trying to get steady on his feet. My Dad got out with us, offering a hug that Rafael accepted. I waited for my own.

   All the way to our first class, Rafael struggled on his crutches as he refused to let go of my hand. Zander, my best friend and beta came around the corner out of nowhere, smacking the back of my head and cursing at me.
  "And where have you been? I haven't seen or heard from you in, like, ten years." I nodded, feeling bad that I had basically ignored my best friend for at least six weeks.
  "I've been busy. I'll explain all later. This is Rafael, Rafe, this is Zander." Rafael didn't say anything, hiding his face in my shoulder and breathing hard. Overwhelmed. I snaked an arm around his waist, pulling him closer so that he could ground himself. It seemed to be all he ever wanted recently, and I didn't mind it.
  "Is that your mate? He's from that pack isn't he? I mean that explains maybe a couple days, but all this time and you haven't answered any texts or calls or anything."
  "He is my mate. I was unconscious for nine days, recovering for a bit after that. Stuff kept coming up. I'll tell you everything as soon as I can." he rolled his eyes and nudged my arm, before grinning anyway.
  "Let's go in, then." I whispered, getting Rafael to loosen his grip and take a breath. "That's it. We'll sit over there with a couple other people. Take your time."
  The teacher never said anything as we entered the classroom ten minutes late, only smiling at Rafael. Crutches made it harder to walk, and he had already been informed about the situation. Rafe managed to smile back, ducking his head as we made our way to the table. A few of his friends had also joined the class, which seemed to make him more comfortable in here.
  As the class went on, he seemed to open up a bit more, even talking with Zander on occasion. He at least seemed to be calming down. It calmed me down in the process, making me relieved that he was finally starting to settle into the pack.
  "I'm getting hungry," he mumbled. As the teacher allowed everyone to get along with their work with chatter and occasionally brought it back for discussion, I got my bag from under the table and found a snack bar my Dad always managed to sneak into my bag. Rafael took it and nibbled at it quietly, listening as Mr Khan explained a quote from a book. After a while, the teacher came round to check on our work, and Rafael shifted next to me again. He was jumpy and easily overwhelmed, thinking he was always in trouble.
  "Is everything alright here? Need anything explained?" I looked over my book, turning it around. English literature was never my best subject, but I liked it nonetheless. "That all seems right, Kade. Are you struggling with this question?"
  "Yeah, I don't really understand what it means. The more I read it the more confused I get."
  "Okay, that's fine. Mind if I sit here?" I shrugged and shifted to let him explain. I would have asked Zander, but his ADHD and my dyslexia were never a great match in this class. He wouldn't be able to focus on the question at hand, and his redirections would cause the question to become something else. "Does that help?"
  "I think so. Romeo and Juliet's relationship was forbidden, right? Because of the whole family feuding thing. So it eventually ended in a bit of tragedy because they wanted to be together and couldn't be."
  "Yeah, well if you ask me, Romeo was a bit of a nonce anyway." Zander said, doodling in the corner of his page. Mr Khan laughed and nodded.
  "That's right, Kade. And I totally agree with you Zander, bit of a weird age gap there, considering she was a child and he was bordering adulthood. However, did you know that a lot of people don't actually know how old he was in the play? It's said his age could range between thirteen and twenty-one. When I teach this, I like to pretend they were at least the same age. It gives an icky feeling to teach it any other way." Rafael laughs too. "What about you, Rafael? What do you think about Romeo and Juliet?"
  "They shouldn't have been together."
  "I see, care to share?"
  "Well... other than the age gap and the star-crossed lover thing, they seem too dependent on each other. Romeo falls in love straight away, and humans don't have that attachment we do, so getting attached that fast is scary and can seem controlling. Children aren't meant to feel that intensely to one another, so maybe their parents were right, but for the wrong reasons." Mr Khan grinned and nodded.
  "Would you say that that kind of adds to their tragedy?"
  "I think so. They're young and immature and they're making decisions without thinking ahead about the consequences of their actions."
  "I like your thought process there." Another hand raises from the opposite side of the classroom and he leaves the table with a smile. Rafael turned to me and grinned.
  "My old teachers used to tell us to just be quiet and our opinions were always wrong."