Resonance

Cameron

Fact about me number two--something a few other people may have in common with me: I've lived in at least two other states. Yup, that's why new schools aren't, well, new.

Fact about me number three--something unique and individual.

I always find this last one frustrating. I have unique traits, yeah, but do I really want to share them with a room full of strangers?

I settled with a response I've used before. "I work with black and white film photography." Good old fashioned stuff.

Once everybody was done, Ms. Crayson collected all the cards and continued with her instructions. "I'll read off the first one and if the fact doesn't apply to you, sit down and stay sitting. If it does, stay standing. On that note, everybody stand up!"

The sound of chairs squeaking on the waxy floor filled the room.

Ms. Crayson held up the first card in her hand after shuffling them around. "Number one: I have at least one sibling." I sat down, along with about five other kids. "Two: I get at least seven hours of sleep every night." I chuckled as half of the class quickly sat down.

"I would sit down again if I could," I muttered bitterly, and the few people around me let out snickers.

"And finally: I have three skateboards and a longboard."

The rest of the class sat down leaving a kid with a goofy grin on his face standing.

"Of course it's Kaleb!" The kid sitting next to him laughed.

"Damn, another skateboard?" One kid prodded, to which Kaleb answered:

"Yeah, got it about a month ago." Ms. Crayson held up her hands as a signal for silence, and Kaleb sat down then pretended to zip his mouth. "Let's move on to another card."

The cards were shuffled around a bit again. The top one was held up, then read aloud.

"I like ice cream." One kid sat down and a few people exclaimed in surprise.

"I have a brother." My turn to sit down.

"My favorite animal is a chameleon." The kid left standing was the blond kid I was looking (staring) at before. "Wesley!" Ms. Crayson smiled and a few people nodded. Wesley was his name, then.

I don't know why, but at that moment I decided to blurt out. "Chameleons are cool." It wasn't much, but Wesley smiled at me and nodded. Probably not much of a talker.

Most of the class went by quickly. We learned more about our teacher after hearing more of the cards, of which mine was not pulled; we were doing more tomorrow. At the end, though, we were all pulled back together for an... Assignment. On the first day of school!

Okay, so it wasn't really that bad. She just gave out a list of materials we needed for the class and we needed them by Monday. And we needed to start thinking about content for a personal essay.

Still! Work!

-•-

A few more classes came and went, a few more syllabuses handed out, and soon it was lunch time. I walked with the flow of the crowd to a large cafeteria, hoping I'd be able to find my way back to my classes. I always felt like that with a new school; everything is huge and different and you just have to pray that you'll find your way out of its maze.

I sat down by myself at an empty table, not expecting any company. I had packed an apple and a granola bar to eat, so I fished them out. It was 12:00 and over the summer I had grown accustomed to eating my "lunch" at 1:00 or later, so I wasn't all that hungry.

Finishing my food early, I decided to scan around the room to further observe my classmates.

There were a lot of your typical groups of kids, like the popular ones, outcasts, stuff like that. A lot of the groups looked like they had mixes, though, which was pretty cool.

My eyes met Wesley's in the mix of high schoolers, and he quickly looked down. I smiled, even though he couldn't see it. He was sitting with a few muscular kids, who I assumed were members of sports teams. One of them was wearing a varsity jacket, which proved my point. The owner of the jacket had his arm wrapped around a girl, who was glued to his chest.

Wesley didn't seem to be very invested in the conversation. He was just sitting and listening.

At one point, Wesley looked over again and I waved. He smiled and waved back. Thankfully so, because I would have felt really awkward if he hadn't. He seemed pretty nice.

At the end of the day, I discovered that Wesley and I had our humanities classes together, as our classes were split into a block class. I also had my math class with the purple-haired kid inclusive of humanities. His name was Percy.

As soon as I got home I was ready to lay down and veg out to YouTube videos or something. Part of me was disappointed that school had started again, but there was still a large portion that had that "first day of school" enthusiasm, and I was excited to go back the next day.

X

Hello! I finally have this first chapter up! I want to be able to update maybe once a week or every other week, and I also want this story to get more exciting and intriguing. I want to explore the negative effects of male stereotypes throughout this story as well. I hope you'll enjoy!