Alan's POV
Well, so far my first three days had been, well, shit. I'd been pushed and shoved in the halls, on purpose, too many times to count, and I had two bruises that had formed on my arm from colliding with walls, lockers, doors, whatever they fancied shoving me into to prove it. I'd had every single ginger joke and insult thrown at me you could imagine. They didn't bother me too much, I'd heard them a million times before, no one could be original these days...just like with the short jokes. For a guy I was pretty small, I was skinny and only stood at about 5ft 8, so yeah, I got them too. I'd been called other things like, emo kid, been told to go slit my wrists, called loser, loner, and names implying I didn't know how to form a proper sentence. I'd also had all the gay insults thrown at me, although no one knew I was gay, so god knows why. They probably had run out of ideas. The worst of the jerks so far, I found out where called Ronnie and Vic. I'd had Math with them, but Shayley warned me there where two more, Austin and Danny. According to Shayley, Austin was in none of his classes, and while me and Shayley shared most of the classes, there where classes I had like Art, Chemistry and History we didn't share, so I was bound to meet him in one of those no doubt. It would be just my luck after all. As for Danny, he was in the lowest set for everything, dumb as a stick apparently, and as I wasn't in any of the lower set classes for anything, so at least I could be sure I'd have no classes with him.
The only, sort of good thing was that Shayley seemed okay, not someone I intend on getting friendly with, I didn't want friends. Friends only end up turning on you, like mine had soon as I left town. I'd tried contacting my old friends since moving, but every single one of them ignored me. But he was okay to hang around with so I could at least have someone to work with in most classes if we needed a partner and someone to sit with at lunch. We seemed to have similar tastes in films, music, TV shows and he seemed the quite type, like me, and the bullies liked to target him too, so I figured I may as well not be a total loner.
I was in the middle set, like Shayley for most of my classes, hence why we shared classes, we where both in the higher set for music, but Shayley stayed in the middle set for Art, History and Chemistry while I was in the higher. They where my three best subjects, I loved art, I've been drawing since I can remember, it was an escape for me I guess, along side playing guitar. History, I didn't love it, but I found a lot of it interesting and I seemed good at it. Chemistry, I didn't actual like chemistry at all, but I was good at it. Those three lessons where going to suck a little without Shayley, especially Chemistry, because in Chemistry, you usually get put with a partner...meaning I'm actually going to have to talk and interact with one of these other people I pass in the hall, and I really didn't want to do that. I barely wanted to interact with Shayley, let alone someone who would probably be a simple minded jerk, or would just have nothing in common with me whatsoever.
"Watch it, gayley!" Vic sneered has he knocked into Shayley, using his shoulder to knock Shayley onto the floor. More like Vic should've watched it, given it was Vic who went into to Shayley...on purpose.
"Here..." I held out my hand, offering to help him up, which he took with a small smile, hoisting himself up.
"Thanks, I hate him, he's a freaking hypocrite too."
"How so?"
"Well, he called me Gayley...yet he's the one banging some boy called Kellin in the year below us, so therefore making him gay. But yet clearly, because he's popular and comes from a rich family, it's socially acceptable for him to be gay, but because I'm from a lower class, single parent household and I'm just some 'emo kid' it's not okay for me too be. Society is fucked up."
"Tell me about it. Wait, uh, you're gay?"
"Oh, yeah." He gave a gentle nod, before looking down at his feet as if he was ashamed of it.
"That's cool." I shrugged and lowered my voice. "I am too, but I'm not out...not here anyway."
"Oh? Okay, I won't say anything don't worry." He looked back up and gave me a small smile.
"Thanks." I gave him a small smile back.
"Okay, so here's your Art class, Mrs Jardine's pretty cool so you should be fine. I'll meet you here after and we can go to last period together, as it's Geography, which we're in the same class for."
"Sure." I nodded. "See you after class."
"Cool." He shot a smile before turning around and heading off to his class, leaving me to enter my class room.
"Ahhh you must be Alan Ashby, I've seen that little portfolio you submitted, you're a brilliant artist, I hope you enjoy my class." A small, slim, casually dressed woman, with dark brown hair, who must of only been about twenty five smiled as I walked in.
"Oh, uh, thanks." I felt myself blushing a little, I always did when someone complimented my art work. Nothing noticeable, just a little blush, like everyone gets when they're complimented I guess.
"Now, I wish I could give you a choice of where to sit, sadly though, there's only one spot not spoken for. Which is the forth desk from the right in the second to last row. The desks open up which is where you can store all your work, and all the basic art supplies you'll need, so you don't have to worry about carrying it around or trying to fit it into lockers. If somethings too big for the desk, I have that cupboard at the very back for you to store it in, just make sure you put your name on it."
I looked around, there was four rows, and each row at four desks, and mine was at the very end of the third row. Well, at least I'd only have one person sat next to me and I was on the end so I could shield myself, sort of. "Okay, thank you."
"You're welcome, today's lesson is just recapping the basics of drawing with pencils, I always do a recap at the start of the year, but I promise next lesson we'll do something a bit more exciting. Is there anything in particular you like in the art area? Painting, drawing, clay modelling?"
"I-I like drawing animals, and portraits mostly. I like oil painting too, and abstract...clay modelling isn't exactly my strongest point though."
"Oh, not to worry, it wasn't mine either back when I was at school, took a lot of effort and hard work for me to get good at that. Oil painting wasn't my best either." She chuckled. "But portraits will be the first thing we do, so I'm sure you'll enjoy that and I always offer extra help during Monday, Wednesday and Friday lunch times, with the middle set art teacher Mr. Leto, if you need a little extra time and help with anything, or if you just fancy coming in to do some art."
"Sounds good." I nodded.
"Well, I think that's everything so if you want to go set up your desk, the rest of the class should be here shortly." She smiled a brilliant smile.
"Thank you." I mustered up a small smile back and went to my seat.
Upon opening the desks, as she said there would be, was a ton of basic art supplies. Different types of pencils, pens, water colours, oil paints, different size and types of paper as well as other basics all organized neatly. At home all I really had was the paper and pencils and a few oil paints, so I was pretty excited about having all these supplies to work with here, it was almost like a dream collection for your basic every day art.
"Okay class, firstly, I'd like you all to welcome our new art student Alan, I've seen his work and he's brilliant, so I expect you all to welcome him and treat him as a fellow class mate with the same respect and support you all know I expect from you. If you remember from the incident last year, I do not tolerate any kind of disrespect or misbehavior in my class." Miss Jardine's voice snapped me out of my dream world, I hadn't even noticed the rest of the class had come in and taken their seats. "Okay, so, today we're just recapping basics, so if you could all get out your pencils and your A4 drawing pads, we can begin."
I quickly pulled out the pencils and drawing pad before closing my desk and resting them on the table neatly.
"So, you're the new kid." I heard a voice whisper, causing my neck to snap in the voices direction. The sight I saw caused my breathing to catch a little. He looked tall, with long, dark brown floppy hair, with bright, deep brown eyes, and a killer smile, wearing a Slipknot t-shirt with the arms ripped off and black skinny jeans, finished off with black vans. He was the most beautiful man I'd ever seen. "Alan right?"
I quickly shook myself out of my daze. "Yeah."
"Like it here so far?"
"It's okay." I shrugged.
"You as good as Miss Jardine claims?"
"Subject to opinion."
"You don't talk much do you?" He chuckled, oh god that chuckle was the most beautiful thing I heard.
"Not really." I shook my head. Stop talking, pleaseeeee! My wishes where granted when Miss Jardine started speaking again. Thank god for that. I didn't like talking as it was, talking meant people getting to know you, and then you getting to know them, and that just opens you up to all kinds of trouble, pain and hurt. Once upon a time I'd of opened up to that, but not anymore, I closed myself off with the intention of never letting anyone in, my walls where up, and they where staying up. Even if he was painfully beautiful and possibly thee most perfect man I'd ever laid my eyes on. Besides, he probably wasn't even gay, so what was the point huh? Exactly, there was none, so I had no interest in interacting with him more then I had too.
The rest of the class went by too quickly, I was enjoying it, drawing various little things, they where simple, like glasses, apples, eyes, oranges, but getting the detail and shading right I enjoyed. Art was one of those things you had to concentrate on if you where going to get it right, meaning you had to shut your brain off and think of only what you where doing. Just like playing guitar, which is why I loved both so much, they where escapes, time's where my mind had to be solely focused on what I was doing meaning no other thoughts could come to mind and I could forget everything, if only for a moment. Miss Jardine was a good teacher too, better then the one we had at our old school, he liked to ramble a lot and liked control, where as Miss Jardine was detailed, but to the point and less controlling over everyone and their work.
"I saw a glimpse of your work, they where good." The boy who was sat next to me mentioned as we packed our things away.
"Um, thanks." I bit down on my lips, feeling my cheeks flush a little, more then usual actually.
"You should show me some of your other work sometime." He smiled.
"Uh, maybe." I quickly grabbed my bag, throwing it over my shoulder as I stood up. "I, uh, gotta get to next class."
"I can walk you?"
"Um, no, it's okay, I-I have someone meeting me, t-thanks anyway." And I quickly scurried off before he could say anything else. Why did people insist on talking to me, what part of me barely saying anything gave them the impression I wanted to talk more?
"So, how was it?" Shayley asked, snapping me from my thoughts.
"Was okay, Miss Jardine is nice."
"Yeah she is." Shayley agreed. "Sadly our Geography teacher, not so much, but I guess with the good, comes the bad."
"Yeah." I sighed. "Let's go then."
"Follow me." He smiled and we headed towards our next class.