Eli POV.
I spent all weekend in the music room playing and writing. I only came out to eat, shower and sleep. Other than that, I was glued to that piano. I wrote somewhere around six songs in those two days, but recording them was postponed to the next week.
Soon enough it was Monday morning, my first day of school.
I woke up at six, which was later than I was used to. I guess the boys were starting to rub off on me. I went out on my run, which the boys now know of, and didn't freak out if I'm not in the house when they woke up. I took a quick shower and made breakfast.
The first ones downstairs were Alessandro and Matteo, who headed to work really early. They both wished me good luck on my first day and said to call them if anything happens.
Soon after they left, The other boys came down for breakfast.
"So how are you feeling?" Gabriele asked as he sipped his steaming hot coffee.
"I'm a bit nervous but mostly excited to be going back to school," I said with a smile.
The boys frowned a bit. I don't think they got over the whole me not going to school thing yet.
"Also, I'm pretty disappointed, that I have to repeat two grades," I pouted.
"You won't be repeating them. You'll be going with the kids your age since you'd need to catch up a lot if you wanted to go with the grade you were originally in. We talked about this," Lorenzo said trying to comfort me.
It was a huge fucking ego hit for me. I was always ahead of my peers by at least two grades, but now the counselor, who tested me, thinks I wouldn't be able to keep up with the older kids. I mean, I hadn't been to school in five years, so being backed up by two didn't seem so unfair, but still, this is my huge ego we're talking about.
"Gabriele will drive you two to school. I'm going to campus and so is Lorenzo, so we're taking our own cars today," Antonio said still a bit crumpy from having to wake up.
"So you guys just all drive yourselves around even tho you are basically going to the same place?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Have you heard about the climate crisis?" I said in an accusing tone.
I was just playing with them, but some of their habits, like excessive shopping, were actually really toxic in my opinion.
The boys looked a bit guilty as I just grinned at their faces. I did enjoy making other people uncomfortable and then just watching them react in the situation. It was a bad habit, but I was going sober, I needed some sort of reward for it.
The school was exactly like how you'd imagine it to be. The stereotypical rich family trust fund private school that manufactured entitled brats and dickheads. I didn't belong there, but I guess the second my parents died, I became a rich kid, trust fund, private school bitch myself, so I tried to keep an open mind.
As we pulled up to the castle-like building, I saw some people already looking our way.
"Are you popular?!" I asked Gabriele, who just smirked in response. I didn't like that. I didn't want people to pay attention to me, I never did. Or at least when I wasn't up on stage.
"How?" I asked with a grin, which earned a glare from Gabriele.
I took a deep breath and got out of the car.
Gabriele walked me to the office to get my locker number and timetable. All the way there, Gabriele exchanged words with random people, and kids in the hallways turned to look at us. I just put on my confident face and pretended like I didn't see them. If they were going to stare, I was going to play the part.
The lady at the desk was actually really pretty. She smiled warmly as we walked in and greeted us with a sunny voice.
I got my timetable, which was basically hell for six hours every day. I had forgotten how much I used to hate school. Gabriele showed me to my first class, which was math.
I never hated math, because it always came naturally to me, but it was never my favorite. Well, I used to say it was because that made me look better and that's what all the adults always wanted to hear.
I walked into the class right before the teacher was about to begin and asked where I should sit. The teacher quickly ushered me to a seat in the middle of the classroom next to a dirty-blonde boy. I had hoped to sit alone in the back, but I could make it work.
"I'm Travis," the guy said offering his hand out for me to shake, which I did.
"I'm Eli, and I have no idea what I'm supposed to do, so I'll just copy you," I said smirking.
"Oh please don't. I don't wanna be responsible for you failing," Travis joked, earning a side smile from me.
"Let's just fail together shall we," I said with a curt nod.
"We shall," Travis answered before the teacher hushed us in a surprisingly aggressive tone.
I was pleasantly surprised at how much I understood in that class even tho I hadn't really done any schoolwork in years, and I wasn't the only one surprised. The teacher really didn't see it coming when I actually answered correctly to her question. Let's just say I was really tired and almost fell asleep, which the teacher didn't appreciate.
After math class, I had English, so I just bit my lip and started wandering around, hoping to find the right class.
"You need help?" I heard a voice behind me.
I turned around to see a grinning Travis.
"It wasn't a question, I was just making an observation," he joked to which I just rolled my eyes.
"Please help me, I'm dying here," I sulked overdramatically.
Travis walked me to my next class. I learned, that he played football, which should have been obvious from the extremely stereotypical outfit he was wearing, but I guess I'm just that dumb.
English class was extremely boring. I sat next to a shy girl who I couldn't get talking no matter how much I tried to. I wasn't rude or pushy, I just asked her about things, but she seemed really scared. I quickly understood and let it go.
The teacher, Mr. Johnson, however, was really nice. Because I'd missed a few months of the semester, he made sure I was following and even asked me to stick around after class to see if I needed any help.
I was early for History, so I took a seat at the back of the classroom and looked around me. There were three people in the classroom already, two girls, who sat together, and a boy, who sat by himself at the back of the class, pretty close to me.
"Hey, I'm Eli," I said with an awkward wave to the guy.
"Marcus. You're the new kid right?" he answered putting his phone away.
I nodded awkwardly. I had been asked that question about sixty-four times already.
"Nice. Travis said you're cool," Marcus continued.
"We're on the same football team," he quickly added.
"Oh, so word about me is already spreading," I said dramatically staring off into space.
"I guess so," Marcus chuckled a bit.
"What are your names?" I asked the two girls, who had been listening to our conversation. They really weren't good at hiding it.
"I'm Evelyn and this is Julie," The brown-haired girl replied, as the black-haired one just blushed.
"Nice to meet you," I said.
"What do you guys like to do?" I asked in a desperate attempt to stop the situation from going too awkward.
"Well I'm a figure skater, I compete on a national level," Evelyn said lifting her head proudly.
"Show off," Julie coughed rolling her eyes.
"I play the cello and I'm in the theater group," she continued.
"Uuuuh, another music person!" I exclaimed clapping my hands together, which got a laugh from the three kids in the room.
I was always good at making friends when I wanted to. As a kid, I had a shit load of friends, but at some point, I just let go of them. It was around the same time, I fell into my depression, so it probably had something to do with that.
As the class started, I sat next to Henry. He was a pretty cool dude. He had long, black hair, and he played dungeons and dragons with his friends. He even offered to let me join their party if I wanted to, which I sadly refused with everything else that was going on.
"I'm just lucky I know everything about US history already," I said proudly as we were doing our work.
"Did they already go over these things in your last school?" Henry asked. I'm surprised he even responded to me being a dick even if it was as a joke.
"Nah, I just watched Hamilton on a loop," I explained earning a grin from the all-so-serious boy.
I loved musicals. I used to watch them all the time, with Carlos. My favorite was heathers, for sure, and I know Carlos always said his favorite was rent, but we both knew he loved Mary Poppins more than anything.
At one point Diego had a West Side Story phase, which was really scary for me and Carlos. He begged to have a knife, and at one point, he refused to walk without snapping his fingers.
After History, I followed all the other kids to the cafeteria. Lorenzo gave me some money for food, so I got in line and waited. The line was so much faster than I had ever expected, so when I got up to the counter-like thing, I was still trying to decide what to get. The last time I was in school, we had to wait for over fifteen minutes, just to start picking up food.
I got my meal, which wasn't a lot, but still enough so I could say I ate and started looking around for a place to sit. Henry was with his friends talking extremely loudly about god knows what, and Evelyn and Julie were nowhere to be seen.
Then, I saw Travis waving at me to come over. He was sitting with Marcus and four other people I didn't know. I thought that I'd go sit with Gabriele, but I guess I wanted to make new friends.
"Hey," I said as I sat down next to Travis.
"Hey! Everyone this is Eli, Eli everyone," Travis motioned to the people at the table.
"Hi I'm Damian," one of the guys introduced himself.
He had black, short curls, and golden brown eyes. He was clearly jacked and it didn't take a genius to realize he was probably on the football team too.
"I'm Jess, Marcus' sister," the girl next to Travis said.
She had the same red hair, as her brother, and a lot of freckles over her cheeks. She looked really nice, and sweet, and she had the biggest, and warmest smile. Later on, I realized why I liked her so much from the beginning. Her aura was so bright green, it was almost blinding.
Then there was Manny, who I immediately recognized as the group mom. He had bleached blonde hair and a surfer-boy vibe. Abby was Jess' best friend and Manny's girlfriend. She had blonde hair, and blue eyes, and was overall the perfect beautystandard. I expected her to be mean, but she turned out to be maybe the nicest of them all.
Travis, Marcus, and Damian ended up all being on the football team, while Manny and Abby were dancers, and Jess was in fashion design. They were all pretty cool and I actually surprised myself with how much I enjoyed spending time with them. We were all sophomores except Manny, who was a junior, so I had basically all of my classes with some of them.
"My Monday sucks, but at least I've got music in the last block," I complained to Abby, as we walked down towards the music room.
"You tell me," she sighed with an eye-roll.
I have to admit, at first I thought Abby was just some basic bitch, but she turned out to be really funny and extremely sarcastic. We actually had a lot of fun, while we walked to class.
We arrived a bit early since we had a lot of spare time in case I got lost on the way.
"You must be Eli!" the teacher, Mrs. Brown exclaimed as we stepped into the classroom.
"Yep. That's me," I said with a tight smile.
"Well, welcome to the school, and welcome to my music class!" Mrs. Brown continued a bit too eagerly in my opinion.
"So, what's your instrument?" she asked staring right into my soul.
I just shrugged a bit before answering with a smirk:
"What do you need?"
I ended up playing bass, but the teacher promised I would get to play other instruments too. She was absolutely thrilled when I told her about my music past. Abby was just flabbergasted. I might have forgotten to tell her about my music.