• Luca •
"Wake up, Luca!" My elder sister—Angela—yelled, shaking me awake. I groaned and shifted my position on the bed, trying to escape from her grasp. "It's time to get school, hermano. It's already eight-fifteen!" My eyes immediately flung open as I bolted upright and turned to face my sister. But what I saw made me actually want to strangle her. She had the biggest, most irritating smirk plastered on her face. She lied to me. My gaze shifted to my clock. It was six o'clock and we only had to leave at eight-thirty.
My eyes narrowed at my sister, shooting her the most intense glare I could possibly pull off. It made me look more constipated than angry, to be honest. God, I hate my baby face.
"Aye, you look like a constipated two-year-old when you're angry," she cooed, pinching my cheeks and practically voicing my thoughts. I immediately smacked her hands away. Pouting I folded my arms over my chest.
"Come mierda," I hissed, scowling at my older sister. She fake gasped and placed her perfectly manicured hand on her chest dramatically.
"¡Qué grosero!" She exclaimed, grabbing my pillow and whacking me with it. I gasped and quickly grabbed another pillow from behind me and whacked back at her. Soon after, we both were in a full-blown pillow fight, hitting each other over and over with our plush weapons. After a few minutes, it was only me repeatedly hitting her with the pillow. I could tell she was tired and a smug grin made its way onto my face. I had won.
"Okay, okay. I give up," she said, raising her hands in mock surrender before collapsing on my bed. I flopped down next to her, tired, too. We both laid there in silence for a while, staring at the ceiling. The only thing to be heard was the sound of our heavy breathing, due to the intense pillow fight. Wow, never thought I would say that. "First day today, huh?"
"Don't remind me," I groaned, dragging my hand down my face. I was absolutely not looking forward to school. Let's just say that I don't have it the easiest there and my good grades don't help the situation.
"Hey, tell me if anyone's giving you a hard time, okay?" My sister said, getting up from the bed. She looked down at me with a sad smile covering her tan face. I nodded, looking down at my hands as fiddled with my fingers. I did that a lot when I was nervous. Since I didn't reply she spoke up again. "Now get ready." She ruffled my hair and gave me a small peck on the forehead before walking out of the room. I loved my sister, even though I'd never admit it. I would rather die than tell her that. Okay, not really. I tell her occasionally.
I walked over to the washroom as I tried to rub out the tiredness in my eyes but it was useless. I turned on the tap and took a hand full of water then splashed it on my face. Some of it managed to get in my nose, causing me to cough and gasp for air. My eyes were watering like crazy due to the extreme stinging sensation in my nose. That is what you get for trying to splash your face as they show in commercials...There should be a 'Don't try this at home' thing each time someone does that.
After I had calmed down from my little "attack," my eyes drifted to the scrawny boy standing inside the mirror. I didn't like the way I looked. I tried to like it but I just couldn't. No matter how much I tried it was still just...me. My grey eyes that were almost black in the middle but turned so pale that at the edges it looked white was covered by curly jet black hair that was messily sticking out in every direction humanly possible, my tan skin was dusted with light freckles, and the scars had noticeably faded on my wrists. I bit my lip as I used my other hand to graze the pale scars that I had given myself. It was a while ago but I still remembered everything as if it had happened just the day before. I was glad that Angela found me but there were some days where I wish she hadn't come home when she did. Days when I wished I was just left there, lying in a pool of my own blood.
I gulped down the lump that was starting to form in my throat and grabbed my toothbrush. For the first few minutes, I just stood there with my toothbrush
sticking out of my mouth as I stared into the mirror. Almost like I was having a staring competition with my reflection but no one was winning.
I snapped out of my daze when I accidentally ended up leaning forward and whacking my toothbrush-holding cup off my sink with a loud crash.
"Carajo," I hissed, picking up the fallen toothbrush holder. If my mom heard me say that word she would whack me on the naglas, claiming that I was a 'disgrace to the Spanish culture' then whack me again. I shuddered at the thought and neatly placed my toothbrush holder back on the sink counter. I raked my hand through my hair, trying to tame the mess with no success. My hair was just like that. No matter how much I tried to get it to calm down it would just go back to its fluffy little curly mess.
I quickly freshened up while trying not to think of all that could possibly happen today. My only mission at that point was to make myself blend in as much as possible. Just blend into the crowds like a shadow. Distance myself from anyone who could possibly hurt me and try to make sure certain people forget I existed. But obviously, that wasn't possible. They would find me one way or another other. And when they did, I would far rather be chucked into oblivion, where no one would find me.
I walked over to my closet and grabbed a grey hoodie with some normal blue jeans and a pair of white sneakers. I didn't do the whole 'comb my hair' thing, so you could probably imagine my curly locks flying every which way. I used to do it but it never really did anything. My hair would just go back to looking disgusting in literally two minutes.
My sister, my mom and I lived in a pretty small apartment so everything was interconnected. As soon as you stepped out of my room, you could see my sister's room; and if you looked to the other side, there's my mom's room. If you took a few steps in the other direction there'd be your living room/kitchen/dining combo room. That might have been a little confusing but you get the gist.
By the time I was done getting "ready" my mom was already wide awake and making breakfast as she talked to my sister about whatever it is they talk about. Even my sister took less time to get ready than me, even though she
actually combes her hair and puts on makeup. I guess I was just slow. I was slow at pretty much everything actually. I couldn't run if my life depended on it and I was even pretty slow at processing things that were happening right in front of my face.
As soon as my mom saw me walk into the room a bright smile spread across her face. "Good morning, papito," she chirped, literally beaming. I always wondered how someone could be so energetic in the morning.
"Good morning, mami," I said, way less enthusiastic than her. Angela took one look at me and gagged. I groaned in annoyance.
"What the hell are you wearing, Luca?" She asked, eyeing my outfit in disgust. "And your hair looks like a freaking rats nest." She did this literally every day. It's like she had assumed the role of making me feel even worse about my outfit.
I simply shrugged and took a seat next to her. "I don't care," I mumbled, placing some pancakes on my plate. I squeezed some syrup (more like the whole bottle) on and dug in.
"You are literally drowning your pancakes in syrup," Angela said, rolling her eyes. "What did they ever do to you, Luca?"
"Stop being so dramatic, hermana," I grumbled, continuing to munch down on my pancakes.
"You know I hate it when you call me that," she huffed, punching me lightly on the shoulder.
"And I hate waking up at bloody six o'clock in the morning to have a pillow fight with you," I retorted. "I guess neither of us gets what we want. Why did you even wake me up in the first place?"
"Because I couldn't get any god damn sleep-"
"Both of you, enough," my mom groaned, sitting down in the other side of the table. "And Luca, mind your language, please,"
"Sorry, mami," I muttered, looking down at my lap. I felt like I was freaking three years old again.
"Okay, chop-chop, time to get to school," my mom said, getting up from the table. I hadn't noticed how time had flown. It felt like it was six o'clock just a second ago but when I glanced at the clock it was already eight thirty-five. I quickly washed my hands and grabbed my backpack before making my way out of the house, trailing closely behind Angela. We lived on the first floor so we always just took the stairs to get to the ground floor. My mother was also pretty keen on exercise, so was my sister. I guess I kinda got used to taking the stairs.
After we made it outside Angela stopped abruptly. She turned around to face me with a mischievous glint in her eyes. "Why don't you drive today Luca?" She asked, throwing me the car keys, which I somehow managed to catch after a small game of 'bouncing the key from one hand to the other trying to stop it from falling to the ground'. I looked at her with my mouth slightly agape. "Come on, little brother. You got your license."
"Yeah, like a freaking week ago!" I scoffed, folding my arms over my chest. That wasn't the only reason I was nervous, though.
"It doesn't matter, hermano," she said, walking over to me and slinging her hand over my shoulder. "You're going to year eleven god damn it."
"Fine," I huffed, walking over to the car in perfect sync with my sister. "But if I crash your car it's not my fault,"
"If you crash my car I will murder you," she said, then she patted my back so hard that I nearly fell face-first onto the ground. "No pressure." I gulped as I narrowed my eyes at my evil sister.
I took a deep breath before getting into the driver's seat with trembling hands. I hesitantly turned on the ignition and the car roared to life. I put it in
drive and quickly moved to grip the steering wheel as hard as possible, slowly making it out of the parking lot of my apartment.
"Luca, stop literally trying to squeeze the life out of my car," Angela said, clearly smirking by the tone of her voice. If I wasn't struggling to drive the car and keep myself alive, I would have killed her by now. "Luca the car isn't going to bite you if you stop gripping the steering wheel so tight."
"Shut up," I said, in a slightly strained voice. She simply laughed at my turmoil. Rude.
After a few more minutes of torture, we reached the school. I didn't try to do any parallel parking shit, mostly because I didn't want to die. I just did the 'whip into a parking space with style' thing, except without the style.
As soon as I put the car in park I let out a huge breath that I didn't even realize I was holding.
"Jeez, you're freaking sweating," Angela said, dabbing away the beads of sweat that had formed on my forehead with a tissue. "Why are you so nervous about driving?" My face immediately paled as I turned to face her. I knew she knew why.
"It's just, you know, the accident with papi," I mumbled as I got out of the car along with my sister. I quickly locked the car and walked towards the school.
"Hey, you know that's because he was drunk driving, right?" She asked, a concerned look covering her face. "Plus, nothing happened to him because of that."
"Mami divorced him because of that," I retorted, folding my arms over my chest while images of the accident flashed before my eyes.
"No, mami divorced him because he was always drunk and refused to get sober. He was hurting her Luca," she said, placing her hand in my shoulder. "It wasn't because of the accident. But yes, it did make things happen a little quicker."
"I guess," I said, dragging 'guess'. "It doesn't matter now anyway. What happened, happened. And everything turned out just fine. It just hurts. Sometimes I feel like strangling him. Why wouldn't he just stop? Leave it. At least mami is happier now."
"I'm glad you're okay because I'm forcing you to drive me everywhere else from now on," she said, smiling at me as she slung her arm over my shoulder.
Soon after, we were standing in front of the two glass doors that would lead me into hell or what people call school. I gulped as I turned to look at my sister who was chatting with a group of her friends who we stumbled across in the parking lot.
"Okay, bye guys," I said, nervously rubbing my palms together. My sister turned her gaze towards me with an encouraging smile.
"It'll be fine," she whispered in my ear. "Bye Luca, I'll see you after school."
I waved at her as she and her friends walked towards their block. Our school was weird that way. Firstly it was a British curriculum school in America. Secondly, each grade from eleven and up was separated in blocks. So the year elevens had their own block, so did the year twelves and the year thirteens.
This meant that I would never see my sister in school due to the weird placement of our blocks. It sucked, but I could manage. It wasn't my first year not seeing her because she was already in a separate block when she moved to year eleven last year.
I slowly pushed open the school door and walked in. Now, the thing is, I have extreme social anxiety. Probably not that surprising to y'all. But, even though I knew nobody was looking at me, I still felt like I was being judged. Like I was being critiqued by someone every second of every day. I pulled my hood up trying to cover as much of my face as possible while walking through the noisy corridors. Everybody was busy chatting away, probably about how "fun" their summer was or about their summer "glow up."
What did I do? Oh well, I did absolutely nothing. Yay! How exciting (sarcasm level 110%). The whole summer I was locked inside my room doing random stuff. I would write, I would blast music or just lay on my bed and binge watch YouTube.
I walked towards my locker and just stood there for a hot minute trying to remember my combination. Was it 53682 or 53672? Or maybe it was 43691? Did I mention that I was extremely forgetful? I forgot basically everything. Even everyday tasks, like taking out the laundry or doing the dishes. It enters through one ear and goes out through the other.
Finally, after trying almost every combination I remembered it and got it unlocked. I shoved all the books that were in my backpack inside, making sure to leave out the ones for first period. We already got our schedules online so we didn't have to do the whole 'come to school on a Sunday to get your schedule' thing. Can I just say that I was so happy that our school sends our schedules online? Because I, for one, do not want to spend my last day of summer at school.
My first class was English, a subject which I absolutely adored. I could spend hours and hours in my room just reading or writing, thinking of random twisted plots. Never completing anything in particular, but always having ideas flood my brain. Writing helps me get away from reality, in a way. It helped me when mami and papi got a divorce. I could get so engrossed in writing that I wouldn't even notice if someone robbed my house. Well, I guess that's actually pretty bad. But it still helped me through a lot.
I walked into my class and sat down at the very back. I hated sitting in the front. The teachers always pick you to answer questions when you sit in front. Not that I couldn't answer the questions. It's just that I get extremely nervous while speaking in front of the whole class. If I were to make a single mistake, I would never live it down. That's just how it works. I still have the nickname 'Littering Luca' because I said 'littering' instead of 'loitering'.
Nobody was in class due to the fact that the bell hadn't rung yet. But, me being me, I always showed up at least ten minutes early. I took pride in my punctuality. Actually, the only time when I was punctual was getting to class.
If you asked me to go get groceries or something at eleven am you'd best believe I'm leaving the house at two pm.
After a few more minutes of doing nothing, the bell rang, snapping me out of my thoughts. People started flooding into the classroom. Thankfully no one who was particularly fond of picking on me was present in class so far. Then, probably due to my stupid thinking, one of the schools biggest bullies—Jordan Harrington—strolled right in with his backpack slung carelessly over his shoulder and his messy hair looking as good as ever. Oh, how I despise him.
The whole class was just talking to each other and doing normal school things like trying to write shit on the desks with permanent markers and sticking gum under the tables. You know, nothing too crazy.
After another two or three minutes of waiting, our English teacher walked in. I easily recognized her since she was my English teacher in year nine. I was so relieved that we got her. She was one of my favourite English teachers of all time.
"Good morning, class," she said, smiling warmly at us. "My name is Ms Christine and I will be your English teacher for the year. Some of you may know me since I used to teach your batch in year nine then left school because of an emergency. But now I'm back and better than ever."
Everybody liked Ms Christine. She was a pretty laid back teacher and she taught extremely well. She was the one who encouraged me to start writing and I will forever be grateful for that.
Before she could go on with her introduction, the door was flung open. Everybody's gaze snapped towards the two people standing at the door. The first thing I noticed was that one of the two was holding a cane of some sort. It looked almost like a white cane that blind people used to walk.
My gaze slowly drifted to his eyes and the only thing that I can say about them was that they were absolutely stunning. They were bright green and golden with a rich brown pigment rimming his irises. I had never seen
someone with such unique eyes. My eyes were also pretty different, but his rich bright tones contrasted wildly with my neutral ones.
The other person was Iris. She was super sweet, nice and she was extremely popular, considering she was the captain of the cheer team. Usually, nice and popular never come in the same sentence, but for her, it was definitely an exception. I also have to admit that she was stunning, with her gorgeous black hair and her bright blue eyes.
"Hi, you must be Tyler?" Ms Christine asked, smiling at both of them. Tyler's gaze immediately shifted to the ground looking very uncomfortable. I could practically feel the awkwardness radiating off of him.
"Yes, this is Tyler and I'm Iris," Iris cut in, beaming at Ms Christine. Iris was always super peppy and energetic. She was like that typical cheerleader character in movies the only difference was that she was not evil on the inside. Tyler was holding on to Iris' elbow like he was holding on for dear life.
"Alright, Iris. Take a seat next to Casey," Ms Christine said. "And Tyler why don't you go sit with Luca at the back," Oh no. social-anxiety and helping the new kid, don't exactly go together.
Also, if you're wondering why she didn't just let both of them sit together, it's because our school has this weird rule where girls and boys couldn't sit together in class. Apparently, it was "distracting." I honestly thought it was stupid.
Tyler slowly walked through the narrow tables clicking his walking stick on the ground. everybody's gazes were pointed at the poor, nervous kid. Just then I noticed Jordan put his stupid foot in front of Tyler causing him to trip and fall down. His face immediately shifted to a look of panic as he felt around for his cane which was across the room. I wanted to help but for some reason, I didn't budge from my seat. I think it was probably because I was too nervous to get involved with any issues that involved Jordan.
Iris immediately rushed towards him and helped him up, shooting Jordan a death glare. Jordan simply smirked at her before pretending to read his text
book innocently. That little ass. Ms Christine didn't notice what Jordan had done but she did come to help Tyler up.
Finally, he got up and I noticed that his face was flushed red with embarrassment. When he finally managed to reach the back, he felt around for the seat and sat down next to me. He felt around his bag and zipped it open before grabbing his textbook. It was clear that his textbook was in braille. Throughout this whole thing, my gaze was on the new boy.
"Is anything wrong?" he asked, not taking his eyes off the textbook. A surprised look covering my face. "Because it's pretty obvious that you're staring at me. Am I making you uncomfortable?"
"I-what? No-I-It's just-," I fumbled, sheepishly rubbing the back of my neck. Stupid, stupid Luca.
"It's okay, Luca," he said, smiling. I immediately felt a surge of relief flood through my body. The last thing I wanted to do was offend someone. "I was just messing with you. You seem like a nice guy,"
"I-er, thanks?" I stuttered, mentally face-palming. What was wrong with me? "Sorry,"
Tyler just laughed at my awkwardness. Rude.
• • •
Hope y'all liked that long ass chapter.
It took me awhile to write this with my exams going on. I hope y'all like it!
What do y'all think of Luca?
-Anya