Harry

I've never dreaded school as much as I have now.

Even worse, it turned out exactly like I expected. After third period, everywhere I looked, people were whispering and looking at me. I ignored it as best I could, but it was weighing down on me.

I found myself hiding in the library during lunch period. I couldn't face the other juniors like this. My friends, guys from the team, anyone I knew would be asking me what was going on, and I did not want to talk about it. I had to silence my phone after so many messages flooded in.

The teachers were torturing me with these stupid icebreakers. Almost all my classes had one. People kept asking me and joking about Diana and Amy. It was all I could do to not start a fight.

My ASL teacher signed, 'Switch', prompting the class to move to a different person to talk to. Thankfully, it was a small class.

I sat with a redheaded girl next, waving, 'Hello'. It was the quietest icebreaker I'd done so far.

The teacher signed 'Start', resetting the timer.

"Hi, my name is E-M-I-L-Y, what's your name?" the girl signed.

"H-A-R-R-Y," I spelled.

"Nice to meet you. I'm new here."

That was a relief. Hopefully she wouldn't have heard too much about my family yet.

"Welcome to S-U-M-M-I-T." I subtly glanced at the clock behind her. It was 12:10— after this girl, class would be over. I was desperate for the day to end.

Maybe I could go online instead... never mind. I needed football, so I'd be here anyway.

I felt like Job. One bad thing after another. My sister got sick, then she passed, then my parents wanted to foster a strange kid, then we got Diana, now she's here...

She would definitely find out the truth. I wasn't sure what to do. It was hard to tell her that she was being used by grieving parents. Just thinking about it made me feel so disgusted and ashamed. I didn't understand why all this had to happen.

Maybe we were that mean to Amy. When we were little, we got along great, but as we got older, we fought more and more. It started to get more unhealthy, less like regular sibling rivalry and more like a divided family. Us against her.

During the pandemic, we were just starting to get along, getting used to being around each other, but as soon as school restarted in-person classes, our relationship regressed to the way it was.

Emily signed the members of her family; her mom and her cat, Buckles. She then asked who my family was.

The bell rang, saving me. The teacher signed 'Finish', then started talking. "Okay, we'll continue on Thursday. Have a good first day, everyone."

"Too bad," Emily said aloud. "It was nice meeting you, Harry."

"You, too." I grabbed my bag and headed out before she could follow up on her question.

Next class was Psychology, normally my favorite. It was the career I wanted to follow. I wasn't sure about going to Greenfield, but my 'dream school' was too expensive and far. Maybe Waterford would have a good program...

An arm suddenly weighed down on my shoulders, startling me, and a familiar face smiled next to me. I groaned and shrugged him off. "What do you want, Lucas?"

"Nice to see you, too."

"Whatever."

He put his arm around me again. "How was your summer?"

I glared at him.

"What? I'm just asking."

"How do you think it went, you idiot?" I pushed him away again.

"Oh... yeah. Sorry." He shrugged. "Anyway... did you hear about this new girl?"

"What new girl?"

"A particular one..." He pulled out his phone and opened a picture. "That looks pretty familiar." He showed me. It was a sneak picture of Diana in the hallway.

"Oh."

"Oh? So, who is she?"

"How should I know?" I tried to act clueless.

"Linda told me she saw you get on the bus with her."

"Yeah, she's... some girl."

"So you don't know her?"

What would I do? They saw us walking to the stop with her, and they'd see us going home with her. She probably already told others she was with us, anyway.

"And Sam told me your parents were going to get a foster kid," Lucas added.

"He told you that?"

"Did you tell him to not say anything?"

"... No, but-"

"Ah..." Lucas chuckled, patting my shoulder. "We're making the connections here. I feel like a detective."

I muttered an insulting name under my breath and walked faster, approaching my classroom. "Look, I don't want to talk about this right now."

"You'll have to, eventually." Lucas laughed as he turned away. I sighed and went into my class, slumping into a desk.

Looking up, I saw a girl staring at me, standing right next to me. "Um... hi?"

"Excuse me." She went to the desk behind me.

Realizing I'd blocked her, I quickly turned. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't see you, I swear."

"You're good."

She looked familiar... where did I see her?

"Good morning." Our teacher entered. Everyone sat down. He wrote his name on the whiteboard and smiled at us. "Hello, everyone. For those of you that don't know me, I'm Professor Gus." He pointed at his name. "Those that took Psychology 1 or 2 last year might remember me."

He wrote 'Discussion' below his name. "Now, since it's the first day, all we're going to do is have a little Discussion round so you can all get to know each other and reconnect with your old classmates. Every day, we're going to have a 10-minute discussion round. After that, we'll proceed with the class. So... two groups of..." He counted us. "One group of 7 and one of 6. I'll join the smaller group."

Everyone moved their desks into two circles. The familiar girl sat next to me. One of the seniors in my group started the conversation.

"Okay. Hey, guys. Um... so I guess we'll just say stuff about ourselves. I'm Grant Peterson, I'm a senior, and I'm going to Barlow U next year." He motioned for the girl next to him to continue. The introductions soon reached me.

I shifted in my seat. "I'm Harry Field, I'm a junior. Um... I'm 17. And I like to play drums and football." I looked at the girl.

"I'm Mildred Dawson. I'm a junior, too. I'm 17. And... I like hip-hop... and I used to go to Lawson High, but it's the worst. So I'm here now."

"I think we can all agree that Lawson's the worst," Grant chuckled. "We get new people from there all the time."

Mom wanted to send Diana there... if it was that bad, where would she be better off? Maybe she could go to a different district? She would take a different bus and all.

I didn't want Diana to suffer. I didn't... hate her. I was mostly mad at my parents. We all were. But they wanted us all to 'get along', like we could just go back to normal. It wasn't fair.

Amy wasn't a lost book or phone that could be replaced. Or a dead pet that could be replaced with a different one. She was a person. She was my baby sister.

When the period ended, everyone returned their desks to the way they were and left. I dropped my phone as I put on my bag. Mildred picked it up and gave it to me.

"Thanks." I took the phone.

"You know, you looked familiar... are you on my bus, by any chance?" she asked.

"I... might be. I take the bus. I thought I saw you before."

"Nice to meet you." She flashed a smile.

"You too." We started towards the door. "Hey, about Lawson... is it really that bad?"

She only nodded and laughed.

"How so?" I asked.

"The teachers are jerks, the people are worse. I can't believe you haven't heard of it. People send their 'problematic kids' to that school. I went there because it was closer and I could walk, but in the end, I was begging my parents to transfer me. I don't have any friends to miss."

"That's crazy." So, not a good place for Diana.

"Hopefully this school's better?"

"It's not Lawson." I chuckled.

She giggled, her smile flashing again. She was really cute.

Thoughts?