A Life So Hard - 3. Chapter 3

*Buzz*

 

*Buzz*

 

I groaned and reached over to turn off my alarm clock. Rubbing my eyes, I saw it was 6:30 AM, and I was not impressed. I hit the off button and, with a sigh, rested my head back on my pillow. Rain woke up from all the disturbance and gave a meow to say good morning.

 

“Hello Rain.” I said out loud. Sometimes I talked to her, wishing she could reply back. She’s been my best friend, and my only friend, for so long, that it tends to get really lonely. I try not to let the loneliness get to me, and any outsider would probably never guess, but deep down it tore apart my soul. “Time to get up, I suppose.”

 

She head butted me in reply, as if to say, “Yes, you should. Get your ass out of bed. By the way, I love you.”

 

With another groan (I’m not a morning person, if you couldn’t tell already) I got out of bed and started my morning routine. Thankfully, by the time I had finished breakfast, I had woken up enough that I could at least have a decent conversation. Elizabeth was asking me about school as I had breakfast. She kept asking me questions about how I felt and if I was excited. After a few grunts she got the hint that I didn’t want to talk about it and left me be.

 

With my stomach satisfied, I went to have a shower. Once the water’s temperature was just right, I began to strip off my pajamas. Once I was completely naked I stepped in and savored the feeling of the warm water hitting my smooth, exposed skin. I just stood there for a few minutes, letting the warmth of the water soak in and sooth me. My thoughts began to drift, so I quickly grabbed the soap to bring me back to reality. I moved my hand over my bare chest. I was skinny, but I had a nice, well-defined chest. My mind began to drift again as I began to soap up my legs. By the time my hand was back over my stomach, rubbing soap on it, I was thinking about Brian again.

 

I thought about his eyes, and how they had sparkled. I thought about his face and how cute it was. Without realizing what I was doing, my soap covered hand was slowly beginning to rub up and down my shaft. As I began to slowly mentally undress him, the motion of my soapy hand steadily increased in speed. By the time he was naked and in the shower with me, my hand was moving feverishly fast. Before I knew it, the buildup of pleasure exploded out of me and I felt my knees weaken below me.

 

With a gasp, I began to gather myself again and catch my breath. I looked down and saw evidence of what I just did all over the floor of the bathtub. I quickly made sure it all washed down the drain. With that out of the way, I began to soap my back but my thoughts once again turned to Brian. As my hands reached my butt cheeks, once again Brian was in the shower with me. It felt like wherever I moved my hands, it was actually Brian doing it. I felt him rub the soap all over my butt. He made sure to hold each of my cheeks and ensure they were thoroughly soaped up. I then felt him move the soap between them, along my crack. The sensation made me shiver, it felt so good. Rubbing the soap up and down made me moan ever so slightly in response. Shortly, the soap was abandoned and he was using his hands to work. The feeling of the soap was nothing compared to feeling his hands touching me in such a way. Slowly, I felt a soapy finger inch its way inside of me, and at that point I lost it again.

 

Groaning, I leaned into the wall and felt myself have another powerful orgasm. Thoroughly out of breath, I leaned against the wall for another full minute while I composed myself. I let out a “wow” between gasps for breath -- it was the only word to describe what I felt -- and got to work cleaning up the evidence once again.

 

A few minutes later I stepped out of the shower and started to towel myself off. Once I was dry, I wrapped the towel around my waist and headed into my room. Closing the door behind me, I looked to make sure the curtains were closed before I dropped my towel.

 

I scurried around my room, trying to decide what to wear on my first day before I froze to death from the cool air flowing over my skin. After throwing on some underwear and socks, I finally decided on a pair of skinnier jeans and a dark blue shirt. I stepped back into my washroom to brush my teeth and couldn’t help but admire myself in the mirror. I put my hands on my hips and admired the clothes I had on.

 

“You look sexy today, Andrew.” I said to my reflection uncharacteristically. I was in a great mood and couldn’t contain myself. I swayed back and forth, hands still on my hips. I half-turned and partially mooned the mirror. “Oh, yeah, work that.” I teased myself. “So sexy.”

 

With a smile on my face I headed back into my room, grabbed my backpack then met my dad at the bottom of the stairs. I put on my shoes, getting ready to leave as he gave me the customary lecture and send off.

 

“This is your first day of school, so try to place nice with the other kids.” He warned me, but with a touch of humor in his words. “I know you’ve had problems talking to other people your age before, but this is a fresh start, so try to relax a little.”

 

He took that moment to rub my head, effectively ruining my styled hair. “Just relax and have fun. I promise you that if you just act like yourself, everyone will fall in love with you. You’ll have girls crawling all over you by days end.”

 

I laughed as I grabbed the car keys dangling from his hand. “Thanks Dad.” I yelled back as the door closed behind me. “Let’s see.” I mused to myself, as I entered in the address for Westwood Senior High School. With the directions queued up, the car roared to life and I was on my way. After a short drive, I had finally arrived at the place that would own my soul for the next 10 months. It looked like any other high school, which was an odd surprise to me. American high schools on the television were always absolutely massive and had their own football stadium and crazy stuff like that. This looked like a regular, average high school.

 

I parked in the student parking lot and made my way to the front doors. I saw a small group of people standing under a tree, in the shade, sharing a cigarette. Without even realizing it, my face was plastered with a look of utter disgust. Once I realized how snobby I looked, I quickly tried to relax.

 

“Andrew, jeez. What are you trying to do?” I thought to myself. “Don’t want to piss people off and have them think you have a superiority complex.”

 

Stopping for a moment. I took a deep breath and mentally collected myself. With a renewed smile, I happily walked through the front doors and headed for the office.

 

I walked in and went to the secretary. “Hi. my name is Andrew Porter. I’m newly registered here. My Dad didn’t tell me to check in or anything, I just want to make sure everything is straightened away.”

 

“Let me see...” She said, putting on her glasses, starting to sift through a stack of folders on her desk. “...Ah, yes. I’ve found you. Porter, Andrew. Yes, dear. Everything is in order. Have yourself a great day and welcome to Westwood Senior High.” She looked at me when she said the last bit and had the sweetest old woman smile ever.

 

With that knowledge, I pulled out my schedule from my back pocket and began to figure out where my homeroom class was. Luckily, the school’s classrooms were numbered in an intelligible, logical way and I found my class relatively quickly. As I entered, I noticed two pairs quietly talking. They looked up at me then went back to their conversations. After hesitating for just a minute I quietly went to the back of the class and sat down.

 

I watched as the rest of the people in my home room filtered in. I like observing people, to see what they do and how they do it. I used to be really sociable, but now I tend to remove myself from any social situation I encounter. I’ve lost the comfort I used to have when talking to someone, it was stripped away from me and now I’m most comfortable sitting back, alone, observing. I was only half watching the people around me, lost in thought, when I noticed Brian walked into the classroom.

 

My eyes fixed on him as I watched him take a seat. He was with some friends that I didn’t recognize, and thankfully none of them noticed me staring. He took his seat, near the front. Only a handful more people slowly filtered into the room. As the bell went, my new homeroom teacher power walked in and sat down at the desk as the door slammed shut behind him.

 

“Good morning class, I’ll be your homeroom teacher for the year, and we’ll share first period together as well. I don’t know if any of you are aware, but we have a new student joining us. He just arrived a few days ago from up north, in Canada.”

 

Oh no. Not this. The stupid “introduce yourself” bullshit. I felt my stomach drop to the floor.

 

“Andrew? Where are you? Please stand up. Introduce yourself to us, please.”

 

I slowly stood up and cleared my throat. I stood up and felt the chair slide back as all eyes in the class turned to look at me. “Uhm. Well. My name is Andrew. Like it was just said, I’m from Canada.” I cleared my throat again and refused to look at Brian. “Again, like it was just said, I’ve moved here from Canada and I’ve only been here for like... three days. I do like it here so far.” I was sweating bullets, I hate being the center of attention.

 

In a desperate attempt to end this torture I quickly added, “So... If anyone else has any questions, just, uh.. ask. I guess. Thanks?”

 

Quickly I sat down and wiped the sweat that was beginning to form on my forehead. I put my shaking hands on my desk, palm down, to try and regather myself. Mentally preparing myself for the potential impending disaster, I looked up at Brian. I was expecting anger, or something along those lines; instead, I was met with a look of confusion and sadness. His eyes were indescribable. All I knew is that I didn’t like to see his eyes like that, and I wanted to do everything in my power to make sure he never looked at me like that again.

 

This confused me, my feeling this way towards him, but more importantly, it angered me.

 

Before I was able to look deeper into my emotions, the teacher piped up again. “Er. Thank you, Andrew for that... information.”

 

He went on to give the generic lecture that all teachers give on the first day. All my classes were like that, pretty much. Each teacher gave their own, personal classroom rules (which were all pretty much the same, anyways) and each of them explained the subject and talked about what the semester would be like. It was a pretty standard and boring day, until I got to gym.

 

I shared with Brian homeroom (1st period), 3rd period English and Gym. When it came time to go to Gym, I made sure I was the first one to arrive to the class, and I went immediately up to the teacher to explain my situation.

 

“Hi Coach.” I said, as I approached the man in white with a whistle around his neck.

 

“Oh, hello son. What can I do for you?” He replied back in a friendly manner.

 

“My name is Andrew. The office should have spoken to you already, but I have some paperwork for you.” I explained to him, with killer politeness.

 

“Oh, yes. Right. They mentioned the general situation. Come over to the side so we can talk with a little more privacy.” He said, motioning me to follow him to the benches.

 

We both sat down and I explained generally what was going on. After I handed Coach the papers that Dad had given me, I waited for him to finish reading them. As I sat there, waiting, I watched as the rest of the class filtered through. Some faces I recognized and some I didn’t. I recognized one guy from my second period class. Jason I think his name was. No... Jesse. Yeah, Jesse. As I was mentally trying to assign names to as many faces as I could, I noticed Brian. He was staring at me, with an odd look in his face; he was curious about what I was doing and what the coach was reading, I guess.

 

“Okay. What I’m going to get you to do Andrew is sit down with the class, since we’re only going to be talking anyways. You came in quick, so your class before this is close by?” He asked.

 

“Yeah, right around the corner.” I told him, answering his question.

 

“Okay, good. What you’re going to do for now on is come in as quickly as you can and help me setup for the day. There will be a few times when we will be using nets for volleyball and stuff. I don’t think you should have a problem with that, and if you do I can get someone else to help.” He explained to me.

 

“Sounds good, sir.” I replied.

 

He stood up and called the class over to where we had been sitting. I sat down with everyone else and we listened for the next half hour while we were lectured about sports, safety practices and a bunch of other crap that was boring.

 

During the speech, I was acutely aware that Brian was sitting right beside me, but I chose to ignore him and remain laser focused on what was being said. I felt a tap on my knee. Ignored it. Another tap on my knee. Ignored. A third tap on my knee, more urgent this time. Followed by a whisper.

 

“Psst. What was that all about with Coach?” Brian hissed at me, trying to not disturb anyone else, since we were sitting on the edge of the group.

 

I remained steadfast in my decision to ignore him.

 

“What the hell, dude?” He whispered again, a little louder.

 

I continued to ignore him. But, I was well aware of the fact that he was getting ticked off.

 

He leaned in closer and whispered to me again, “Earth to Andrew. Hello!”

 

He said “Hello” a little too loudly and Coach picked up on his talking. In classic teacher fashion he called Brian out on talking when he was talking and embarrassed him quite a bit. Shortly after Coach was done with what he had to say, a spontaneous game of dodgeball broke out. I opted to sit on the bench and watch until the last bell of the day rang, signally a conclusion to the first day of school. Since there wasn’t that much physical activity, nobody bothered using the showers. I had my backpack with me so I was able to leave immediately, whereas everyone else has to go to the corner and grab their backs, which they had piled there when the game of dodgeball started.

 

I left the gym quickly and hastily made my way through the increasingly crowded halls, eager to get home. I was all the way out in the parking lot when someone grabbed the strap of my backpack and turned me around. It was Brian.

 

“What the hell, dude.” He asked me, between pants. “You left so quickly, I had to practically run to catch up. What was with you and the coach talking?” He grilled me.

 

“None of your freakin’ business.” I rebuffed, angry. “If I wanted you to know, you would have been invited into the conversation.”

 

“Dude, what the hell is your problem? I’ve been nothing but nice to you.” He looked me directly in the eyes when he said that. There were so many emotions showing in his eyes that it was overwhelming me.

 

I didn’t have anything to say, so I just turned around and kept walking. He followed me, naturally, but I continued to ignore him. Hastily, I opened my car door, sat down and sped off. In a matter of two days I had twice left him standing in the parking lot in dumbfounded shock.

 

When I got home, dad asked me how my day was. I was too lost in thought to give a reply, not that there was really much to say. “Oh, you know, it’s just the standard first day of school. Nothing big or special happened.” I told him, which was apparently a sufficient answer. I went upstairs and heard him shout up to me that dinner was going to be ready at 5:30.

 

That night and the rest of my first week wasn’t all that exciting academically. Nobody had assigned homework for the first night, so I spent most of the night bored. I played Zelda for a while, but it got kind of boring pretty fast. The second day of school wasn’t anything particularly riveting and again there wasn’t any homework assigned.

 

Finally by Wednesday I had something to do at home, even if it was only reading the first chapter of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It sucks, by the way. Thursday and Friday the homework load increased as expected, but again... pretty uneventful.

 

So the first week of school -- academically at least -- wasn’t much worth noting. The lunch periods, on the other hand, were much more interesting.

 

My personal philosophy when it comes to conversation is simple: whoever starts the conversation owns it. If I walk up to you and say hi (which probably will never happen, by the way), then it’s my responsibility to keep the conversation active, since I started it. That person was quite content and happy without me trying to talk to them and I disturbed their activity by initiating conversation so I’ll be damned if I inconvenience them by letting it go flat in a matter of moments. On the flip side, if someone tries to talk to me, I don’t make much of an effort to talk back. Since they’ve decided to make me stop what I was doing and focusing on them, then they better have enough conversation material to keep me sufficiently occupied.

 

On the first day of school, I opted to sit at a table by myself. I didn’t know anyone, so why would I try to sit at a random table with a group of complete strangers? That’s just asking for trouble, so many things could go wrong. So, I was sitting by myself, or at least trying to. It felt like my table was a revolving door because every 5 minutes of my entire hour lunch, I was entertaining questions about me, why I’m here and where I came from. I remember one such conversation and it makes me laugh.

 

“Hey there buddy.” The stranger that just sat down uninvited, greeted me, wearing a fake smile.

 

“Hi.” I replied.

 

“So, you’re really from Canada, eh?” He asked me, putting extra emphasis on the last word.

 

“Yes.” I replied back flatly. At this point I was biting my tongue. I didn’t want to make the two rude comments that were on the tip of my tongue.

 

With a completely straight face, he asked me “Is it true all of you live in igloos?”

 

“No.” I snapped back. I was getting pissed off, so I decided I’d make him go away before I got even more irritated. “I’m trying to eat here. Is there anything important you want to ask me or can I have some peace. Please.” I added the last part just to sound even worse.

 

He recoiled and looked angry. “Jeez. I guess it’s not true that all Canadians are nice people.” He grumbled. With that, he grabbed his food, shot me a dirty look and was gone.

 

Tuesday was almost as bad. Jesse came by and I tried to be more civil because I wanted him around, at least for a minute or two. What can I say, he was nice on the eyes. I admit, after we introduced ourselves and he got up to leave, the view from behind wasn’t half bad either.

 

Wednesday was much better, and it seemed that by Friday everyone was starting to get the hint.

 

With my first week under my belt, I wasn’t quite sure what was happening. I came here with the intention of becoming a new person, acting differently. I’ve too easily slipped into my old anti-social habits. Curled up in bed with Rain right beside me, I closed my eyes and drifted off, wondering if being the anti-social person I’ve always been was the way to go.