Lastly, I’d like to take you back to the first neighborhood I showed you. I’ll be showing you the same neighborhood as Andy’s and his friends’ but on another side of it. On this side, the people were colder and they barely spoke to anyone. There was the lack of a sense of community. Tony, the character you are about to meet, barely knew any of his neighbors, well he had just moved, but that wouldn’t change the attitude of those who resided near him. Neither did his parents, but that didn’t really matter because they weren’t at home.

Tony’s mother was in Australia, on a business trip that lasted longer than she promised. His father, on the other hand, was in America, working as a doctor. He lived with his sister, who wasn’t home that much either. Most of the time, he was alone with the house help, who were busily cleaning the house and cooking.

He didn’t mind, or at least said he didn’t. As sad as it sounded, he was fine with being alone. He had all he needed and more materialistically. It was okay.

Currently, he sat alone in his room.

“Sir?” the maid knocked.

“Yes? What is it?”

The maid replied timidly, “Your mom’s home.”

Tony sighed. She really picked now out of all times for her to come home. He smiled and motioned for the maid to leave.

Being honest, panic went through Tony. How was he going to tell her that he had gotten kicked out? He had hid it from both his parents all this time, what now? And that’s leaving out the fact that he had been held back a year. They had blindly sent him money to repeat a year and now they’d have to find a new school.

“Ma,” Tony called.

“Tony, anak. Hi.”

His mother took him into a hug that was too short-lived for Tony, who had seen her for the first time in a really long time. They both sat down by the table.

His mother asked the maid to make some coffee.

“So,” she began, “how’s school?”

“It’s summer, well, the last day of it, anyway.”

“Oh! Sorry. What section will you be in next year?” His mother asked.

Tony replied, “I don’t know.”

His mother’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion and she set her coffee down.

“What do you mean?”

“I was kicked out.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

Tony doesn’t reply. What else is there to say? His mother won’t care for the reason, clearly. She doesn’t ask. She just takes another sip of her coffee and sighs.

“Go to that school everyone’s talking about.”

“I’m sorry?” Tony didn’t plan on going to a new school. Homeschool would’ve been his best option, wouldn’t it?

Being honest, he didn’t even know what she was talking about. What school? He was too wrapped up in his own problems that he couldn’t give time for the neighborhood’s talk.

“Asernam… Asernam College, is it?”

Oh. That school. He’s heard about it, people saying it’s a great school, but the thought of moving there made him quite uneasy.

It was the last day of summer, Tony had this day to enroll, he assumed. His mother, so full of disappointment and lacking the space in her heart to understand or even ask the reason, refused to accompany him. Thus, he gathered his requirements, what he had anyway, and decided to drive there on his own.

He figured it wouldn’t be that bad to go alone for he had been alone most of his life. Maybe that’s what made moving to a new school unnerving. He was scared that he’d be alone again, more alone than he already was. He had friends in his old school. Well, come to think of it, he couldn’t really tell if they were friends. More often than not, they used him. Not to mention that they ditched him whenever he’d get into trouble.

Speaking of trouble, he got kicked out because he got into trouble for something that shouldn’t have earned him an offense form much less expulsion from school.

There was a certain teacher who he didn’t see eye-to-eye with at all. And for good reason, that teacher was mean and almost abusive. Tony thought teachers weren’t allowed to hit or humiliate their students anymore.

One day he said something that got him expelled. Tony spent the next few days trying to figure out why that upset him so much.

The class was to choose their candidates for next year and the teacher had made a joke, which was only funny to the other students, that he would be president. This set off Tony as if he were a bomb. He had had enough of watching him terrorize students.

“You’re a dictator not a president, sir,” he told the teacher.

The teacher said nothing except for him to exit the classroom and go home. Tony did so gladly. He received his letter that confirmed his expulsion the next day.

He hadn’t realized the gravity of his situation until a few days after, when his classmates were graduating. He saw them, happy, basking in the sweet feeling of their own success. And he was at home, scrolling through his Twitter timeline. He felt a little more of his default loneliness but what bothered him was how he was going to explain his lack of a diploma for two years to his parents. He just hoped they wouldn’t care enough to ask.

He thought about this as he drove. Then, as he passed by a playground that he had seen probably twice, he saw a group of friends who he had yet to meet, if ever he would. He had just moved to the neighborhood last year.

As you would expect, he saw Andy, Aria, Lee, and Greg. They were laughing and talking. They were enjoying themselves. Tony’s heart sank. Envy shot through him. He slowed down and looked for a second. It was a strange feeling. He felt like he was being pulled towards them. Like he just had to go over there. He almost felt like it was meant to be. That sounded corny but that’s exactly how it felt. He felt this strange attachment and as he passed by them, he felt like something was going to happen. Like things were about to change.

He shrugged it off. There he was again, with the delusions that he’d finally have people around him to make him feel less alone. He continued to drive at his previous pace. He shook his head dismissively as he began to feel tears and a lump in his throat. He felt so alone. He decided to no longer care.

He enrolled himself. Everything seemed monotone now. Everything seemed black and white. Even the people he talked to seemed tired and indifferent. Perhaps, he thought, this was better. Maybe he was better off being apathetic. And that’s exactly what he’ll be from now on.