I take a bite of the food, and immediately gag. This is gross, it tastes better than my old schools don’t get me wrong, but i absolutely HATE school food. As i’m mentally puking, i see my friend walking past the lunchroom in the hall. She’s the one i met in the after school thing i’m going to today. 

I wave at her, she looks at me and smiles and excitingly waves back. Her name is Lyssa, she’s a 6th grader. Her and i met at ironically at the after school program. Why is this ironic? Because its a christian after school program, and she locked me in a dark bathroom to play bloody Mary with her. I was terrified being i had just started the 7th grade and was still afraid of things like the dark, creepypastas, and anything remotely scary. But anyways, her and i have been friends for 5-6 months now.

She makes hand signs for me to come out there, i didn’t know if this was allowed but my new friends also went to see her, she gives me a hug and says “You’re really here!” I smile at her, smiling feels weird. But it turns out my new friends and her have been friends since the school year started. Thats cool. The odd part of this is these kids seems to be the outcasts/not liked very much. My whole goal here was to not seem weird and get bullied, but i’m really quiet so i don’t think i have to worry about that. Besides if they’re outcasts, my goal here is to fix them, and prevent everyone from being like me. 

The bell rings, it’s time to go grab our stuff and head to our electives.

When we go back to class our math teacher tells us we have a quiz this Friday. She tells me since i already did this at my old school i don’t have to take it, i don’t want too, but at my old school i completely failed this quiz. My grades on tests were always 60’s through 50’s, but it could be because i was getting bullied and had a lot more on my mind, being bullied wasn't the biggest issue for me since i’ve gotten picked on since the 2nd grade. The bigger issue was my brother, and my living situation. 

He was always in trouble, he has been on probation for almost two years now, and was constantly running away, missing school, or missing in general. The people we were living with were messy, i was too but i can only be a mess to a certain limit. The house wreaked of dog pee, no one would clean anything (except for my mom), and the owners always talked shit about everyone. Right before we moved they were talking about my brother behind his back, to be honest i don’t care what they were saying but he’s my brother and the only person who had cared about me growing up. 

I snapped. I started screaming at them telling them they wouldn’t like it if we said those things about them, i don’t remember some of what i said because i had blacked out multiple times. It was the first time anyone had heard me burst out yelling for anything, i'm usually always quiet. It scared my friend who was their daughter, well, daughter and stepdaughter. 

The bell rings, class dismissed.