Something's Not Right Here

I've always wanted to get out of this city; to most onto something bigger, something better, something less…like this. Perhaps my only problem is that I've never been to any of those bigger or better places, and I don’t exactly know what constitutes ‘bigger and better’. A lot of people come here, to this crappy little city, because they see it as a better place from where they came. And that may be for them, but this city is my worst form of torture. I don’t fit in here; I never have and I never will. I'm so different than the people I know and hang out with, but I try to hide it so that I might fit in better. I don’t like not being me, but I like it better than betting beat up every day for being even more different than I already am.

Of course, I've never had a very normal life. I can’t say it’s been a bad life, but nobody is really going to have a normal life when their mother is a prostitute, now will they? She’s the greatest mom I could ever wish to have, but she’s been in the business since she was twelve and she had me when she had me when she was thirteen, so she’s only thirty-one. There are a lot of upsides to having such a young mom – she understands things more, for one – but there are quite a few down sides to it too. The worst is when my friends comment crudely about her or hit on her. They never seem to get the idea that it bothers me. It’s also rough having to see her with so many men, but she is good at what she does. That in turn means that she makes more money than the average prostitute does, which is really good because she still has to take care of me.

Her parents disowned her, and in turn me, when they found out that she got into the business at age twelve, and she’s basically been on her own since then, with the obvious exception of me. I've never met my father, and I don’t even think my mom knows who he is either, but I've never quite wanted to know him. I would like to thank him, though, for he must have had some amazing genes that he passed along to me. I've got straight A’s in all of my classes, some of which are honors courses, and I always have gotten straight A’s. I'm also a first string football player, lead percussionist in the band, and one of the most popular kids at Northview High.

Of course, all of that along with the fact that I'm one of maybe twenty-five white kids in a school of over one thousand students really makes me stick out of the crowd. That’s part of the reason I don’t generally broadcast my grades across school. I usually hide the really good marks from my friends and only occasionally show them some of my lowest ones. The thing is, my lowest grade o all time was a 77 percent on a sixth grade spelling test, so my friends are even jealous of my low marks. My name doesn’t help too much with the blending in either. Arias Severin Peters, pronounced ah-rye-ahs sev-er-en. Very unusual indeed and I never have figured out why my mother ever chose to give it to me, but I like it. It seems to fit me, as every name should fit its owner.

Now you might see why I want to get out of this town so desperately. I've got the brains and grades of ten of my classmates combined, I have better speech than half of my teachers, let alone the students, and I still use false grammar and pronunciation just so I won’t feel like I'm as much of an outcast as I should be. I'm a blonde haired, blue eyed, little, white boy in a school full of dark skinned, dark haired, tough guys, and somehow I'm one of the most respected, most liked kids at Northview. There’s only one other white guy in our group of friends and he’s only half white. I'm the leader of the group. Hell, I'm basically the leader of the whole freaking school. I don’t get it and I never have, so I don’t think I ever will. I have been trying to figure it out for a long time, and I still haven’t the slightest idea.