I'm New to This

I put on some clothes. Then I looked down at them, and decided to change. I put on a pull-over sweater and some soft blue skinny jeans. I scrunched my lips to the side, wondering what my first day of school would be like. I wiggled my nose and felt my septum move accordingly, then I proceeded to play with my lip piercing. I knew they wouldn’t go down very well with the authority at my new school, seeing how there was already uniforms. I assumed I would have to take both jewelry out during the school day, but as for my gauges, I don’t know. I thought that I could put in flesh colored plugs and hope no one would notice, but I don’t know.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the stairs.

“You ready, Felix?” My dad called up to me. I looked down and instantly stopped fidgeting with everything. I quickly descended the stairs, meeting my dad at the bottom of them.

“I guess,” I huffed, finally answering his question.

“Don’t worry about it, son. You’re not actually going to class today, we’re just going to get everything set up.”

“This sucks. I just finished my school year, and now I have to start in the middle of a new one.” I mumbled. My dad smiled and wrapped his arm around my small build, shaking my body in a side hug.

“Oh, you’ll live.” was all he said as he let go and headed out to the car. I pouted some more standing below my room before I huffed and followed my dad to the car.

He was already starting up the car when I got in and buckled up. He turned on the air conditioning. I began to slump into my seat once more. Today was not going to be fun, and neither was tomorrow. But I couldn’t avoid it, as much as I wanted to.

Dad pulled out of the driveway and turned in a completely new direction. As we drove off, I saw a big bus, that resembled a city bus, picking up a number of teenagers in blazers, slacks and skirts. Gulping, I hoped that I never had to ride that. I would stick out even more than necessary, even more than my pierced head and dyed hair. A vessel ruled by the angsty teenagers and virtually no adult presence, that could be worse than initially thought to be.

Soon we arrived at the school. It had a semblance of the community college near my old high school; a series of buildings with paths in between. We drove by once, both of us unsure as to where to go. The school was swarming with uniformed teens. It unnerved me in my skinny jeans and sweater. My dad pulled around and drove past once more.

“Go into the parking lot!” I said quickly, pointing incessantly at the staff and guest parking lot in front of the building marked “Office”. My dad smiled, choosing not to respond but following my demand and pulling into the parking lot.

He then parking in a front row guest parking spot. He turned off the engine and looked at me, a sympathetic smile plastered on his face.

“Nervous?” he asked me. I sighed and gave him an exasperated nod, looking out the window at the kids again.

“I feel so out of place.” I said. My dad shrugged.

“It makes sense. Any new kid gets these anxieties,” he said, unbuckling. “Now, c’mon! Let’s get inside.”

He then proceeded to get out of the car. I reluctantly did the same, trying to hide myself as best I could from view. Looking around quickly, I led the way to the office building.

We entered together. My heart was beating a mile a minute and I could feel the eyes on me, or at least I think I could. I didn’t really look around to check. Calming down, I put up my usual façade of cool and collectiveness. Calming my breath, I followed my dad to the desk with the receptionist.

“Hello,” the woman spoke expectantly.

“Hello, I believe we talked on the phone yesterday. My son is new,”

“Mr. Bay?” the woman asked after a second of thought.

“Yes! That would be me. This is my son, Felix.” my dad said, obviously relieved that he hadn’t spoken to the wrong person.

“Have you already faxed over his information?”

“Yes, I have. If I’m right, we spoke about his placement tests on the phone?”

“Yes, yes we did.” the woman seemed to gather a pile of documents before standing up. “Felix, care to accompany me?”

I nodded curtly, waved a good-bye to my dad and followed the woman to a room down a hall. She sat at a computer and pulled up a program, going through pages and clicking things. Soon, she got up and asked me to sit down. And so I started the tests that would tell them how smart I was.

- - -

I finished around noon. The woman came in and made sure everything was ship-shape on the computer before she left with a smile. When she came back, she had a lunch for me. I spent the remainder of the day on a tour of the campus. Another member of staff showed me where each of my classes were, as well as telling me all the rules, which--as I had guessed--included none of what I had hanging from my face. At the end, the woman from the beginning gave me an order form for my uniform, and told me where to go to get it.

When she was done with everything, next thing I knew, my dad was at the school again. He took me to the uniform shop and I was fitted. Once we got my uniform, we headed for home. He got groceries while I was away, so we had burritos for dinner. It was too nostalgic for me, so I went to bed early.

And as my head hit the pillow, I remembered that I still needed a new cord for my laptop.