Block it out.

Jack Barakat was new, he was new to school; heck, he was new to Baltimore altogether and being new, in all honesty scared him. He didn't want to be alone all the time, have people ignore anything he would do. He didn't think he could handle being new.

It was the dreaded day of school and Jack was nervous because he knew that nobody would notice the new edition to their already one thousand plus students, he wouldn't make a long lasting impression on them; he doubted he would make an impression on them at all.

Jack's dark eyes darted over the new school as he sat in his car, hands holding the steering wheel tightly, he didn't want to go in. His knuckles were going White with the pressure of holding the wheel for too long.

"Stop being a pussy," he scorned himself, pulling his sleeves down as he stepped from his car.

He didn't like it; he could already see all of the groups that we dotted outside of the schools grounds. He felt like an outcast already because he knew he was always going to be the odd one out, always.

He took in a deep breath and walked up the dirty steps cringing when the school bell clanged in his ear drums, he never really was a fan of really loud noises. He pressed his palms up against the door and walked into the typical high school scene.

Jocks pressing cheerleaders up against the lockers for a hello kiss, a few nerds cowering from the football team who paraded down the halls, then just the odd ones out. He guessed he would join the cliché.

He lifted his feet and walked down the halls to the office, his main focus was on his converse clad feet and the arrows saying "Office" in black print. He just didn't like this; he wanted to keep home schooled. But that, he reminded himself, is worse.

"Ah, Mr. Barakat, nice to see you," said a woman in the office who handed Jack a piece of paper that he guessed was a time table "Mr. Dawson will show you around." she nods to a boy with a brown hair and a toothy smile.

Jack just awkwardly nodded and smiled a half smile to the boy who grinned, clearly he loved his teeth. "I'm Rian."

"Jack," he nodded before be felt Rian pull him out the office door, making his way down the corridor.

"That dude, see him? Yeah, don't get him pissed off... Stay away from him," Rian advised, Jack realized this was his showing around. Being told who was nice and who was an asshole.

After about an hour of 'Be careful of him' or 'They're nice' Jack was sitting in English next to Arian a slight frown ok his face as he glanced over to a boy with dark highlighted hair, he hadn't been ok the 'tour' "What about him?" Jack whispered to Rian, nodding to the boy who had ear buds in as he wrote.

"That's Alex. He's /weird/."

Jack bit his lower lip as he looked at the boy. Alex was his name. Short. Like his. He tilted his head then looked over at Rian. "Wait. What do you me-" But then the teacher walked in with a loud slam of her books on the desk in the front of the classroom.

Slowly, the teacher started to walk down the aisles. She had long dark brown hair, pulled into a bun with a big clip to hold it up. Her gray skirt was tight around her long legs and her dress shirt was buttoned up. She fixed the glasses on her nose then stopped right next to Jack's desk.

Jack bit his lip and looked up at the tall teacher. He gave her a cheeky smile then looked back down and at the board. She put a hand on her shoulder then turned to Alex. She said, "Everyone. This is Jack. The new kid." She said then turned away.

Alex looked at him, his headphones hid underneath his gray sweatshirt hoodie. Surprisingly, there was no rule against wearing hoodies or hats. That made Jack a little happy, but all the other rules made him mad. The rules were from like 5th grade. Keep your hands and feet to yourself, do not yell, inside voices, listen to others while talking... Etc. It was kind of stupid in his opinion.

The teacher walked back to the front of the room. "Jack, I'm Mrs. Keris. You may call me Mrs. K. Or Mrs." She smiled politely, probably the most nicest smile she had ever given to anyone. Jack nodded nicely then looked around, looking at some people. There were these girls smiling at him and giggling.

"Mr. Barakat, would you like to come up here and tell the class some more about yourself?" Mrs. Keris asked then walked behind the desk, taking a seat in her twirly chair.

Jack shrugged a little and looked at her. "Well.. Do I have too?" He asked a little rudely. Some of the class laughed. She rolled her eyes gently.

"No. I suppose not." She kind of growled at him. Jack squinted his dark brown eyes then gave them a little roll right back at her.

Jack tapped his long, boney fingers on his desk as he waited for class to be over. He jumped up and grabbed his things, rushing out of the room with Rian.

He was still clueless as to who the Alex boy was and why he always wore the earbuds, but he didn't particularly think it was much of a big thing, the boy might just like music.

"Why is he weird?" Jack asked Rian, jogging to keep up with the fast walker.

"He doesn't talk. He always has them earbuds in, we're lucky to know his name," Rian said with a shrug as he led them to the next lesson that they had.

Jack just wanted to go home, but the pain on his skin told him that it wasn't such a good idea to do that. Not if his father was home anyway, he knew that would not be good.

"Sorry, man," Jack said as his shoulder hit into a slightly shorter boy, his eyes averted to the boy and he frowned. It was Alex. He hadn't seemed to notice and continues to walk down the corridor.

"Told you he's weird," Said Rian as they followed the shorter boy into Chemistry.

Jack just shrugged and dropped his bag with everyone else's eyes scanning as the professor pointed to people then a seat, it was amusing because he was short and nobody could really see him.

"Ah, a new kid. Mr. Barakat..." he spoke for the first time, his voice considerably high pitched for a man his age "Next to Mr. Gaskarth," he discarded a hand towards Alex who was slumped at the wall with his earbuds in.

"Good luck," said Rian with a grin and a slap on Jack's shoulder.

Jack just nodded and walked over to the table, he felt eyes on him and heard mutterings about something as he pulled back a brown stool and took a seat. His eyes didn't look to Alex; after all, he was immersed in his music.

It was later as Jack was scribbling in his book that he figured that this Chemistry lesson was "I'll write on the board, you copy" nobody talked as the pens scratch at paper.

"Hey." Jack said to Alex. Silence.

"Hey," Jack tried again. Silence.

He just sighed and kept writing the notes into his book, black writing even more scrawled because of the time limit they had set for copying the endless notes.

"Can I borrow a pen?" Jack asked as his pen run out on the paper only the reply was familiar, silence. And he didn't like it.

Jack scratched a note into the paper "Can I borrow a pen, please? :)' before he slid it to the boy with dark eyes watching the boy process the note, his hands gripped at it before he slid it in his pencil case.

A nod.

He was passed a pen before the boy continued working on the essay that they had just been told to do, Jack just continued on with the notes his writing too un-neat to read.