Kenya

I remember my first day of high school. It was absolutely the most terrifying thing I’ve ever been through. I didn’t know anyone, I couldn’t find my way around, and everyone seemed to know everyone else. I felt the exact same way now as I did four years ago.

I was starting at a new school for my senior year. My parents had just gotten a divorce and I was going to live with my mom and her sister in Oregon, while my dad and his new wife stayed behind in our shore home in Jersey.

I opened my locker and tried to focus on breathing. I was bumped roughly by some meathead whose body shape slightly resembled the Hulk. His girlfriend snapped at him. “Apologize Kurt, you’re so mean to everyone.”

“Sorry,” the Hulk/meathead guy grunted. I looked up at him.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said, slamming my locker door and not bothering to relock it.

“You have the most beautiful eyes,” his girlfriend said.

“Thanks.”

“They are the most lovely shade of blue,” she said, giving me a sweet smile and a quick, not-so-subtle once-over.

She looked kind of easy. I mean, I’m not one to judge, but she was showing off an awful lot of skin for it being only 65 degrees out this morning.

“I’ll see you around…” she trailed off, searching for a name.

“Ashley.”

“Yeah, I’ll see you around Ashley.”

The Hulk just sort of stared at me like he wanted to tear my intestines out through my nose. I looked away quickly, afraid to keep eye contact for too long.

I heard the loveliest laugh, followed by a friendly, “hey.”

I turned around and almost ran right into the person who greeted me.

It was a guy. I’m pretty sure the first thing I noticed was that he absolutely towered over me. I mean that wasn’t all that unusual considering that I stood at only 5’ 7”, but his boy had to be at least 6’ 4”. The second thing I noticed was his hair. He had girl hair, and in many more ways than one. Firstly, it was dark purple, and lastly, it was long, in his face, and was absolutely wild.

“You’re new here aren’t you?” he asked.

I nodded my head slowly, not really sure if I wanted to befriend him. I mean, he seemed nice enough, but he intimidated me more than just a little.

“My name is Kenya,” he said, holding out his hand for me to shake.

“Ashley.”

“So nice to meet you,” he said, smiling widely and pulling his sweatshirt tighter to himself.

“You too,” I said, just trying to be polite. I shut my locker and tried to walk away, but Kenya caught right up to me.

“Do you have a schedule?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’ve got physics first.”

“No way! Me too! Though, I am thinking of ditching because I heard the teachers here don’t even take roll for the first week of school.”

I just nodded. I was only half paying attention to the things that he told me. The other half of myself was worrying. It was only my first day at school here and people were trying to talk to me and I’d really just rather stay home and play video games.

“I guess I’ll go though. I mean I probably should. God only knows that I’ll be missing more than half of the year.”

I eventually found my way to the physics room and Kenya basically talked my ear off the whole way. He was sort of loud and a bunch of girls were definitely looking at him. I mean he was attractive, just, like, weird. Who knew what girls were into though up here?

The teacher had a seating chart projected on the board. I was sort of happy that I was sitting nowhere near Kenya. Actually, we were on opposite sides of the classroom. I sat next to this girl with really pretty blonde hair.

“I’m Perry,” she said. She held out her hand for me to shake.

“Ashley.”

“Unisex names, for the win.”

She just gave me one of those winning smiles and I automatically liked her.

She was probably the prettiest girl I’d seen in a while. She had bright blue eyes and wore cat-eye glasses. She just seemed super original.

“So you met Kenya right?”

Yeah? Purple hair?”

“You betcha. The one and the only.”

Our teacher walked, actually more like hobbled, to the front of the classroom. He was an old guy with a hunchback and a scary stare. I kinda felt like melting into the floor when he looked at me.

“Is everyone here?” he asked.

No one said anything. We were all still in that first day of school thing where no one even dares to talk out of turn.

Kenya raised his hand. Everyone stared at him. “Yes?” Mr. Scary Teacher asked. Perry rolled her eyes in Kenya’s direction and he just grinned.

“May I use the restroom?”

The teacher, Mr. Smith, gave him the dirtiest look I’ve ever seen in my entire life. “No.”

Kenya just sat back down slumped in his chair. He twirled his pencil between fingers and stared at the front of the room.

“He has to break all the teachers in.”

“Why?”

“So they know he doesn’t give a shit right off the bat.”

“Are you guys friends?”

Perry stared at me like a deer in headlights. “Nooo,” she said.

“Then how do you know so much about him?”

“I’m basically in love with him and he doesn’t even know that I exist.”

“So talk to him.”

“But you don’t understand. He’s like a god or something. Like have you seen those cheekbones?”

“He’s just a person Perry.”

Perry stopped talking. It sort of bummed me out that she wasn’t going to be into maybe going out with me.

The rest of class was dull. Mr. Smith passed around a syllabus and we went over it. Perry didn’t say anything until towards the end of class. She scribbled her number down on my syllabus paper just as the bell rang. I shoved the paper into my folder and went to my next class.

The Hulk was in this class. It was Pre-calc. I hated math and I could just tell that he was only going to make it worse.

“Hey lady-boy,” he said. I looked behind me to search for who he might be talking to when I realized that it was me.

I just ignored him and sat down on the opposite side of the room from him.

The Pre-calc teacher was even worse than Mr. Smith. He could bore a rock right in half. His voice was probably the most monotonous thing I’d heard in my entire life. It was only slightly less monotonous than a dial tone.

I only had to sit through two more classes until lunch, where I sat outside in the sun and enjoyed the breeze. The weather was just so cool and breezy compared to New Jersey in the late summer.

Kenya sat down next to me and lit up a cigarette.

“Don’t do that here,” I found myself snapping at him.

He just shrugged and puffed on it.

“That’s so disgusting and this is school.”

He shrugged again. A few people glanced at him, but for the most part he was just ignored.

“You have pretty eyes, did you know that?” he asked.

“Why are you sitting here?”

He shrugged. “I really don’t have any friends.”

“Really? The girls seem to be all over you.”

“I’m not really into the girl thing.”

“Are you hitting on me?”

“No. Not at all.” He gave me this look and I knew he was lying.

I got up and walked to the bathroom. I was so beyond done with today. I wanted to go home, despite how nice the weather was here. I wanted my girlfriend back, I wanted my friends, I wanted my spot on the lacrosse team, and I wanted my parents to be back together. I missed my house and my bed and everything about New Jersey.

I sat on the bathroom counter and leaned my head on the wall. I called my mom and told her that I had a stomachache. She said that she was so sorry but she couldn’t come and get me because she was pulling an extra afternoon shift at the hospital.

The end-of-lunch bell rang so I made my way to art class. We just drew our names and block letters and did shading and stuff to design our portfolio, but let me tell you, the teacher was banging.

She came over to my desk. “Wow, that is so good. What was your name again?”

“Ashley.”

“Keep working on that, I really like it.” She smiled at me, and a few of the guys behind me made vulgar comments about her.

My stomachache was fading because my nerves were definitely calming down a little bit. I didn’t want Kenya to think I was hot, or want to stick his dick in my ass or whatever. Like there were just so many things wrong with this entire state. I hated it already. I think the drawing helped. It definitely helped take my mind off of everything.

I think by the end of that period, everyone had decided that it was going to be a totally goof-off class and it was definitely never going to be serious again. I didn’t mind; the chaos was basically just white noise. It kept me from thinking too hard about anything.

My last class was English and that was just whatever. It was nothing special; that was for sure.

Some asshole had locked my locker lock backwards and I sort of had to struggle to get it open. I’d have to remember to lock it next time. The Hulk shoved me a little bit while he walked bye, and his girlfriend gave me this look that I knew was trouble.

I got on the bus and tried to take a seat as close to the front as I possibly could. Kenya sat next to me.

“Can you just leave me alone?” I asked.

“I just wanted to apologize.”

“Go howl at the moon.”

“Why do you hate me?”

“I don’t hate you. I just want nothing to do with you.”

“Well sorry I tried to be nice.”

We sat in silence. Kenya tried to stand up to move, but the bus driver yelled at him to “Sit the FUCK down!” And so we sat in uncomfortable silence blanketed over by the loudness of all the other people on the bus.

Kenya bolted off the bus at his stop and I was so glad he was gone. I really didn’t hate him. I just didn’t want him shitting all over my already waning social status. It was shallow, yes, but if I was planning on playing sports and getting invited to parties, and being on homecoming court, then he definitely could not be part of it.