Behind My Mask

I had surprisingly quickly gotten to know everyone in the group and they seemed to accept my sarcastic ways. They would occasionally try to get more information out of me but I mostly managed to answer in the simplest way and relieve the least amount of it, unlike the rest of them who would gladly relieve almost anything about themselves. I could tell that Jaime loved to talk, as he would do so almost nonstop; I had learned that Tony, Mike, Vic and Jaime had formed a band and would love for me to come and hear them one day to which I nodded and smiled.
I had mastered to fake smile in a way that would make it seem genuine, which it never was. And when I say never, I mean literally never.

Today I had science with Matty and since I was new and he was the only person in the class who I knew, the teacher let us sit together. We got along quite well and we shared quite a few jokes and sarcastic comments, to which we would laugh quietly about, and earn a few strange glances from people around us, and the evils from the teacher.

I had learned that he has a younger sister and that he himself is in a band but those people don’t go to this school. He genuinely seemed to love life, you would have to be blind to not see that; he was optimistic about almost anything, the complete opposite of me, and it was nice for once to have someone who is actually happy, beside you.

Next I had a maths lesson with Tony and Mike, again I was lucky enough to be able to sit next to them, but this time it was just coincidence.
From the short conversations I had with them I quickly learned that Tony was an only child, and Mike was the younger brother of Vic.
The three of us shared a crude humor, though Tony showed it more than Mike; we would make comments to almost anything the teacher did and if some student did something to catch our attention.
The teacher in maths wasn’t as half bad as I expected, but that didn’t mean I liked her, she just didn’t bother me.

I discovered that I had History with Vic, which showed that he had indeed bunked the previous lesson, and I can’t really blame him. I knew that Vic was two years older than me, but we still managed to be in the same class; either I was very good at history, or Vic was incredibly bad. Either way didn’t bother me.
I felt slightly more uncomfortable around him, but it was just so slight that it was almost unnoticeable.
“So, how do you like it here so far?” He broke the short lasting silence that had started once we sat down.
“Not too bad, though teachers are shit” I said, telling nothing but the truth; this school really wasn’t too bad since I hadn’t been slammed in to lockers yet, been beaten up or thrown in the dumpster. I had been occasionally called ‘fag’ and other nasty words, which took no affect on me. So far this has been the best school I had gone to, or maybe they were just waiting for me to get comfortable and then pounce at me when I least expect it.
“I have to agree with you on that” Vic said, snapping me out of my thoughts. After another short period of silence between me and Vic, I yawned while the teacher was rambling on which had something to do with World War 2 or Hitler, but honestly I couldn’t be bothered enough to listen to it. It didn’t look like anyone was really listening to the teacher, they all just had blank stares, and honestly it looked quite creepy; all of them looked part of the history room and some of them even looked dead. I’m not even exaggerating; some people had their heads straight down on the table and some were sitting at odd angles that didn’t look comfortable at all.

Vic had started up a conversation with me again, and it was interesting to find out that we had the same taste in music and that there were a few other things that we had in common, though he was an optimist, while you could either call me a realist or a pessimist.

There were no changes in lunch, it was just like yesterday; 3 different conversations going on without my participation, but the people had mixed up in the conversations.
Everyone with the exception of me had food; I was actually extremely self conscious when it came to food, it’s not that I don’t eat, I just feel uncomfortable eating in public places, or at least in school.

The next lesson I had was Art, though there was no one who I knew there, not that it bothered me. I soon found that it was one of my favorite lessons; I didn’t have much problems with the teacher as long as he let me get on with it and not stop the whole class after every 5 minutes to show us a new way of doing things, which a lot of art teachers seemed to like doing.

The teacher had quickly given us an assignment and told us what we needed to know; we had to make a portrait of someone with any material/s that we preferred, and the person we did the portrait of didn’t have to be in the same class, it could be anyone really.
We had to make it so that the colors in the portrait would represent parts of the person’s personality but it didn’t really matter what we used to create it or the size of the canvas, as long as it was decent.
We were given a month to do it, which would give me time to decide who to actually draw; it would have to be someone out of my new ‘friends’ group since my parents were hardly ever home and there was just no way I was going to do my siblings, that was just out of the question.

For the last period of the day I had Music where I had everyone from the group, except for Matty; we were sitting almost huddled together waiting to hear what the teacher had to say. I had now determined that, so far, Tuesday afternoons were my favourite, since they contained my two favorite lessons.
We got given an assignment of creating our own song which had to consist of at least two different instruments and at least one vocal. This obviously wouldn't be a problem for us since there was already a band in our midst.
“Hey, Kellin, what do you want to do?” Mike said as an invitation for me to join their group
“Well, I mostly sing”
“Then you can do a duet with me” Vic said rather happily “But we need to hear you sing first” Mike said quickly after.
“You should come to one of our practice’s” Tony suggested, butting in the conversation
“We are doing one tomorrow, so you can come then after school” Jaime made it quite obvious that he was feeling left out so he spoke up before anyone else could.
“Yeah, it’s at my house” Mike said while Vic just gave him a look that would express thoughts along the lines of ‘not your fucking house’
I could only smile and nod with fake happiness, though it almost felt real. Almost. We spent the rest of the lesson discussing on which song we would do; Vic had already a few ideas which we would carry out in their garage with ‘proper equipment’ that the school seemed to not have.

While on my way down the hall I had been forcefully slammed in to the lockers
“Watch it fag” is what the Jock had said before walking down the hallway
‘so it has begun’ I thought unimpressed. It actually didn’t hurt; I had been roughened up in my previous schools enough so that it made me think that this was just kid’s play.
Just before the Jock was out of my sight I put up my middle finger, showing just how much I cared.
I put away some of the books that I was sure I will not need and headed towards the car park. I got into my black Mazda and drove off with no particular hurry.

_

Next day went by surprisingly quick; with the repetition of some classes.
I also had PE which I obviously dreaded. I had to change in one of the toilet cubicles for a reason, and I was glad that no one questioned me.
We didn’t do anything special on PE, but we typically had to do dodge ball, the one thing that I was completely shit at. I couldn’t dodge or catch a ball to save my fucking life, so I would just normally use other people as shields.

Unfortunately my ‘friends’ were on the other team, which meant I was basically fucked. After just running around and hiding behind people I was one of the last ones left on the field, along with 5 others. To my advantage there were actually only 3 people left on the other team, and I was just happy as fuck that the other people on my team had taken the liberty to get the rest of the people out, and for once in my fucking life I survived a dodge ball game.
I walked over to my group of friends grinning.

“I guess you’re happy” Matty said while I could notice an almost glowing red mark on his arm. One of the things that made this particular game brutal was that the teacher didn’t set any rules about where you were allowed to hit, so mainly people just aimed for the face.
“You know, I actually am” I said, lying to myself and him.

We all left for the changing rooms after a few other exercises, and the whole while Mike was out of sight, though once we were in there we all burst out laughing; Mike had a ball thrown in his face, it was obvious since some of the markings of the ball were still visible on his forehead, and his face was fucking glowing red.
“I was wondering where you went” I said as I was the first one to calm down from a laughing fit
“Ha, ha, very funny, you know I got a nosebleed from that” he tried to defend himself
“Oh, how will you ever survive” Vic still laughing, though also examining his brothers face
“Oh shut up” he said throwing something towards his brother and started getting changed; everyone followed suit though still occasionally giggling.
I was glad that it was my last period since I was frankly quite tired, and that was when I remembered that I had ‘band practice’ with everyone. Since I was the only one with the car I had given everyone a lift, with Vic sitting at the front and Mike, Jaime and Tony crammed at the back.

Their house was merely 5 minutes away from the school; I parked my car wherever I could find space and got out, waiting for everyone else. All four of them were basically running in the house, having a sort of competition of who would get in firs. As soon as they were in they shouted something along the lines of ‘I’m home’’ but I wasn’t entirely sure as I was slowly walking towards the house, looking at them as if they just broke out of the loony bin, which just left me wondering.

I had quickly gotten comfortable in their house; their mum was very welcoming, and just made me feel at home, more than my own house.
After being offered some snacks we went to the garage; while they were setting up some of their instruments I just watched, there wasn’t anything I could really do unless they actually asked me to.
Just for warm ups, and to show me their skills, they started off first with me just watching.
Mike was by the drums, Tony had a guitar, Jaime was the bass and Vic was by the microphone, also holding a guitar.
I could hear Mike giving the signal to start, and they mainly started roughly the same time.

I laid down,
I drank the poison then I passed the fuck out.
Now let me tell you 'bout the good life,
I have a million different kinds of fun
when I'm asleep and in a dream that I'm your only one.

As Vic started singing I couldn’t help but be mesmerized by his voice, I instantly started to lose myself in the melody, but I quickly snapped myself out of it, remembering that I had an image to put up.

Can we create something beautiful and destroy it?
Nobody knows I dream about it, this is my imagination.

If you come over tonight we can travel through time,
we can sleep on the ceiling and creep under black lights.
I have a million different girls that hide under my bed,
and when I let them out they treat me right.
Oh what a waste of a perfectly good, clean wrist.
You were screaming till the police came.

'Not just wrists' I thought to myself bitterly as I payed close attention to the lyrics

Can we create something beautiful and destroy it?
Nobody knows I dream about it, this is my imagination.
If every living thing dies alone,
what am I doing here?
If every living thing dies alone,
what am I doing here?
(Fuck it!)

The whole time singing Vic was looking my direction, and occasionally looking at Jaime or Tony to give signals or something, I don’t really know, but what I do know was that I was mainly looking back at him.

If it's the end of the world!
If it's the end of the world,
you and me should spend the rest of it in love!

Can we create something beautiful and destroy it?
Nobody knows I dream about it, this is my imagination.
If every living thing dies alone,
what am I doing here?
If every living thing dies alone,
what am I doing here?
What am I doing here?
Oh, no.

“So what did you think?” Vic breathed out, breathing only slightly heavier. I could see that he was almost in a world of his own while singing, letting himself go to a certain limit and it was truly a beautiful sight even if it was just warm ups.
“It was great” was all I could really say; I’m not exactly the sort of person who would start screaming and jumping up and down because I thought it was amazing, oh hell no, but I did think that it was amazing and just hoped that I would be invited to future practices.
“It’s your turn now” he said giving me the lyrics of the song he had just sung. I read at the top that the name of it was ‘Disasterology’
For the first few lines I was slightly nervous, but the rhythm and melody of the song soon came over me and let me get lost in it. I occasionally glanced over at Vic who was obviously staring at me; as if I was some creature he had never seen before in his life, but it wasn’t a bad sort of stare, I could feel good vibes coming of from it, as strange as that sounded.
When I had finished everyone started complimenting me on how good of a singer I was, to which I didn’t believe shit, but still it was nice.