What Is Life Without a Purpose? What Is Purpose Without Love?

First day of Sophomore year. New classes, new people. Same bitchy girls, same jocks strutting through the halls, same outcast kids in the corner of the foyer. Same old shitty routine.
I've got this. 
I had no hope in this year being any different from the rest. 
That's just the way this town has, and always will, work. 
  Not a damn thing's changed in the sixteen years I've lived here, and I don't expect that it ever would. 
And that was alright; change wasn't always for the best anyway. 

-&- 

"This year is gonna be so boring." Tom groaned next to me. I looked over to see him with his head laid on the table and giggled. 

I gave him a pat on the back. 
"Cheer up bud, we'll make it." 

That earned me a glare. 

My attention was pulled to the girl that was now standing in front of my desk. 

 "Hi Austin." She smiled, flipping her blonde hair over her shoulder. 

 And so it begins.
 I sighed audibly but quickly covered it over with a smile. 

"Hi Aubrey." 

"How was your summer?" She leaned forward, resting her chin on her hand, purposely showing off a certain area a.k.a boobs. It took all I could not to roll my eyes. 
  Don't get me wrong, she was a nice girl, very pretty, good in school. And it was more than obvious she had some sort of crush on me. 
  But so did everyone else. And she wasn't exactly...my type. 
  Plus, the constant flirting from every female body that walked by me got old, real fast. 

  "It was alright. Same as normal pretty much." I shrugged. "How was yours?" 

  "Could have been better." She winked at me before turning back around in her seat just as Nadine walked in, giving me a wave on the way to her seat. 
  I slumped forward in my seat, hitting my head on the table. 
 It was gonna be a long year. 

-&- 

"Dude. We have Ms.Carson together." 
I raised my eyebrow at him. "Yeah...? We already knew that, like, a month ago." 

"Yeah but I found her on the school's site. She so...bangin'." He emphasized to make his point and I rolled my eyes, shaking my head. 

"I'm pretty sure she's off limits. Sorry." 
He stopped in the middle of the hall. 

"Wait, you've seen her? When?" 

I pulled him to the side of the hall after apologizing to the people behind us being backed up. 

"Well, yeah, but that's not what I mean." He looked confused. 
"She's engaged, you idiot." I smacked him jokingly on the head, laughing. 

"Austin!" I heard someone call out behind me and spun to face them. 

"Hey man, where were you all summer?" He punched me lightly in the shoulder. 

"Max, hi." I searched for an excuse, squeezing at the straps on my bag. 
"I went on a trip thing with my dad. Uh, I wasn't home much." I gave a little frown, convincing him and his group of friends of my lie. 

"Ah, that sucks man. I texted you a bunch, it's too bad you couldn't have come. Aubrey asked if you were coming at every party and Sarah asked a couple times. Mark and Alex asked the first few times, everybody missed you man!" 

"S-sorry. I didn't really want to go but I had to." I shrugged, scratching my head awkwardly.

"There might be a few more soon, you should come. We'd all love that." He patted me on the back as him and his friends went on their way. 

"Yeah..." 

There was no trip, me and my dad were home all summer, besides when he went to work. 
I just didn't feel like being with any of those people. 

 I kept my head down, getting back in step with Tom as we exited the first building. 
I sighed, picking up conversation. 

"So, how was second?" 

"I hate math and that's all I have to say." The look of displeasure on his face made me laugh. 

"Doesn't everyone?" 

"Never know. You'd think everyone hated History but then there's you, so." 

"What's so wrong with history?" I laughed. "It's not that bad, if you'd just do at least SOME of your homework." 

"Ew." 
We both laughed, making our way into the halls. 

"Oh, actually, we have a new kid in math." 

"Really? Who?" 

"I think his names like...Andrew, or something. I don't know, but he's weird." 

I gave him a confused look. 
"Why is he weird?" 

"He just is. He doesn't talk and he wears girls pants." 

I coughed purposely, glancing down to my own pants. 

"Well! You need to, you skinny fuck. He doesn't have 27 mile-long legs with a circumference of two inches."

"Are you sure you hate math as much as you say?" I chuckled. 

"Positive." 

I shook my head. 
"I'm sure he's not that bad. He is new, anyway. I wouldn't talk either." 

"Whatever." 

-&- 

It was the first day of school and our teacher was late. I had high hopes for this class. 
Not. 

 We had been sitting in the biology room for at least fifteen minutes, and I had occupied myself by starting the annual filling-of-my-school-notebooks-with-doodles. Every year I got them, and every year they ended up being filled with random drawings instead of their intended purpose. 
All the while, trying to block out the people around me trying to make conversation with things like "what are you drawing?", "how was summer?", "I missed you!" "let's hang out soon!"
No no no no no. Sometimes I wish I could just scream I DON'T WANT TO TALK TO YOU. 
But I couldn't. 
Why did I have to be so nice? 
I felt Tom tap my shoulder, him staring up at the woman that just entered the room.

"She's so hot." 
I gave a "hm" in response, concentrating on the lines I was placing on my paper. 

The class finally quieted down and Ms.Carlson introduced herself, going over the same things each class had for every year that there had ever been school. 
 
  "Austin?" 
I got an elbow in the side and looked up quickly. 

"Yeah?" 

"We're telling the class two things about ourselves." She looked pointedly at me and I blushed. 

"Um...I like drawing, and listening to music." I shrugged, wishing everyone would stop looking at me. 

"Very nice." She smiled and moved on to the next person and I blocked her out again, wanting only to put in my headphones and go to sleep. 
About five minutes later my shoulder was being shaken, Tom jabbing at the air, pointing across the room. 

"That's him!" He whispered. 

"What? What? Jesus." I pushed his hand off of my arm, feeling my heart race in my chest after he jumped me. 

"That's the new guy!" 

I looked to the back row to find the unfamiliar face sitting in the very back corner, quietly answering the same question I had. I squinted, thinking it'd somehow help me hear better, but he was done anyway. 

He didn't really look weird. Not to me, anyway. 
He reminded me a lot of myself, actually, which would explain why Tom thought he was weird, with his band shirt and dark jeans. 
Because as far as I knew, I was the only kid in the school that dressed the way I did; preferring to wear black, gory shirts and jeans that looked like they could cut off the circulation of a snake, over brand names that revolved around sports of some sort.

His bright orange hair was eye catching, I could tell you that. And he didn't look very tall. 
But that's all I could tell from the short amount of time I could look at him before he turned and we locked eyes. I ducked my head back down, waiting for any instruction from the teacher. 

"We'll probably be doing a lot of partner work this year, so we'll assign those today." 
The whole room groaned in unison. 

Ms.Carlson laughed, holding out an envelope. 
"Just pick a paper out and whoever you match with will be your partner." 

Everyone picked a slip and I ended up being stuck with Randall, who wasn't really that bad at all. 
 I looked around, seeing that Tom was paired with Sarah, and the new kid was with Allison. 
  He definitely looked like someone I could get along with, and I almost wish I got stuck with him.