If We Jump

Maybe I should start this from the beginning. My name is Dakotah Harp. I lived with my mother and my older brother my whole life, that is, up until now. My Dad left my Mom soon after I was born and they rarely speak unless it’s passing me or my brother, Sean, back and forth for holidays. I used to live in Rhode Island with my mom, brother, and my grandparents but my mom thought it would be good for us to move. She decided on Tempe, Arizona. We moved here in July and this year I was starting my senior year at a new high school. In a way, this move was a relief. I don’t particularly like my father. I tried to keep him in my life, honestly I did, but he never held up his part of the deal. Anyway, now that we’re in Arizona, I can leave all that behind. I can leave behind everything and everyone that has caused me trouble in the past. This can be a new start for me. This is my story.

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I walked into a school flooded with people, my schedule, a map, and my notebook clutched tightly in my hands. Looking around, I could already tell I wasn’t going to fit in well here. All the girls were wearing heels and skirts. I, however, had on skinny jeans and my old red converse. I had brown hair, parted on the side, they had their blonde hair pulled up in messy buns. From what I could tell, the guys were into sports, most of them wearing the school’s football jerseys. I made my way down the busy hallway until I found locker number 187. I found the combination buried in the pile of papers I was holding and opened the locker. It was big and smelled like old books. I closed the locker, not having any books to put in it yet, and turned down a different hallway. I was looking down at my schedule and heard fast footsteps running in my direction. I glanced up in time to see one of the bodies bump into me as he passed, causing me to drop my papers all over the hall. The second boy stopped when he got to me and helped me pick everything up. He had gorgeous brown eyes and dark brown hair, almost black. He looked up at me when he stood and handed me the pile.

“Are you new here?” he asked. I nodded in response. “I’m Stephen” he said and held out his hand. I shook it. “Dakotah.” I said. This boy was cute, there was no denying that, but he didn’t look the same as everyone else. He wore a V-neck shirt and tight jeans, as opposed to the rest of the guys’ jerseys. He didn’t quite look like an outcast either though. Something about him was just different, and I wasn’t sure yet if that was god or bad. “What class do you have first?”

I looked at my schedule before answering, not quite sure myself. “Chemistry with Mr. Evans” I told him.

“Oh cool, me too.” He said smiling. “It’s this way”. I followed him down the hall until we reached the classroom. There were no desks in the room. Just long lab tables with two stools at each of them and a teacher’s desk in the front on the room. The walls were decorated with science posters and there were cabinets full of beakers all around. “Do you want to be my lab partner?” he asked. I nodded again took a seat next to him at the table all the way in the back of the room. “So where did you move here from?” he asked.

“Rhode Island. My mom wanted a change of scenery.” He nodded in understanding as the bell for first period rang and students filed into the room. An old man in a lab coat walked in after and wrote his name on the board. “Hello Class! I’m Mr. Evans and I’ll be your chemistry teacher for the next 10 months!”