It was my first day of high school. I’ve always been a quiet child and I’ve always been really close with my family. I try telling myself that most kids my age would probably be jealous of the relationship I have with my family. Kids; I guess I should start saying teenagers. Okay, other teenagers typically tend to shy away from their family; I shy away from everyone else and held onto my family for dear life.

I put on white pants, which was a daring move in itself. I wore black boots that went as high as the middle of my shin. I wore a beige top with my grandma’s red sweater that I ripped in half over it. Oddly enough, I felt pretty confident but, somehow, in the most self-conscious way possible. I’d been homeschooled since I was about nine when my family was going through a rough time; my dad thought it would be good for me to stay home and close to him. He knew how badly the kids at school made fun of me; with a new burden on my shoulders, he didn’t want me to have to deal with bullying on top of it.

I had my brown satchel across my torso as I walked into school. For some reason I expected people to walk up to me and introduce themselves and by third period maybe I’d have at least one friend. No one did, and I didn’t. I walked in and out of my first three classes without even as much of a smile in my direction. I did get a couple judgmental looks; I’d forgotten how much I hated those looks. I thought maybe lunchtime would be better than the first half of my day. I saw my brother’s ex-girlfriend at, what I presumed to be, the loser lunch table (not that I was one to talk, considering the way my day was going I’d probably be spending my lunch hour in the bathroom sitting alone on a toilet to eat). While I was in line buying my lunch, I stared at her. I didn’t realize it might have been weird to her that I was looking at her for so long, but once our eyes finally met I waved to her. She looked past me like I was cellophane and turned to another boy at her table and continued giggling and talking. I suppose she ignored me because she was still hurt over Finn, but I can’t help but take things like that personally.

The rest of my day was like clock ward, nothing seemed to get better. That is, until my last period of the day, theatre activities. From the freshman orientation guide it sounded like this class would be the equivalent of an “intro to acting” course, so I took it. Ever since third grade when I played the pumpkin in our Halloween play, I knew I wanted to be a star. Once I started homeschooling, though, I wasn’t allowed to audition for public school plays so I did a lot of community youth theatre. I was excited to learn how to be a better actor through this class, rather than be coddled by youth theatre directors. Right when I walked into Nathalie’s class, (She doesn’t like being called Mrs. Stempien, she said it makes her feel old) I felt a little better.

She introduced us to our first assignment, she assigned us into groups of four and we were told to interview each other, then with those interviews prepare a scene and act as another person in our group. One of those “get to know you,” projects that every teacher assigns on the first day, this one I didn’t mind too much. People began walking around the classroom to find their groups, I sat quietly in my seat waiting for my group to find me.

A boy with perfectly slicked back hair walked towards me and sat down. “Hi, I’m Blaine,” he held out his hand for me to shake. His voice was so soft and his eyes smiled as he spoke. I shook his hand.

“Kurt,” I smiled probably too big, I was just thrilled to have finally interacted with someone on my first day of high school. He smiled back at me.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Kurt.”