Chapter Text
Exhaustion was all Evan felt and the school year had barely started. Well, technically it started at 7:30, which was when his first class (English, room 2036. But the first day meant going to advisory first.) would start. Between having this sudden change of now living with a homophobic, racist, white man and now having no friends going to high school? Needless to say, Evan was stressed beyond belief.
He didn’t even bother saying goodbye to his mother, knowing it would just give him more anxious thoughts. He kept his breathing steady as he walked through the doors, avoiding contact with anyone. He wasn’t even sure where his advisory was- he assumed it was on the second floor given the number was 2012. As soon as he walked through the doors, he clutched his schedule in his pocket. He also had it as his background on his phone and in each of his binders or folders. Just in case. Immediately, he wanted to stop by his locker and shove half his binders in it. He supposed that he should have enough time so he began searching for it, unsure where he was. By the looks of it, his locker was on the first floor so he kept glancing at his locker number on his schedule and up at the numbers on the lockers.
After what felt like hours but was probably just minutes, he found it and grabbed his lock out of his pocket (he had set he lock to the month and day of his birthday. Easy to remember and hard to forget that's what it was) he fumbled, almost dropping it on the ground. Evan cringed at himself, thinking about how stupid he must’ve looked. Regardless, he pushed through and sorted everything out in his locker as fast as he could without dropping everything. As he put his binders in order of his classes, he noticed a couple of kids a few lockers away from him. He listened in to their conversation as he made sure he had the right binders in his bag.
“Dude! It’s not that big of a deal. We’re all Freshmen, and most of your classes are with other freshmen,”
“Yeah but, Michael it’s just that what if you make friends with someone that’s cooler than me?”
“Dude! I could never ditch you. Besides, no one's gonna want to hang out with the kid that always has his headphones on.”
Evan zoned out for a second. He was also a freshman, so he really shouldn't worry about making friends with anyone. Given, he was probably gonna go months before actually making friends but that was just because of his anxiety. Maybe if he forced himself to talk to one person it would work out in his favor. Not that he would do that unless he noticed something they actually had in common.
Then he remembered he had lunch. That was going to suck. He didn’t even eat anyway though so maybe he could just go to a bathroom and not come out- Yeah, that wasn’t happening either. He’d rather sit alone at a table awkwardly then sit in a bathroom all of lunch.
Evan checked the time, figuring that he should try to find his advisory classroom since he technically had to go there before anything else. Advisory was gonna suck too. Grabbing his backpack, he slung it over his shoulders and quickly locked his locker, heading upstairs to the general area where he assumed his advisory must be.
Day one was already bad in his eyes.
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Halfway through the day and Evan had noticed both of the kids he had side-eyed at the lockers in his classes. He had both in Honors English, the one with the headphones in Wellness, and the other anxious looking guy in his history class. He kept a lookout for people tht were in his classes multiple times because that meant potential friends. He had also noticed a girl was in a couple of his classes, but he had been so anxious during roll call that he hadn’t caught anyone’s names.
It didn’t really matter now, though, because it was lunch time. Evan had already stopped at his locker and exchanged his binders so he couldn’t stall any longer. As he walked into the cafeteria, he scanned each table that was empty. He kept walking so he didn’t get on any upperclassmen nerves. There was a table with a few empty seats and since most everybody was already seated, he could probably sit there. So he did, immediately grabbing his earbuds and blasting music so he didn’t have to awkwardly make conversation with people. That would suck.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw some blue and turned his head to slightly look over. He quickly turned his head to look down at his phone, his face flushed. It was the kids that he had seen in his classes earlier. He turned down his volume just in case but kept looking at his phone.
Noticing his music was still really loud (maybe others could hear it. People hate that.) so he turned it down a couple more notches. He could now tell the two boys next to him were talking, but couldn’t really tell what was being said. He kept telling himself not to listen in to their conversation and just keep looking down at his phone, scrolling through various social media. There wasn’t much else to do but eventually, he got bored of seeing the same things being posted over and over so he locked his phone and picked his head up.
Surveying the cafeteria from what he could see told him that if he ever wanted to, he could get himself some snacks or drinks from the vending machines that were around the outer rim of the room. For whatever reason, his music started buffering while he was looking around so he had looked back down at his phone to see there was still at least ten minutes left. He pulled out his earbuds and sighed, resting his face on his cheek and closing his eyes for a couple of seconds.
“I’m just saying that if you were actually smart you would choose a better player! No one mains Sonic! That’s crazy talk, Jeremy!”
“I only main Sonic because I love pissing you off! Stop getting on me about it,” he (Jeremy?) replied, shoving chips into his mouth.
“No, I think its just because you’re a fur-” “Don’t you even finish that sentence you liar!” Jeremy said, slapping a hand over his friend’s mouth. Evan caught eye contact with the boy in the red hoodie and panicked, looking down at the table and shoving his hands into the pockets of his hoodie.
“Hey, you’re in our English class right?”
“Uhm… Yeah, I think I am,” Evan responded looking back up and scratching the back of his neck.
“Cool! I’m Michael and this is Jeremy-” He patted Jeremy on the back “We were just talking about how he’s a furry-” “I AM NOT!” “-but that’s okay because I can ignore it.”
Evan smiled at the obvious joke, but couldn’t bring himself to laugh because that might be mean and he can’t joke about anything because he just met these guys and that could make them hate him so instead he just introduced himself. “I’m, uh, Evan.”
“Did-did you even eat a lunch?” Jeremy asked, his blush finally fading.
Evan shook his head.
“I mean not to get on your ass but you really should eat something,” Michael said.
“Why eat when you can instead worry about getting to classes on time even though you know it isn’t that big of a deal?” Evan joked, pushing his hair out of his face.
“You sure do got me there,” Michael laughed.
“So, do either of you guys have Honors Energy 6th block?” Evan asked, knowing that the lunch bell would have to be ringing soon.
“Uh, yeah, I do,” Jeremy responded.
“Cool! Is Michael taking Honors too?”
“Nah, honors science isn’t my type of slushie. It’s why I’m in Honors English. We have that class together, right?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
With that, the bell rang. Evan, Michael, and Jeremy stood up and pushed in their chairs. Evan gave a small wave as he put his backpack on.
“See you in 6th, Jeremy,” He said, making his way to the second floor.