Chapter 1
It was the first day of senior year at Johnson High School. I wasn’t really worried about how it would go, but it made me think of my freshman year. It was the first day and no one knew each other unless they were upperclassmen, but none of us freshmen knew anyone. I remember walking in, telling myself to just keep my head raised high and that I would have plenty of friends by the next day. I was wrong, my first friend there was the Junior that had to show me around for the first few weeks. He would go to lunch with me and keep me company in all my classes. Everyone thought that he was being forced to mentor me but he said he got to choose who he wanted to mentor and that I was the only one that stood out to him.
I never really believed the other kids because they all were friends with each other after the first five minutes of class. None of them really wanted to talk to me unless it was to make fun of me. It was maybe the middle of the first semester of my freshman year when I realized that I needed to step up my game. I need to not be the same person I was in the second grade. I was the kid who everyone said would end up being the kid that was going to get bullied until they graduated, but I decided that I wasn’t going to let that happen.
I had decided to try out for the basketball team but I didn’t make it and Coach Brown said that it would be better if I tried out for the baseball team instead. I knew that I wouldn’t make it if I didn’t try to start working out more and getting a little more into shape. That day was the first
day that I had walked into the gym to actually workout. The front desk lady said “are you sure that you turned into the right building? I’m pretty sure the library is two blocks down”.
I proudly said, “No this is the right spot. I want to buy a membership”.
“For like your mom or something? cause no offense but I don’t think you will be able to lift anything here.”
“Actually it is for myself and I know that I don’t look the strongest but just wait a few weeks and you will see what hard work can do. Expectantly when you set your mind to it. So can I have my membership or not?”
“I doubt that anything in this gym can help you look any stronger but sure here. It’s twenty dollars a month”.
“Only twenty dollars. That will be easy to pay “.
“Have a nice day”.
“Thank you. You too”. That day was the start of my new improved self. I went every day before school and even though there were people laughing at me the whole time, I stopped letting that get in the way of what I wanted.
The first week there wasn’t much of a change but that didn’t stop me from going back the next week. Everyother day I tried to add five more reps to each set, there were a few that were harder than others.
I wasn’t going to let anything get in the way of becoming more popular than Zach Campbell. He was my best friend in kindergarten until he started to become more popular than me. When that happened as normal he stopped being my friend and started being one of the people that would mess with me for not being as athletic as they are. Zach is and has always been the star player on every team he has ever played on, even the team at our elementary school. He has sorta forgotten about me and all of the memories that we had growing up.
After looking back if it wasn’t for myself wanting to get back at Zach then I wouldn’t be where I am today. This was the first year that I got to walk in as the star player for our baseball team and the first time that Zach had to look up to me as better than he is. It wasn’t ever that I had wanted him to feel low and feel like a nobody but that I just wanted him to know how he made me feel in the past years.
Normally, after your sophomore year there are no new kids in your grade or in any of your classes but this year there was a new family in town. Meaning that there was going to be a new kid in school.
My parents being the nice people in town had me and my siblings all go over to their house to introduce ourselves and so that the family at least knew somebody in town. Me, James, my younger brother, and my sister Nicole walk over to the address that our parents gave us. The first thing you see as you walk up the block is a huge UHAUL truck parked in front of the house. When we got to the front door there was a sign that said “Welcome to the Whitlocks’ house”.
James, being a little slow in the head said “So I’m guessing that one of their names is Whitlocks’”.
“No James, the family's last name is Whitlocks,” Nicole replied as she hit her head with the palm of her hand.
“Oh so then what are their names” James questioned?
“We don’t know that yet but we will ask them what their names are when they answer the door”.
“Okay, but can I be the one to knock” James started to jump up and down with excitement hoping that he would get to be the one to knock?
“Of course, you can be the one to knock” Nicole gladly was going to let James knock because even though she is one of the most social people you can meet, she never likes to knock on peoples doors.
James was right about to knock when a middle-aged lady opened the door asking us who we were and why we were at their house. Neither of my siblings knew what to respond with, so Nicole lightly nudged my shoulder. She wanted to have me say something since they both didn’t have a response in mind. “Sorry ma’am. My apologies for our impoliteness. We are Chris and Melissa’s kids. Our mother had asked us to come visit y’all and to get to meet all of your family” On my face you could tell that I was extremely nervous while saying that but at least I could think of something.
“Oh yeah. Y’all’s mother was saying that she would bring y’all over. Did she not come?” The lady went from a look of fear to a look of excitement.
“No ma’am. She got called in for work right before we came.” Nicole had a sense of relief on her face. I think she had thought we went to the wrong address and that we were at some random person's house.
“That’s sad, I really wanted to get to know her more, but here, y’all can come in. Do y'all want anything to drink? I’ll call Madison and Lucas to come down,” I was actually excited to get to meet them. My mother had told us that Madison was my age and that Lucas was eight. I can’t imagine how it would feel to transfer to a new school halfway through the year.
“Nope,” James replied before any of us could.
“James! You have to be polite and in no way possible was that polite.” Nicole was frustrated because she had told James right before we left that if he says yes or no to any question that he either had to put ma’am at the end of it or put sir at the end of it, depending on who he was talking to.
“It’s okay, I have a little boy. I know how hard it is to get them to speak to adults with respect.” She didn’t seem fazed from the amount of disrespect that was in his voice. “Come in and I will let the others know that you are here”.
“Thank you for letting us come, we were glad to hear that we had a new family in town.” Nicole thinks she is the only one in the family that knows how to talk to other people but she isn’t. Like I’m the star player for the baseball team, meaning I have to talk to so many fans at the games.
She led us to what seemed like the living room and grabbed us a bottle of water while we waited for everyone to come down the stairs. “Madison, Lucas come down here please we have guests over.” She shouted, not in a way that people would get frightened, but in a way that was calming and nice. It wasn’t what we expected, we had expected her to go up and bring them down or text them to come down but nope she literally called their names out for them to come down.
Madison walked down in sweats, while Lucas came down in jeans and a nice shirt. Madison stood at the end of the last step and said, “Mom why didn’t you tell me that there was a guy coming over,” her face started turning red with embarrassment.
“I didn’t think that it really mattered if it was a guy or not. They're just here to get to know us more,” her mother didn’t care that I was there and she didn’t tell Madison I was coming. She seemed like she would have gotten more dressed up if she would have known, which would have made me feel bad for making her go through all the work just to see me.
Madison walked over to Nicole first shaking her hand and introducing herself and Nicole did the same. Then she went to James, making me think she didn’t really want to meet me. Finally she walked over to me and didn’t shake my hand or anything and said, “Hi, my name is Madison. My mom said that you are also a senior.”
“Yeah I am, I can help you get to know some people on Monday so that you aren’t alone or you could just hang around with me for the first few days. Also, I’m Damon.” I hoped that it didn’t come off as weird but I really didn’t want someone to have to start at a new school their senior year without knowing anyone.
Lucas ran up to me and gave me a hug. I mean I’m used to giving random people hugs, but this was different for some reason. “My name is Lucas and I like baseball!” He was so excited to see me even though he had no clue who I was.
“Hey, I’m Damon and did you know, I play baseball for a team at school.”
“No, I didn’t but that's really cool! Can you be my friend? I’ve never had a baseball friend before.”
“Of course I can buddy. I would love to be your friend.” Normally that is how most of the little kids at the game do but I mean this time it might be nice to get to know and be friends with the family. What’s funny is when I was talking to Lucas, Madison started to smile at the fact that I was being nice to her brother.
James went with Lucas to his room to play with the toys that he had. While I helped Madison make dinner. Maybe this would give us a chance to actually get to know each other more, so that on Monday for school we could actually have something to talk about and we would at least know each other some.
“So I heard you say that you play baseball, do you enjoy it?” Madison tried to start a conversation with me so that it wasn’t just awkward silence.
“I used to hate sports but I do enjoy baseball now. Do you play any sports?”
“Yea I play volleyball, how long have you played baseball?”
“I started playing my sophomore year but this year at the end of last year was the first time I was on varsity. What about you, how long have you played volleyball?”
“Oh cool. I’ve played volleyball since the beginning of Junior high. What motivated you to start playing baseball?”
“Well my freshman year I had tried out for basketball but the coach said that I wasn’t built for basketball and that I should try baseball. What made you wanna start playing volleyball?”
“At my junior high they made everyone play at least one sport and volleyball was the only one that stood out to me and I’ve enjoyed it since. Have you ever had to move states?”
“I moved here from England right before kindergarten. You're probably thinking well you don’t have an accent, and yeah I know that I don’t have an accent and that's because I wasn’t around it that much before here so there isn’t a lot of an accent. Where did you move here from?”
“I moved here from Canada, but my family and I have moved a lot so that's not where I’m originally from.”
“So where are you originally from?”
“I’m from Australia but the rest of my family is from Germany.”
“That's really cool. I’ve always wanted to go to Australia but my parents said that it's too expensive and that if I really wanted to go that it would be my graduation present. Are your parents going to get you a graduation present?”
“They have talked about letting me go back to the places we lived before to get to see all of my old friends from before, but they said that it might be too much money to go to all of the places. So I have to figure out which ones I want to go to.”
“Have you thought about which ones you want to go to more?”
“I’ve started to but it's hard to only choose a few of them. When I really want to go to all of them.”
“Yeah makes sense, it’s hard to decide who you want to see more.”
“Exactly. No one else really understands, everyone is just like ‘everyone has a favorite friend that they want to see more. I don’t know how it could be so hard to choose’. But it's not that easy, because my friends at each place have helped me in some way in my life that I can’t just choose a few of them.”
“Yea I mean like if I was to move away from here and then a few years later get the opportunity to come back I wouldn’t just choose a few people that I was friends with I would try to see most of them. I think that the people who say that have never actually had to move away from their friends for more than a few months.”
“See like you're the only one that understands that and you're probably right on that, they probably never had to leave their friends and not have many ways of communicating with them.”
I showed madison around the first few days of school but she got the hang of it pretty quick. She even made a few friends her first week at school.
“Damon i hope you know thag just because i finally made a few friends, that i dont want to hang out with you still.” Madison said to me when i drove her home, like i did everyday since the first day she got here, on friday right after the basketball game we went to watched together.
Her saying that lifted a huge weight off my chest, “you know you dont always have to hang out with me if you don’t want to. Like tonight you could have hung out with jane and bella. Not that i didnt enjoy watching the game with you, its just if you want to hang out with them at a game you can dont let me stop you from hanging out with your friends.”I hate that random feeling you get sometimes, the feeling where its like your falling for the person you just met. Well that is the feeling a got during the first few weeks. After saying that i felt a sense of guilt flow over me. Did i say something wrong, i feel like i shouldnt have said that.
“I wanted to hang out with you at the game. Yea i could have hung out with them but they werent the one i wanted to spend the game with tonight.” We pulled into the driveway of her house and i rushed out of the car to try and open her door before she could. I always hated when i didnt open her door because i always felt like a bad person if i didnt.
I got to the door right before she could open it. I opened the door for her and out ran lucas from thw front door.
“Sis, why does my friend always open your door for you. You have hands, why cant you do it yourself?”
“ hey lucas, i can open my door by myself but damon always beats mw too it.”
“Hey little dude, you wanna know why i open the door for your sister all the time?”
“Yea”
“ it’s because i want to be a gentleman. Your sister is very much capable of opening it by herself, but i like getting to help her out anytime i get the chance.”
“So you like her?” I tried to keep a straight face as lucas asked me this question. I didnt want to mess up the friendship me and madison have started to build.
I stood in complete aw for a few seconds but figured i better answer his question,” i do like your sister, she has grown be one of my greatest friends”
“ i didnt mean like that, i meant do you like like her?”
I whispered in his ear,” can you keep a secret”
“Yea im good at secrets”
I whispered, “okay im going to trust you with this secret real quick. I do kinda like like your sister, but shhh you cant tell her i told you. I dont want her to know yet”
His jaw dropped instantly. He shouted, “ oh my goodness you like her” my face started to turn red. Lucas ran back inside to tell his mother about it. Madison stood there with a slight grin.
“So did i hear that you like me?” She said while still having grin and her cheeks were turning a little pink.
“It depend.”
“Depend on…”
“On if you feel the same way” my heart started to pound waiting for a response but i didnt quite get a word response.
Without saying anything she gave me a small peak on the cheek and walked inside the house for the night.
