Bent

“Come on now Sebastian, it’ll be okay,” his mother told him as she turned around in the front passenger seat of the truck to face him. “It’s only for your last year of high school and then there are plenty of colleges around that you can choose from. Besides it’ll be a good chance to have a fresh start and make new friends, right?”

Sebastian just nodded silently listening to the metallic clanking of the trailer that was being towed along behind the truck. He put his ear buds back in, turning up the music so that he wouldn’t be able to hear his parents, and turned back to stare out the side window waiting for the ride to be over with. Sebastian was leaving his home town and all his friends behind because both of his parents thought that it would be nice to have a change of pace. He was a bit conflicted on the choice but secretly was happy about the new start.

Sebastian groaned when he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He had an idea as to who it was already and really didn’t want to have to deal with her at that moment. But he clicked the phone open anyway and opened the message to see what she had sent him. Bracing himself for whatever she could’ve sent him, knowing that it was not going to be anything nice. His ex-girlfriend always had this very explosive personality when she didn’t get what she wanted and had been loud about what she thought when he didn’t want to have sex with her after the incident that had happened this past summer. But that wasn’t the only reason that he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t let her know that he had just used her to make people think that he was straight.

Sebastian winced and then sighed when he read what she had sent him. He knew that she wouldn’t take being dumped too well. Besides all the swearing, name calling and other insults, the text essentially said that he was going to regret ever dumping a girl like her. All Sebastian could think was that he may have just dodged a bullet by moving out of that town and away from her.

It wasn’t too much longer until they had reached their new house. Sebastian had been busy when his parents had gone to see the new house, so this was the first time that he had seen the house in person. As he peered out his window, his mom pointed to which house was the one that they were going to be staying in. Sebastian was pleasantly surprised to see how big the house was.

It was a two-story newly painted ranch-style house with a tall fence surrounding the backyard, cutting off the line of sight to whatever was hiding in the back. But standing tall and strong on the front yard was a huge oak tree, whose branches stretched high above the roof of the house and towards the bright blue sky. Sebastian started to feel a bit happier and more relieved about being here instead of in his old town, thinking that this could be a good thing.

Sebastian got out of the truck and went to help his dad unpack the trailer that was hitched to the bumper of the truck just below the tailgate as his mother walked up to unlock the front door of the new house. This was more than just a new house for Sebastian though, this was a whole new start. An escape. He knew he would be lying to himself if he had tried to think otherwise. As Sebastian and his dad unpacked the trailer and brought it into the living room of the house, Sebastian got his first real look at what the house was really like on the inside. He was surprised by how spacious it looked on the inside but at the same time it didn’t feel lonely or make him feel out of place.

Sebastian was afraid though that he might feel out of place at the new high school because he had come so accustomed to the people that he had been around essentially his whole life that’s what made him the most nervous. It was only for his last year, but he didn’t want to make a fool out of himself in that short span of time and leave with a rather unsavory outlook.

After everything was unpacked from the trailer and into the living room of the house. Sebastian’s mother was giving him the grand tour of the parts of the house that he was otherwise unfamiliar with, but that his parents had already become acquainted with during their earlier visits. She showed him the basement game room with the mini bar, the fair size back yard with a pool and a patio kitchen. After that she took him through the kitchen and up the stairs to show him the two full bathrooms, the guest bedroom and, of course, Sebastian’s bedroom. Sebastian’s parents’ bedroom was located on the first floor, but he hadn’t really gone in that room. It was none of his business what was going on in his parents’ room, as long as they respected the privacy of his room.

They began to unpack the boxes and put all the materials away in their respective places within the house. They had barely managed to make a dent in the number of boxes they had when they realized how late it had gotten.

“Sebastian!” his mother called from downstairs in the living room. Sebastian was upstairs in his bedroom putting away some of his belongings when he heard his mother call for him.

“Yes?” Sebastian called from the upper floor as he leaned over the rails to look down into the living room. He glanced around the living room for a moment before his mother came into view.

“You should be getting to bed soon Hun, you have to get up early tomorrow for your first day of school as a Senior,” his mother chimed as she and his father started to walk towards the door that was on the other side of the living room.

“Yeah yeah, I’ll be in bed shortly,” Sebastian called after his parents as they closed the door to their bedroom. That’s when his smile slowly began to slip and he sighed as he rubbed his hands over his face. It’s not that he wasn’t excited about getting a fresh start, but it was more that his stomach was tied up in knots from how nervous he was about doing something so new.

Sebastian wandered back into his room and maneuvered around the boxes that were stacked up three boxes high in some places and threw himself onto his bed. He hugged the pillow tightly as the nerves started to grow worse the more he thought about what tomorrow would bring.