Chapter 2 Welcome to Dayleside... and Cardenas Academy.

𝔜ou know, I used to imagine what my life would be like when I got into high school. I didn't expect to become a stud or play on the boys football team while walking around with a sports jacket as all the girls looked at me. No, I definitely didn't.

I expected a decent, normal high school life; to keep being invisible to everyone like I always was and make nice grades. Maybe get bullied once in a while and run my mouth at times to get out of bad situations and then finally graduate. That was it, that was literally all I was expecting for my high school life.

But guess what I got? I was thrown into the gates of another school. Apparently, Dayleside High, my old school had to shut down because of a whole lot of debt and all that government stuff that I'm too much of a teenager to care about and the best solution they could come up with was to merge us with Cardenas Academy.

In case you're wondering what that is, don't worry, any sane person would. It's basically hellfire and the students that go to school there are like demons for torture. It's such a posh, rich, annoying people school and I dislike it so much. They have to wear a uniform, a tie! Can you imagine that? What's worse? The school is all the way over in Flowers street where all the rich people in Dayleside live. It's all so fucking annoying.

I know, I'm sorry for swearing but cut me some slack, you're not the one who's going to be having classes with some girl named Penelope Velasquez or one of those fancy names talking about the dress that she saw in one of those posh boutiques. The whole thing has really got me riled up.

The time was six thirty-five, I know because I had slammed my alarm so hard that I thought I broke it. It was just another thing reminding me that I had to go to this stupid school. It hadn't started snowing yet, but I knew it would snow.

𝘎𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘪𝘵 𝘢 𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘬 𝘵𝘰𝘱𝘴, I thought to myself.

I walked to the mirror and stared at my reflection. Brian used to tell me that I had anime hair, I never watched anime so I didn't know exactly what he meant. He showed me some pictures and I still couldn't see it but when I looked at myself in the mirror that morning, I could definitely see it. Yup, anime hair. I don't sleep like a normal person would, I roll and roll and probably even dance on the bed when I'm asleep, hence why I always wake up with messy hair.

𝘐 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘭𝘦𝘦𝘱, I thought to myself as I walked into the bathroom, which was true, I do deserve more sleep.

It was as I was brushing my teeth that I realized even how much crazier the whole thing with the school was. Most of my peers and schoolmates will be jam-packed with a bunch of posh, snobby teenagers from the west of Dayleside, like yeah that's exactly what is going to fix the whole problem. Brian was leaving Dayleside because of it and so were a few other people I knew, mom said we were staying. Speaking of mom...

"Dagwood!" My mom could get very loud and cranky in the mornings and yes that is my name, Dagwood, let's not talk about it too much.

"Dagwood, you really do not have to be late for your very first day of the term!"

"Mom!" I yelled back, "I'm already awake!" The thing with mom and I is that sometimes we forget that we're mother and son and act like roommates in one huge house, we are very casual with each other.

"You don't have to yell every time mom," I said loudly, "we have neighbors now and they might complain."

"There are no neighbors, Dagwood and you don't have to yell back!"

Did she really not know that we literally had new neighbors pack into the neighborhood yesterday? I ran down the stairs with my towel a bit lose on my waist.

"You didn't know?" I asked her, "we have new neighbors mom, they packed in yesterday."

"What?" She looked at me in a very confused manner, "of course I didn't know."

"Well, the neighbors packed in yesterday," I repeated, "In the white old Cambridge house."

"Jesus Christ Dagwood, how come you never thought to tell me?"

"Well, I thought you knew already." I quickly grabbed my towel as it was about to fall off.

"They probably think we're awful neighbors, we didn't even go over to welcome them." Mom sat on the sofa and rubbed on her protruded belly.

"Yeah, well we didn't go outside so they'll probably think we're not at home," I said with a wink.

"Dagwood?" Mom groaned a little as she relaxed on the sofa.

"Yes, mom?"

"They have kids don't they?" She asked as she continued rubbing her belly.

"Yeah," I replied, "I saw a guy, right about my age or probably younger, I couldn't really tell-"

"Good, go over and offer to walk him to school."

I gave a soft groan and rolled my eyes, "Mom, what the f-"

"Dagwood."

"Ugh!" I facepalmed, "Alright fine."

"That's great hunny, you can take some of the cookies I made with you."

"I'm not taking the cookies mom," I replied as I walked back up the stairs. I could still see mom petting her belly.

"Oh, Dagwood dear, I think it's time you let go of that towel, it's a bit too small for you now," mom said.

I didn't reply.

"I'll get you a new one!"

"Mom, you're yelling again!" I said and banged my door shut.

☞✧☜

I still wonder how my mom does it; make me do things I had refused to do at first. As I walked to the old Cambridge house wearing a blazer and a tie with a box of cookies in my hands, I felt so embarrassed.

I rang the doorbell and then adjusted my tie, I was as uncomfortable as I have ever been in my life.

The boy I had seen earlier was the one who opened the door, he was a very light-skinned African-American and he had very curly and shiny black hair.

"Hey uhm, I'm-" I was about to say something until he interrupted me.

"I know who you are," he said in a Queens accent. I raised an eyebrow at him.

"You do?" I asked.

"Nah, just kidding," he said and beamed weirdly. I replied with a weak 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬 smile.

"Yeah, I'm your uhm ..not-so-next door neighbor," I said, gesturing to my house which was a few trees away from the Cambridge house, "I'm Dagwood."

"Cool, I'm David, you can call me Dave." He shook my hand.

"Yeah okay uhm, my mum made me bring cookies." I opened the box, trying my best to not make the conversation more awkward than it was.

"David, who is at the door?" An elderly female voice spoke from inside the house. The voice belonged to a tall woman, she was probably the same age as my mom, at least that was my estimation when she walked to the door.

"Oh, mom this is Dagwood, our neighbor," Dave said to the woman.

"Oh, what a pleasant surprise," she exclaimed in the softest kind of way, "Hello Dagwood, I'm Maurice, David's mother."

"Hi, good morning," I said, waving shortly. She had a warm welcoming feeling about her and to be honest, I've never felt completely comfortable with people who did. Her smile was pretty and wide and she had shiny black hair just like Dave's.

"Well, what do you have there, Dagwood?" she asked.

"Oh, my mom uhm... my mom made me bring cookies," I replied, "I don't know if you like coo-"

"Of course we like cookies," she said, taking the box from me, "David, what are you doing? Let him in." She took the box with her inside the house.

Dave raised two friendly eyebrows at me and I replied again with a weak smile then stepped into the house.

"Your mother," Maurice said as she returned to the living room where I was, "how is she?"

"Well she's fine," I replied, "she's sorry she couldn't come over, she's pregnant."

"Really? Well, that is splendid," she said, "I'll have to go greet her myself then, I'm sorry for not doing so earlier, we've had a busy twenty-four hours."

David ran up the stairs for some reason that I was too uninterested to care about.

"No, that's alright," I said, "We should have been the ones to visit." The house was very exquisite and aesthetic from what it used to look like a year ago. "The house is looking really nice," I said, looking around.

"Oh, thank you," Maurice said from the kitchen.

"Dad's still in bed," Dave announced as he hurried down the stairs.

"Let your father sleep, David," Maurice replied as she came out of the kitchen. For some reason, her top was showing more cleavage than it was earlier. She had finally put on her shoes and grabbed her briefcase.

"Uhm, I was going to say my mom kinda made me offer to walk Dave to school if that's alright with you," I said.

"That's not necessary," Maurice replied, "I'm driving David to school, you should come with us." She tucked in her shirt tighter.

"That's really nice of you, but uhm-"

"Come on, join us. It will give you and David a good amount of time to get to know each other." She started to walk out of the house, "Come on, let's go."

I looked at Dave who gave me a "come on" motion with his head.

𝘎𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵.

Dave slammed the door really hard as we both walked out of the house.

"Why do we have to wear this shitty blazer?" he asked me as we were walking to the car.

"Probably because it's a shitty school," I replied.

Dave smirked and looked at me. It didn't take long for me to notice his stare, "What?" I asked.

"I don't know you just seem to have this 'screw it all' mindset," he replied, "I don't know if I fuck with it, yet."

"I just don't like the idea of changing schools but not actually changing schools," I angrily said, putting my hands in my pocket.

"Yeah well, we gotta stick with what we don't like to get what we like, right?" David opened the door to the back left side of the car while I opened the opposite side. We stared at each other for a second.

"That makes zero sense," I replied and got into the car.

We were both sat in the back while Maurice started the engine.

"Who even came up with that, is that an actual saying or you made it up yourself?"

"I made it up myself," he replied.

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"It's a shitty saying." We both erupted into small laughter, "Like how could you come up with that?"

"I came up with it right now," he replied, "I had to improvise." We laughed for a while more before Maurice began to drive.

Fifteen minutes later, we were in Cardenas Academy and it was as huge and as busy as I had imagined. We stepped out of the car and waved Maurice goodbye.

I turned around to see my new nightmare, it was already easy to make out the students from Dayleside High and the ones who were already students in Cardenas, the whole thing looked like a battlefield and I wasn't really sure I was ready for the war but I had to fight either way.

Dave and I took glances at each other and began to walk into the school's premises.