8. Fresh Starts

Wednesday, September 7th

Jason walked into his first class, arriving at the room about 15 minutes before class was scheduled to start. Jason arrived early to everything that had a set start time, mostly because he feared the embarrassment that came from being late. Jason’s first class was AP English Language and Composition with Mr. Johnson. According to Anya, Mr. Johnson was one of the most laid back teachers in the school. As Jason entered the room, he was greeted by the teacher who was sitting behind a cluttered desk in the corner. 

“Hello there! The seating chart is on the stool at the front. What’s your name?” Mr. Johnson smiled as he spoke to Jason. Mr. Johnson was a teacher that always seemed to become energized by teaching, no matter how chaotic or intense his life was. Mr. Johnson was effectively bald, the grey horseshoe of curled hair that remained was cut short. The lights of the room shone against his exposed dark scalp.

Jason struggled to find his voice, eventually squeaking out “I’m Jason Ewing.”

“Lovely to meet you Jason, I’m Mr. Johnson and I’ll be your teacher for AP Lang this year.” There was a distinct warmth in Mr. Johnson’s voice that made it easier for Jason to respond. 

“Nice to meet you too” Jason replied in stride this time.

“You’re the transfer student from out of state right?” Mr. Johnson asked casually and was clearly doing his best not to pry at Jason. Jason could feel his shoulders relax and his jaw unclench as the conversation carried on.

“Yeah, from out of the country as well, I’m from Vancouver, Canada.” Jason realized as he spoke that he was going to have to explain where he was from over and over again for the foreseeable future. 

“How’d you end up in Madison?” Mr. Johnson asked, then added “If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Oh my mom got a job here, working for the University of Wisconsin.” Jason and Mr. Johnson continued chatting for a few moments before other students slowly started streaming in. The classroom was organized into 6 columns of 5 desks. Jason’s assigned seat was in the very back row in the third column from the left. To his immediate right sat a blonde girl whose face was buried in a book. To Jason’s immediate left was a muscular guy with a storm of red hair, spiked in such a manner that it almost looked like fire. 

When the final bell rang to start class, Mr. Johnson introduced himself and began going over ground rules and generally what the class would cover. After 10 or so minutes of explaining the course and general logistics, Mr. Johnson instructed people to introduce themselves to each other, pairing people off based on the columns of desks. There was a short list of questions Mr. Johnson wanted the pairs to learn about each other. As Jason turned to look directly at the muscled ginger to his left, the redhead spoke.

“Hey, I’m Terry, what’s your name?” Terry’s voice was intense and bordered on aggressive. Terry generally was unaware of how loud he could talk, sometimes being downright deafening. 

“Oh, I’m Jason,” Jason was a little startled by Terry’s intensity, but was still in the groove that Mr. Johnson had gotten him in. 

“Nice! That’s a cool name” Terry responded, speaking quickly and fluidly. Guided by Terry’s unabashed friendliness, the pair quickly learned about each other. Once they had made their way through the questions, the two continued casually conversing until Mr. Johnson retook control of the classroom. Mr. Johnson then had the pairs go around and introduce each other based on the questions he had asked. The rest of class was introductions and a brief writing activity. 

After AP Lang, Jason proceeded to Calc 1, another AP class. Ap Calc was decidedly less laid back than AP Lang. The teacher, Ms. Kevan got to business very quickly, taking about 5 minutes to introduce the class, and spending the last 45 introducing the first Calc concept of the course. After Calculus, Jason made his way to Biology. 

Biology was taught by Mrs. Randall, who started the class at the middle ground of intensity between Ms. Kevan and Mr. Johnson. She took time to introduce herself and did a quick icebreaker with the class. 3rd period was an extra 5 minutes longer to allow for school announcements and the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. Jason was stunned and confused when about half of his classmates began pledging their allegiance to the flag in the corner of the room. Following biology, Jason had US Gov, which would have been an enjoyable class period had he not been fixated on the uncertainty of the lunch period that came next. 

When the bell rang to signal the start of lunch, Jason’s heart began racing. His mind was a runaway train, thinking of how horribly uncool he would look eating alone. He didn’t want to eat alone in some back hallway of the school, but he also didn’t want to have all the eyes in the cafeteria on him as he ate. Jason did his best to quiet his fears as he got his lunch and navigated through the crowded and noisy cafeteria. Eventually he spotted an open table that he felt he could sit at without having to talk with anyone else. He arrived at the table and took out his phone, and noticed he had a text from Anya asking how his day was going. 

How’s your first day going so far? The message read. Over the summer when he had actively been avoiding frisbee, Jason had learned how to keep people from worrying about him. 

Not bad, a little overwhelming but generally alright. Jason sent back. The longer he sat in the cafeteria, the more conscious he became of what he perceived as a bubble around him. People are avoiding me, I must look ridiculous right now, he thought. When thoughts like that jumped into his head, he found the best way to shut them out was drowning them out. Jason turned to his backpack and began digging through it, trying to find his earbuds. With his head buried in his bag, he was completely unaware that someone was approaching him. 

“Hey, is it cool if we sit here?” Jason recognized the voice of Terry from his AP Lang class. Looking up from his backpack, Jason saw Terry was accompanied by a tall girl wearing a hijab. 

“Uh, yeah, sure” Jason said, caught off guard by the sudden appearance of Terry and his companion. Terry’s intensity was generally a little off putting to Jason, but at the moment Jason was incredibly grateful for Terry’s arrival. Jason would rather grow accustomed to Terry’s personality than have to get used to eating alone. 

“This is Aafa, Aafa, this is Jason, we have AP Lang together.” Terry introduced the two to each other without skipping a beat. 

“Nice to meet you” Aafa and Jason said in unison, both awkwardly waving. 

Terry chuckled as sat down across from Jason “I knew you two would get along.” Once Terry and Aafa arrived, lunch was a blur for Jason, and before he knew it he was walking into his 5th class of the day, choir. Choir and his 6th period class, french, went by incredibly quickly. Jason’s 7th class was AP US History, which happened to be in one of the farthest classrooms from where he had french. Jason began the long and hurried walk to his final class. 

↼⇀ ↼⇀ ↼⇀

X and Frederick sat together at a table in the corner of Ms. Conley’s classroom. They were joking about the content of the class they were taking. X being Black and Frederick being Indigenous, they had a very different relationship to US History than the white people who were the majority of the class. Being able to joke between themselves provided a level of comfort knowing they would be going through the class together. 

There were six tables in the room, each could sit four people comfortably.  As passing time slogged on, all of the other tables filled except Frederick and X’s table. A lanky white boy walked into the classroom moments before the last bell rang. Frederick and X watched as he frantically looked around for a place to sit, eventually keying in on their table. The lanky white boy made his way over to their table with long strides. When he sat down, Frederick and X took note of how flustered and red he looked. 

“Hey dude, you doing alright?” Frederick asked gently “I’m Frederick, this is X, we’re not gonna bite.”

“I’m Jason, nice to meet you.” Jason looked to the two people who shared the table with him and spoke breathily. Taking a deep breath Jason added on “Sorry this is my first day here so I’m a little overwhelmed.” After Jason finished speaking he turned to grab a notebook and pencil out of his bag. 

With Jason's attention elsewhere, Frederick and X looked to each other and had a conversation with their eyes in an instant. 

“Is this the guy Anya was talking about?” Frederick looked to X. 

“Maybe? I don’t know?” X shrugged and stared back. 

“Well we should find out” Frederick leaned his head forwards and widened his eyes. 

“Okay so ask him something” X gestured with one hand and slightly furrowed his eyebrows

“So you said you were new here right?” Frederick asked Jason, finally audibly speaking. Jason, having missed a whole conversation just to his left shyly responded. 

“Yeah I’m from Canada, just moved here like a month ago.” 

Yep, this is the guy Frederick and X thought immediately, sharing another quick glance that Jason saw. 

Did they just look at each other? Do they know who I am? No no no, I must be imagining things. Jason dismissed the glance as a trick of the light and turned towards the teacher. AP US History was on a similar level of intensity as AP Lang for the first day. Jason and X and Frederick got to know a bit more about each other through an icebreaker. Jason could quickly tell that X and Frederick were old friends. As class went on, all three could tell they would enjoy having Ms. Conley as a teacher. At the end of class, Frederick made a move. 

“Hey could I get your number Jason? Or like your Snap or something? So we can get in touch about the class and whatnot?” 

“Uh, sure, yeah” Jason offered his default response when asked a yes or no question. Jason exchanged numbers with both Frederick and X. When they finished the exchange, Anya stuck her head into the room and smiled as she took in the scene. 

“I see you’ve met already.” Anya called from the door. Jason turned towards Anya, and as he saw her again, it struck him just how similar she and X were in appearance. Jason felt incredibly dumb for not noticing the resemblance sooner. Noticing the dumbfounded look on Jason’s face, Anya elaborated “X is my brother and Frederick is our neighbor.” Jason nodded slowly and tried to formulate a response but was beaten to the punch by Frederick. 

“Only your neighbor? That’s all my significance to you?” He said in a mock wounded voice, placing his hand over his heart. 

“Oh right, our neighbor and continual pain in my ass. Is that better?” Anya offered.

“It was nice to meet you Jason, we’ll see you tomorrow.” X interrupted the friendly fight that was brewing to bid farewell to Jason. X began herding his sister and friend away as Jason returned the parting words. “I can’t take you two anywhere” X said as they finally left the classroom. Realistically, whenever the three were anywhere together there was an equal chance of any two of them getting into a frivolous fight. 

Jason exited the room moments after them, working his way through the school towards where his bike was locked up outside. Jason unlocked his bike and rode home at a breakneck speed, releasing a lot of the stress that had been built up through the day. 

When Jason arrived at home and was finally alone, he let out a deep sigh and began unwinding from the day. He got a bite to eat, drank some water, and listened to his favorite music. Even after having a couple of hours to decompress, Jason felt like he was on the verge of collapse, like his body wanted him to just shut down. Several hours later, Jason went to bed incredibly early. His sleep was deep and dense, empty of dreams. Jason awoke an hour before his alarm was set to go off. It was early enough that as he looked out his window he could just barely see the sun peeking out above the trees that covered most of Madison. 

Fin Chapter 8