Gethsemane

Chapter 1

Monday 19th February 2024

Denis Kerzhakov

I stroked the black cat hairs off my bottle green blazer. I was nervous since it was my first day at this school, I wanted to make a good impression of myself. I was new to the area, it felt strange living in a small coastal town, when I was used to London. I had only been in Southport for 8 days so far, so everything felt abit overwhelming. Me and my mum had walked along the promenade and gone halfway up the pier on Saturday, but other than that, Southport still felt alien to me. I was very anxious on the drive to school, so I turned my mum's car radio on, in an attempt to soothe my nerves. Instead of music, I was greeted abruptly with a news report from the ongoing war:

"20 people have been arrested after a protest turned violent in London yesterday. Thousands of people gathered to protest against the British attack in Moscow that killed over 160 Russian civilians last November.."

My mum quickly hit the radio button and turned it off, I looked at her,

"I don't want to hear that.", she said.

I scanned the streets of the town on our way. I surveyed every road, every house, every church, every shop. I wanted to get rid of this weird sense of unfamiliarity and uncertainty, so I made the effort to be comfortable with the area. It seemed almost endless, there wasn't much around other than consecutive rows of the same Victorian houses. As we got nearer to the school, I began to see students in the distinct green blazer, walking in the direction we were going. The school was on a main road, so my mum pulled into a side road nearby and stopped the car.

"Good luck today." she said, looking forward and not at me.

"Thanks." I muttered.

As I shut the door, she threw her eyes towards me and announced,

"I love y-"

I shut the door before she could finish. I opened the door as I noticed the seatbelt was stuck in the door. She looked pleasantly surprised, she must've thought I was opening it so she could finish her sentence.

She repeated it again,

"I love y-"

"The seatbelt was stuck." I interrupted.

Her smile lowered and I threw in the seatbelt and shut the door again.

I came to the green gates that surrounded the school. On the gates, hung a large metal sign, reading: St Mark's Roman Catholic High School and Sixth Form Centre

A middle aged woman with short brown hair, wearing a black skirt that reached her ankles and a hi-vis coat stood just outside, marshalling students inside. She had a cold look on her face and dark circles around her eyes. I wasn't sure where in the school I was supposed to go, so I decided to ask her in hopes that she would help me. As I approached her, her expressions became gradually more and more confused and almost sort of slightly disgusted. I tried to brush it off, thinking she might just have an unfriendly face, however when she opened her mouth, her tone matched her expression.

"Um.. Miss?" I said nervously.

She paused and seemed to analyse me,

"What is it?" she asked, sounding almost frustrated.

"Um.. It's my first day here and I don't know where I'm supposed to go,"

"Well then go to the office and ask them then." she replied.

She spoke in a patronising manner, as if I should've known exactly what to do and it was obvious. I bit my tongue and my left eye twitched, I wanted to punch her in the face. After a brief look at her, I began to walk towards the school doors.