Alone Together

4 - Flickering Spark

"What?" Gilbert looked a bit concerned.

"Where I used to live," Alfred started hesitantly. "Not a lot of people accepted other people... Like me."

"You don't have to worry about that here," Matthias said with a smile after a moment of silence.

"Yeah, everyone's cool, here," Gilbert agreed.

Alfred nodded, a true smile blooming over him. Maybe this wasn't going to be such a bad place after all.

"Anyways," Matthias continued. "This is Lucas, my boyfriend."

Alfred nodded with a smile. "Nice to meet you. I'm Alfred."

Lucas nodded. "Nice to meet you, Alfred."

After that, the rest of the day seemed to be amazing. He went to French after lunch. The rest if the day seemed to whiz by, and before he knew it, Alfred was on the bus home. Matt didn't sit with him today. He sat with a friend, which didn't bother Alfred in the slightest. He smiled to himself when he knew his brother had made some friends.

At the house, Alfred said hi to his dad before sitting beside him on the couch. The house was slowly coming together, the furniture in the living room and the movie shelf stood beside the TV.

"You're all smiles today," his father said with a grin.

"You were right."

"About?"

"The people here. They're different."

"Not so bad, huh? So, make any new friends, yet?"

"I think so," Alfred said, nodding.

"Cool." He clicked on the next episode and put the remote down as the show started playing.

The rest of the week flew by. Alfred flew through the work he was assigned in classes and began to look forward to school every day. By the next week, he had a pretty normal schedule laid out for himself throughout the week.

The school set up its schedule with A and B days, each one having every other class. On A days Alfred started with math and then he had band. He went to lunch with Gilbert and sat with him and Matthias, sometimes Lucas sat with them as well. Then he went to gym (an added on class that someone had apparently forgotten to put on his schedule) and then ended with science. On his B days he went to study hall in the morning and then to geography. Lunch, for some reason, came in the middle of French when he ate with different people, usually depending on the day. After French, he closed the day with English. It seemed like a lot, but after the week, Alfred almost had it down.

Friday, he walked out of English class at the end of the day with Matthias. They walked out to the courtyard where everyone waited for the buses. They talked with each other until Matthias met up with Lucas who sometimes joined in their conversations. Alfred's bus usually arrived first and he would say good bye with a smile before rushing off to get a seat on the bus.

At home, Matt and Alfred talked about school sometimes. It seemed Matt was usually texting his new friends most of the time. Alfred would listen to the radio a lot. By the end of the first week, the house was all put together. Everything was unpacked and it all looked good. His dad had also hooked up the game system. That ended up being how Alfred spent a majority of his free time when he had nothin better to do. Just making sure Matt never beat his high score.

By the closing of the next week, Alfred was already starting to feel part of the town. Sure, he hadn't grown up with these people, but they all welcomed him into the community and maybe that's what he wanted most. To be accepted.

The next week, the whole school was preparing for finals, which Alfred still had to take despite only being there for two weeks. He spent all his spare time studying the material. At home, he noticed Mattie doing the same. He wasn't on his phone as much, except when using it to search something or use it as a calculator.

It was kind of weird. Everything was going okay, at home and at school. Two weeks left of school and everything was fine. It never usually took him this little time to adjust. Maybe that was because he had actually made some friends this time. All he knew, was that he was actually starting to hope that they didn't move again.

Monday morning, Alfred got off the bus at school and met up with Matthias and Gilbert. During every class they discussed finals and how to study for them. The only class they didn't do much in was band. Alfred had come to school here just after they had their spring concert, so all the music the practiced was mostly short pieces for graduation, which was this Friday.

The week seemed to fly by, and before he knew it, it was Friday and his mother was dropping him off at the school. Alfred was there through entire thing. It was around one or two hours later when it all finally ended and everyone was allowed to go home.

Alfred stopped at the music room to put his saxophone away before going out to the courtyard to wait for his dad. He stood, talking to Gilbert while they both waited.

Alfred pulled out his phone to check the time. The minutes late. Maybe his dad had forgotten about him.

"Hey, I should give you my number," Gilbert reached to his pocket. "For, you know," he said, sounding a bit hesitant. "Like after school lets out."

"Sure."

Gilbert pulled out his phone and they both exchanged numbers. Gilbert also have him Matthias' number, and it was just then that the black pickup truck drove up and stopped by the sidewalk. Alfred said bye to Gilbert and got into the truck with his dad. He put on his seatbelt as his dad drove away.

"Have fun?"

"We played music for an hour and a half. I'm tired."

His dad smirked.

"You try playing saxophone for ninety minutes straight!" he shouted jokingly.

"Just a heads up, your brother's having some friends over this weekend."

"Okay."

Turned out it wasn't okay. They ended up monopolizing the entire game station for the day. Alfred ended up sitting on the couch, waiting for his turn, which he knew would never come. On the up side, he got to meet new people. Matt's friends were called Emil and Lovino. It was actually kinda amusing, watching them beat Mattie at video games.

It was after noon when Alfred's phone went off. A small, distinguished ding that alerted him of texts.

He picked up his phone and flipped it open to see a message from Gilbert.

Hey, u doing anything?

Alfred pressed reply and sent a text back;

Nothin much. Why?

I'm going to Matthias' and he was wondering if you'd like to come.

Sure. Where's his house.

U know where the firehouse is?

Yeah

#37 on the rd right after it.

Ok. Thanks!

No prob. U need a ride?

I'm good. See u there.

See ya!

Alfred went to his room where he put on his sneakers. He grabbed his spring jacket and put his phone in his pocket after putting the jacket on.

"Hey, Matt! I'm going down the street!" he shouted just before he opened the door.

He heard Matt shout back, "Okay!"

He walked outside to the bright sunlight, the screen door slamming shut behind him as it always did.