APOLLO ✓

2.

the arrival ;

Dear no one,

The year was 2013, we'd just come back from Christmas break and the new year was starting. We were almost half way through the school year.

I'd expected seventh grade to go exactly how sixth had.

Shit.

And it did for a while. I'd managed to get by on my own for the last year and a half, pulling myself along.

Pulling, pulling, pulling.

I'd eat my lunch on the cold, tiled floors by the lockers that were the same dull shade of grey as my soul. Then I got sick from the chill and Mama and Ba found out. They could never understand why I isolated. They didn't get it. But how could they? They didn't look like me.

Undecided, as one kid so kindly put it.

Of all the schools in a town full of them, I'd managed to find my way into the segregated one, where peace was found in ethnic cliques -- all too 1950's for the 21st century. I'd learn many years later what a nightmare the PTA moms club was because of it. Kids do as they see, after all.

The children didn't shy away from pointing out what they found odd -- what did not conform with what they new -- and I was nothing if not different. I tried, I really tried to make it work, but I wasn't their cup of tea, and their attitude made me realise that they weren't mine.

I didn't fit in with the many white kids - too much colour in my skin, too much coil in my hair.

I didn't fit in with the few black kids - far too asian.

I didn't fit in with the even fewer asian kids - not asian enough.

That simple.

The jokes were endless and demeaning. Slurs and mean words meant to knock down all my self esteem. Like nothing I'd ever experienced before back in the big city. And all I had to do to deserve this kind of treatment was exist.

I was never good enough for anyone, and on a kid like me, that was difficult to accept. I'd never been the most popular, I was insanely shy, but I had friends at my old home. There was Mason and Georgie and Tyler. None of whom could follow me to this small, secluded town to start over with me. None of whom could help me fend off the negative feelings.

I felt an ever present loneliness.

And before I knew it, I was back in that awful class with the same awful children and the same awful heartache of being alone.

And I remember thinking, oh Christ, please not again..

And like a divine angel delivering the answer to my prayer, he arrived by Ms Plath's side (I've decided to name her after Sylvia, for their likeness in looks and depressing outlooks on life).

He was confident, even back then, and every stride he took told you so. He pushed his dark fringe out of his face, revealing his inquisitive eyes.

Excited murmurs broke out in the class, as some kids looked at him like a dog looked at a piece of meat after being starved. He fit the criteria. They knew what he was, where he fit. And his boldness demanded all of their attention.

"Class," she began with the same introduction that I'd gotten the year before, "I'd like you to welcome Starry Eyes," and oh my, he had the name of an angel too. Starry Eyes. A peculiar name, admittedly, but I hardly cared. It wasn't until I found the boy standing before me did I realise how distracted I'd gotten.

"Looks like I'm your new desk mate," he said with a wide smile. My eyes were so wide with shock, (they were sure to make fun of me for it later because who knew they could open so wide? sigh.) but I nodded anyway, "I'm Starry Eyes by the way."

And I wanted to tell him, I know who you are, everybody does, but instead I said:

"I'm, uh, I'm Golden Boy."

"Golden Boy," he'd repeated like it was something special -- it really wasn't, "I think we're going to make each other's year."

And from the way he smiled so brightly, so boldly, so beautifully, I was sure that his words held nothing but truth.

- golden boy