Begin to Hope (part one)
He had to walk by his step-brother’s room on the way downstairs, and as he walked past the door, Drew met him in the doorway.
“Hey.” A grin surfaced on his face. Adam could tell he was excited. “Are you ready?”
“Yeah, I guess.” Adam muttered.
“Don’t be nervous.” Drew gave his brother a pat on the shoulder. “If anything happens, let me know. I’ve been working out all summer. I can take care of it.”
Adam felt lucky to have his brother. Even though they weren’t blood, they had bonded. His mother had remarried four years ago, and back then Adam had been Chelsea. Not much had changed since then. Things were easy between them from the start. Drew had been surprisingly supportive when Chelsea cut her hair short, changed her name to Adam and insisted on male pronouns. For the past few Christmases, the family had even bought Adam new clothes. Now all of his “female” clothes were phased out, given away in yard sales and forgotten. Although Drew came across as the average meathead, he was in truth much more than that. His acceptance had been a big part of why Adam could even stand Bardell for as long as he had. The bullying had become a real issue, and Drew had been in trouble so many times that it was just time for a fresh start. Their parents had heard great things about Degrassi, including their bullying policy which had changed immensely after a boy decided to shoot some people after he was bullied. He couldn’t believe his parents had decided to send him to a school where there had been a shooting. He was, in particular, sensitive to acts of violence and he was frightened something like that would happen again.
“Okay.” Adam watched his brother with mild curiosity. He was effortless with his spiked hair, torn jeans and faded t-shirt. He never had to try and always became popular. The younger boy envied that sometimes, but it never made him too bitter. He wished that, since Drew was his brother, he would become popular by extension. Unfortunately he was fairly sure that was an impossibility. Adam took a deep breath and made his way down the stairs. He grabbed some bread and half-heartedly made some toast, concentrated more on his wondering about what the day would be like. As he waited for the toaster, he sipped some stale coffee and looked up at his mother as she came into the kitchen.
“Good morning, Adam.” She sounded quite chipper. He observed her morning routine of coffee with milk and sugar, startled when the toast suddenly shot out of the toaster. He picked it up and buttered it, munching loudly when Drew entered the room.
“Hey mom. Did you make me breakfast?” He was grinning widely.
“I’ve got your bacon and eggs here in the skillet. They’re finished, so serve yourself. I’m entering zen mode right now.”
“Right, coffee.” Drew nodded. He made his way over to the stove and plucked a piece of bacon from the skillet after turning off the fire. It was obviously hot but he made no indication, holding it in his fingers and then throwing it greedily into his mouth.
“I thought you didn’t eat breakfast.” Adam exclaimed incredulously from his chair.
“Mmm, I told you,” He replied as he quickly finished off the bacon and scooped up the egg with a spoon. “I spent the summer bulking up. That means I have to get a lot of protein. In addition to protecting you, little man, I’m trying out for the football team! I’ve been practicing and I think I can make it! After all, I’m a junior now and not a stupid sophomore. So maybe I can get a real place on the team.” He spoke with his mouth full.
“You two, hurry up with the breakfast! You don’t want to be late on your first day.” Adam’s mother announced, finishing her cup of coffee in record time. Adam shoved the remainder of his toast into his quivering mouth and Drew wiped his own lips with his sleeve.
The three of them piled into the steel blue Ford Escape. Adam’s backpack strap got caught in the door and so he opened it again, pulling the knapsack away from the door and sitting it on the floor. He watched his mom in the rearview mirror as she drove, anxiously cracking his knuckles. It was now or never…could he go with never? It wouldn’t be so bad being homeschooled or having a private tutor.
Making his way up the Degrassi steps, Adam gripped his paper schedule in his left hand, swallowing the lump that was forming in his throat. Of course on his way up the stairs, he tripped, causing a group of kids close by to stifle their laughter. He sighed, this was certainly not a great sign, and with a deep breath entered the building. The place was decorated very nicely, he noticed, much better than his last school. He gazed at the schedule, noticing that his first class was Media Immersion. Luckily he was pretty good with computers, so the class wouldn’t be difficult by any means. He found the classroom without much of a problem, and when he walked in he noticed the different colored yoga balls sitting in front of the desks. Yoga balls? Where are the chairs?
Yeah, this school sure was different. He chose a blue ball next to a kind looking girl with short hair. He moved the mouse of the computer and surfed the internet for a bit before the teacher walked in. She was tall and lean Chinese woman with long dark hair and glasses. A smile crossed her face as she scanned the room and the girl sitting next to Adam looked over at him.
“Hi, you must be new.” She extended her hand to formally shake his, which was awkward to do when you were sitting on a yoga ball. “I’m Clare Edwards.”
“Yeah, I-I am. I’m…Adam.” He took her hand and shook it, struggling not to fall off the ball while he did so. Clare was also having trouble maintaining her balance.
“These balls are so weird. They’re new. Just like you! I mean, we had regular chairs last year…” Clare trailed off. “Anyway, it’s nice to meet you. I transferred here last year, so I know what it’s like to be new. So if you need someone to sit with at lunch, come find me. You don’t have to sit alone.” She seemed friendly and it was a relief to hear this because Adam and his brother didn’t exactly run in the same crowd. While Drew probably wouldn’t mind if he sat with him at lunch, the type of friends he had would probably mind and wouldn’t be as nice as Clare was being. He was making a point to avoid any situations like those he had been in last year. Whenever Drew didn’t have to beat someone up was a very good thing.
“Yeah, they’re hard to keep your balance on. And thanks, I might take you up on that.” Adam smiled crookedly, feeling this sense of relief wash over him. She didn’t seem to suspect anything. She was treating him just like anyone else. The bell rang and Adam looked around, suddenly noticing how many people were in the room with him. A few students were gazing at him curiously, undoubtedly because he was new, and it made him jittery knowing that they were watching him. Hopefully they wouldn’t notice anything different about him.
“Alright class, as some of you already know, I’m Ms. Oh. I’ll be your media immersion teacher this year. Let’s get started. Today we’re going to be doing an online survey about our interests so that we can learn a little bit more about each other, and those of you that have similar interests will be paired up for future group projects. She stood at the board and wrote down a website address with the black marker. “This is the url of the survey so just type it into your address bar and start filling it out.”
A hand came up. “What’s an address bar?”
“Excuse me?” Ms. Oh asked in return.
“Where’s the address bar?” The young girl questioned and an exasperated look crossed the teacher’s face. She turned to the student and Adam typed in the url, intrigued as to what the survey would ask.
The first question was gender. Adam bit his lip and clicked “male”. Then he typed his name. He continued to scroll and the survey asked what kind of music he liked. He bit the end of his nail thoughtfully, mulling it over before he typed anything. After a moment he typed “everything”. More specifically, the next question asked for his favorite musicians. The survey took about 15 minutes and by the time they were all done, Ms. Oh was still helping the student from earlier. It looked as if she was helping her type. They could all tell this was going to be a long year, having media immersion class with a computer dunce.
Adam hung behind as Clare gathered her stuff, making a decision to walk out with her. She smiled at him as they both made their way out the door.
“What’s your next class?” She asked him.
“Calculus.” He muttered. He was a bit of a math whiz, and so he had been put in a higher math class than most of the kids his age. Clare was grinning at him like an idiot and he shrugged. “What?”
“Nothing! Just that I don’t meet many people in our year that are advanced placement in math. So am I. Most of the people in the class are juniors or seniors,” She explained. “That’s so cool though, we can walk to class together!”
“Sounds good. You’re…you’re really nice.” Adam confessed, knowing that he sounded like a dork but not caring so much.
“So are you!” She brightened, touching his hand for a second. He flinched but she didn’t notice, taking long strides and then stopping before an open classroom door. “Here we are!” She announced with no hesitation as she went inside. Only a couple students were there already, one of which was sitting on the opposite side of the room. Adam couldn’t help but look at her with her long brown hair, fair skin and bright eyes. She was beautiful and she was dressed impeccably. He felt his palms begin to sweat as she looked up at him and he wiped his hands on his pants, nonchalantly taking a seat beside of her. He concentrated on taking out his notebook and a pencil but he could feel her eyes on him.
“Hello.” Her voice scared him. It sounded so secure and confident. His eyes met hers and he felt her gaze burn into him. He sucked in a breath.
“Um, hi.” He smiled self-consciously.
“You look young. My name’s Fiona Coyne. I’m a junior.” Everything she said sounded so matter-of-fact and precise. She put a strand of her curly hair behind her ear.
“I…I’m a sophomore. I’m Adam. Torres.”
“Adam, huh? So you’re good at maths?” He wasn’t good at small talk. With Clare it was effortless but this girl was so, so stunning, that he couldn’t bear to look her in the face too long. He looked down at his notebook and nodded. “I am too. I love maths.”
“Why? Cause it’s the same in every country?” He chuckled slightly before realizing that he’d quoted a girl’s movie, Mean Girls, and while she had probably seen it, it was most definitely weird that he had. He bit his lip and then eased up when she laughed softly.
“That’s a great movie,” She answered. “You have good taste.”
The conversation was cut short by the teacher who had come into the room and launched them into their first lesson. No fun survey, just straight into Calculus. Adam had trouble concentrating in class with Fiona beside of him, especially when their feet accidentally touched. He felt the blush rising up from his neck to his cheeks and he turned away from her, willing her not to notice. After class was over, he went to his next few classes. Things went by without much incident, a few chuckles and stares but nothing huge. Soon it was lunch time, even though Adam wasn’t hungry in the slightest. In the line he grabbed a tray, taking an apple and some milk before walking out into the cafeteria. He felt his stomach lurching as students looked up at him. Walking like he was on a mission, he scanned the room for Clare. Suddenly, he felt something under his foot and within moments, he was flat on his face. Landing on his nose, it started to bleed slightly and he got up, his sneakers squeaking. He put the napkin he had on his nose and looked at the boy sitting directly where he had tripped.
He was laughing hysterically like a hyena, a boy with voluminous curly brown hair, with large muscles and cold eyes. The boys at his tables laughed too and Adam saw his brother from his place in the line, oblivious that anything that had occurred. “Freak.” Adam heard the boy utter and he frowned, tears welling up in his eyes. He left the tray in its place on the floor and hurriedly made his way to the bathroom. On the way he encountered her. The girl whom had occupied his thoughts all day.
“Are you okay?” She seemed genuinely concerned, her touch lingering on his arm. He nodded and began to walk away but she touched his shoulder. “I’m sorry. It didn’t look accidental from where I was standing. Do you want me to talk to the principal or something? Your nose looks pretty bad.” Her eyes were narrowed and cloudy and just then he noticed how wonderful she smelled.
“No, it’s fine. I’m fine. It’s just blood. I’ll be fine. Don’t worry. It’s fine.” He insisted, giving her a weak smile and practically running into the bathroom. He splashed water onto his face and then held his head up, using toilet paper to clog his nostrils and standing there, waiting for it to stop.
“Bloody nose? Sucks.” A pale boy with long black hair stepped out of the stall next to the sink. He was looking at Adam with slight concern. He washed his hands and then looked back at him again. “You ok, man?”
“Yeah. I’ll be ok.”
“Alright, just checking. Good luck.” The boy waved and left the room. Adam sniffed and since he thought the bleeding was over with, discarded the bloody toilet paper and reluctantly returned to the cafeteria. Fiona was waiting for him. She was sitting with a red haired girl he pegged as the school’s Queen Bee.
“Hi again. Did it stop bleeding?” Fiona asked him as she soon as he walked in.
“Yeah, I think so.” Adam shrugged.
“You can sit with us, if you want. This is my friend Holly J.” She gestured toward the redhead, who was in mid-conversation with the rest of the table. While he wanted to join her, he couldn’t bring himself to sit at the table with this huge group of gossiping, chattering girls.
“Um. I would, but I kind of promised someone I’d sit with them. I’m sorry.” He pursed his lips, feeling guilty for lying. While Clare had offered, he hadn’t exactly promised, but he didn’t feel comfortable sitting with these girls who would undoubtedly pick him apart with questions. Questions weren’t what he wanted right now after that guy had tripped him.
“It’s okay. I understand. You’re welcome at any time, though. Just an offer. Um, see you in class tomorrow?” She seemed disappointed but she was trying to act as if she wasn’t, and Adam felt his heart speed up. Why did she want him to sit with her anyway? Even if he’d been tripped, it was still awesome that he’d talked to three people today. Three people who didn’t want to beat him up…yet.
“Hey.” A grin surfaced on his face. Adam could tell he was excited. “Are you ready?”
“Yeah, I guess.” Adam muttered.
“Don’t be nervous.” Drew gave his brother a pat on the shoulder. “If anything happens, let me know. I’ve been working out all summer. I can take care of it.”
Adam felt lucky to have his brother. Even though they weren’t blood, they had bonded. His mother had remarried four years ago, and back then Adam had been Chelsea. Not much had changed since then. Things were easy between them from the start. Drew had been surprisingly supportive when Chelsea cut her hair short, changed her name to Adam and insisted on male pronouns. For the past few Christmases, the family had even bought Adam new clothes. Now all of his “female” clothes were phased out, given away in yard sales and forgotten. Although Drew came across as the average meathead, he was in truth much more than that. His acceptance had been a big part of why Adam could even stand Bardell for as long as he had. The bullying had become a real issue, and Drew had been in trouble so many times that it was just time for a fresh start. Their parents had heard great things about Degrassi, including their bullying policy which had changed immensely after a boy decided to shoot some people after he was bullied. He couldn’t believe his parents had decided to send him to a school where there had been a shooting. He was, in particular, sensitive to acts of violence and he was frightened something like that would happen again.
“Okay.” Adam watched his brother with mild curiosity. He was effortless with his spiked hair, torn jeans and faded t-shirt. He never had to try and always became popular. The younger boy envied that sometimes, but it never made him too bitter. He wished that, since Drew was his brother, he would become popular by extension. Unfortunately he was fairly sure that was an impossibility. Adam took a deep breath and made his way down the stairs. He grabbed some bread and half-heartedly made some toast, concentrated more on his wondering about what the day would be like. As he waited for the toaster, he sipped some stale coffee and looked up at his mother as she came into the kitchen.
“Good morning, Adam.” She sounded quite chipper. He observed her morning routine of coffee with milk and sugar, startled when the toast suddenly shot out of the toaster. He picked it up and buttered it, munching loudly when Drew entered the room.
“Hey mom. Did you make me breakfast?” He was grinning widely.
“I’ve got your bacon and eggs here in the skillet. They’re finished, so serve yourself. I’m entering zen mode right now.”
“Right, coffee.” Drew nodded. He made his way over to the stove and plucked a piece of bacon from the skillet after turning off the fire. It was obviously hot but he made no indication, holding it in his fingers and then throwing it greedily into his mouth.
“I thought you didn’t eat breakfast.” Adam exclaimed incredulously from his chair.
“Mmm, I told you,” He replied as he quickly finished off the bacon and scooped up the egg with a spoon. “I spent the summer bulking up. That means I have to get a lot of protein. In addition to protecting you, little man, I’m trying out for the football team! I’ve been practicing and I think I can make it! After all, I’m a junior now and not a stupid sophomore. So maybe I can get a real place on the team.” He spoke with his mouth full.
“You two, hurry up with the breakfast! You don’t want to be late on your first day.” Adam’s mother announced, finishing her cup of coffee in record time. Adam shoved the remainder of his toast into his quivering mouth and Drew wiped his own lips with his sleeve.
The three of them piled into the steel blue Ford Escape. Adam’s backpack strap got caught in the door and so he opened it again, pulling the knapsack away from the door and sitting it on the floor. He watched his mom in the rearview mirror as she drove, anxiously cracking his knuckles. It was now or never…could he go with never? It wouldn’t be so bad being homeschooled or having a private tutor.
Making his way up the Degrassi steps, Adam gripped his paper schedule in his left hand, swallowing the lump that was forming in his throat. Of course on his way up the stairs, he tripped, causing a group of kids close by to stifle their laughter. He sighed, this was certainly not a great sign, and with a deep breath entered the building. The place was decorated very nicely, he noticed, much better than his last school. He gazed at the schedule, noticing that his first class was Media Immersion. Luckily he was pretty good with computers, so the class wouldn’t be difficult by any means. He found the classroom without much of a problem, and when he walked in he noticed the different colored yoga balls sitting in front of the desks. Yoga balls? Where are the chairs?
Yeah, this school sure was different. He chose a blue ball next to a kind looking girl with short hair. He moved the mouse of the computer and surfed the internet for a bit before the teacher walked in. She was tall and lean Chinese woman with long dark hair and glasses. A smile crossed her face as she scanned the room and the girl sitting next to Adam looked over at him.
“Hi, you must be new.” She extended her hand to formally shake his, which was awkward to do when you were sitting on a yoga ball. “I’m Clare Edwards.”
“Yeah, I-I am. I’m…Adam.” He took her hand and shook it, struggling not to fall off the ball while he did so. Clare was also having trouble maintaining her balance.
“These balls are so weird. They’re new. Just like you! I mean, we had regular chairs last year…” Clare trailed off. “Anyway, it’s nice to meet you. I transferred here last year, so I know what it’s like to be new. So if you need someone to sit with at lunch, come find me. You don’t have to sit alone.” She seemed friendly and it was a relief to hear this because Adam and his brother didn’t exactly run in the same crowd. While Drew probably wouldn’t mind if he sat with him at lunch, the type of friends he had would probably mind and wouldn’t be as nice as Clare was being. He was making a point to avoid any situations like those he had been in last year. Whenever Drew didn’t have to beat someone up was a very good thing.
“Yeah, they’re hard to keep your balance on. And thanks, I might take you up on that.” Adam smiled crookedly, feeling this sense of relief wash over him. She didn’t seem to suspect anything. She was treating him just like anyone else. The bell rang and Adam looked around, suddenly noticing how many people were in the room with him. A few students were gazing at him curiously, undoubtedly because he was new, and it made him jittery knowing that they were watching him. Hopefully they wouldn’t notice anything different about him.
“Alright class, as some of you already know, I’m Ms. Oh. I’ll be your media immersion teacher this year. Let’s get started. Today we’re going to be doing an online survey about our interests so that we can learn a little bit more about each other, and those of you that have similar interests will be paired up for future group projects. She stood at the board and wrote down a website address with the black marker. “This is the url of the survey so just type it into your address bar and start filling it out.”
A hand came up. “What’s an address bar?”
“Excuse me?” Ms. Oh asked in return.
“Where’s the address bar?” The young girl questioned and an exasperated look crossed the teacher’s face. She turned to the student and Adam typed in the url, intrigued as to what the survey would ask.
The first question was gender. Adam bit his lip and clicked “male”. Then he typed his name. He continued to scroll and the survey asked what kind of music he liked. He bit the end of his nail thoughtfully, mulling it over before he typed anything. After a moment he typed “everything”. More specifically, the next question asked for his favorite musicians. The survey took about 15 minutes and by the time they were all done, Ms. Oh was still helping the student from earlier. It looked as if she was helping her type. They could all tell this was going to be a long year, having media immersion class with a computer dunce.
Adam hung behind as Clare gathered her stuff, making a decision to walk out with her. She smiled at him as they both made their way out the door.
“What’s your next class?” She asked him.
“Calculus.” He muttered. He was a bit of a math whiz, and so he had been put in a higher math class than most of the kids his age. Clare was grinning at him like an idiot and he shrugged. “What?”
“Nothing! Just that I don’t meet many people in our year that are advanced placement in math. So am I. Most of the people in the class are juniors or seniors,” She explained. “That’s so cool though, we can walk to class together!”
“Sounds good. You’re…you’re really nice.” Adam confessed, knowing that he sounded like a dork but not caring so much.
“So are you!” She brightened, touching his hand for a second. He flinched but she didn’t notice, taking long strides and then stopping before an open classroom door. “Here we are!” She announced with no hesitation as she went inside. Only a couple students were there already, one of which was sitting on the opposite side of the room. Adam couldn’t help but look at her with her long brown hair, fair skin and bright eyes. She was beautiful and she was dressed impeccably. He felt his palms begin to sweat as she looked up at him and he wiped his hands on his pants, nonchalantly taking a seat beside of her. He concentrated on taking out his notebook and a pencil but he could feel her eyes on him.
“Hello.” Her voice scared him. It sounded so secure and confident. His eyes met hers and he felt her gaze burn into him. He sucked in a breath.
“Um, hi.” He smiled self-consciously.
“You look young. My name’s Fiona Coyne. I’m a junior.” Everything she said sounded so matter-of-fact and precise. She put a strand of her curly hair behind her ear.
“I…I’m a sophomore. I’m Adam. Torres.”
“Adam, huh? So you’re good at maths?” He wasn’t good at small talk. With Clare it was effortless but this girl was so, so stunning, that he couldn’t bear to look her in the face too long. He looked down at his notebook and nodded. “I am too. I love maths.”
“Why? Cause it’s the same in every country?” He chuckled slightly before realizing that he’d quoted a girl’s movie, Mean Girls, and while she had probably seen it, it was most definitely weird that he had. He bit his lip and then eased up when she laughed softly.
“That’s a great movie,” She answered. “You have good taste.”
The conversation was cut short by the teacher who had come into the room and launched them into their first lesson. No fun survey, just straight into Calculus. Adam had trouble concentrating in class with Fiona beside of him, especially when their feet accidentally touched. He felt the blush rising up from his neck to his cheeks and he turned away from her, willing her not to notice. After class was over, he went to his next few classes. Things went by without much incident, a few chuckles and stares but nothing huge. Soon it was lunch time, even though Adam wasn’t hungry in the slightest. In the line he grabbed a tray, taking an apple and some milk before walking out into the cafeteria. He felt his stomach lurching as students looked up at him. Walking like he was on a mission, he scanned the room for Clare. Suddenly, he felt something under his foot and within moments, he was flat on his face. Landing on his nose, it started to bleed slightly and he got up, his sneakers squeaking. He put the napkin he had on his nose and looked at the boy sitting directly where he had tripped.
He was laughing hysterically like a hyena, a boy with voluminous curly brown hair, with large muscles and cold eyes. The boys at his tables laughed too and Adam saw his brother from his place in the line, oblivious that anything that had occurred. “Freak.” Adam heard the boy utter and he frowned, tears welling up in his eyes. He left the tray in its place on the floor and hurriedly made his way to the bathroom. On the way he encountered her. The girl whom had occupied his thoughts all day.
“Are you okay?” She seemed genuinely concerned, her touch lingering on his arm. He nodded and began to walk away but she touched his shoulder. “I’m sorry. It didn’t look accidental from where I was standing. Do you want me to talk to the principal or something? Your nose looks pretty bad.” Her eyes were narrowed and cloudy and just then he noticed how wonderful she smelled.
“No, it’s fine. I’m fine. It’s just blood. I’ll be fine. Don’t worry. It’s fine.” He insisted, giving her a weak smile and practically running into the bathroom. He splashed water onto his face and then held his head up, using toilet paper to clog his nostrils and standing there, waiting for it to stop.
“Bloody nose? Sucks.” A pale boy with long black hair stepped out of the stall next to the sink. He was looking at Adam with slight concern. He washed his hands and then looked back at him again. “You ok, man?”
“Yeah. I’ll be ok.”
“Alright, just checking. Good luck.” The boy waved and left the room. Adam sniffed and since he thought the bleeding was over with, discarded the bloody toilet paper and reluctantly returned to the cafeteria. Fiona was waiting for him. She was sitting with a red haired girl he pegged as the school’s Queen Bee.
“Hi again. Did it stop bleeding?” Fiona asked him as she soon as he walked in.
“Yeah, I think so.” Adam shrugged.
“You can sit with us, if you want. This is my friend Holly J.” She gestured toward the redhead, who was in mid-conversation with the rest of the table. While he wanted to join her, he couldn’t bring himself to sit at the table with this huge group of gossiping, chattering girls.
“Um. I would, but I kind of promised someone I’d sit with them. I’m sorry.” He pursed his lips, feeling guilty for lying. While Clare had offered, he hadn’t exactly promised, but he didn’t feel comfortable sitting with these girls who would undoubtedly pick him apart with questions. Questions weren’t what he wanted right now after that guy had tripped him.
“It’s okay. I understand. You’re welcome at any time, though. Just an offer. Um, see you in class tomorrow?” She seemed disappointed but she was trying to act as if she wasn’t, and Adam felt his heart speed up. Why did she want him to sit with her anyway? Even if he’d been tripped, it was still awesome that he’d talked to three people today. Three people who didn’t want to beat him up…yet.