Where It All Began

Jay marveled at the calm and collected way Christopher strolled through the busy hallway, as if expecting the other kids to make a way for him–and they did. Jay was thankful to have such a role model; he wasn't sure what he would have done without him. Overcome with excitement, he wouldn't have put it past himself if he'd started skipping down the hall, which would have been sorely uncool.

Middle schoolers don't skip.

He also imagined himself getting trampled by all the foot traffic. Despite being tall for his age, he didn't think he would have been able to push through the mass of children surging through the narrow hall (unless he had taken to skipping, but again, skipping was not cool). Faithfully trailing behind, Jay relied on Christopher as his human shield. His calm, confident human shield who knew where he was going and expected the world to yield. Jay wanted to be just like him.

Christopher stopped short next to a wall of lockers, causing Jay to knock him from behind. He scowled over his shoulder, and Jay sent up an apologetic grin.

"Don't you have a homeroom to go to?" Chris asked.

"Yeah, but," Jay bounced on the balls of his sneakers, "I want to see Dustin and Jessica!"

Jay had grown close with Christopher and his friends over the summer, and he was thrilled to finally be able to go to school with them, even if it was just for a year. They were all best friends.

Christopher fixed him with a stare, as if debating what he was to do with his brother. A hand clap on his shoulder interrupted his staring, and he turned to find Dustin coming over to greet them. He was taller than Jay remembered, wearing a Metallica t-shirt, his light brown hair styled with excessive amounts of product, emanating with a pungency that might have been sweet had it not been so overpowering.

"Chris! What's up?"

Christopher smiled, and the two exchanged a brief hand clap, pausing to squeeze each other's fingers before releasing with a snap of the fingers. Was this a secret handshake, or is this something that everyone did that Jay missed?

"Hi, Dustin!" Jay exclaimed. Dustin blinked, then looked over at him.

"Hey there, little dude! How ya been?"

"Good!" Jay grinned. "But I'm not that little anymore!"

Dustin nudged Chris. "Your brother's such a joker."

Jay chuckled. What does that mean?

"Yeah..." Christopher agreed, a hint of exasperation in his tone.

Dustin leaned over to Jay. "How old are you now, little dude?"

"Eleven."

"Ayyy! You are gettin' big! Gimme five!" Dustin smiled stupidly, extending his palm. High fives were fun, but for some reason this felt humiliating. Playing along, Jay swung to smack Dustin's palm, giving it his full force because he wanted to show how strong he had gotten. Instead, Dustin pulled his hand away at the last second, holding it over his head. Of course it was out of reach.

"Too slow! Ha-ha! Good try though." He patted Jay on the shoulder and turned back to Christopher. "So, Chris. Blaze is tellin' me that once we get his garage cleaned out, we can have a space to keep the instruments. We've got a whole-ass drum set and everything."

"No way, man, that's crazy."

"Hell yeah. You'll be free after school today, right?"

"Well..." Christopher glanced over at Jay. "You can ride the bus by yourself, right?"

Jay frowned. "Of course I can ride by myself. I'm not a baby."

Christopher turned back to his friend. "Yeah, I'll be around."

"Wait!" Jay exclaimed. "I wanna come too!"

Dustin and Christopher exchanged glances, in some kind of silent communication that Jay didn't understand.

"I dunno, little buddy," Dustin said. Little dude, now little buddy? "This is... this is big kid stuff."

Jay crossed his arms. "I'm a big kid."

"Of course! But..." Dustin shook his head. "You'll understand it when you're in eighth grade. You wouldn't want some snotty little kid trailing you everywhere, right?"

Jay felt his face grow hot. Dustin winced slightly, realizing his mistake.

"Look," he said, "You're way cooler than all those other sixth graders. You're like, way ahead of them, and stuff." Dustin glanced at Christopher for reassurance, but Christopher just shrugged. Dustin went on. "But... we're in eighth grade, you're in sixth... don't you think it would be a little weird to have an eleven-year-old in the band?"

Band? Jay knew nothing about a band. "M-Maybe..."

"We'll talk about it later," said Christopher.

Jay perked up. "At lunch."

"Yeah. Sure."

"Awesome!" Jay exclaimed. "I'm gonna go to my homeroom. I'll see you at lunch!" Without waiting for a reply, Jay shuffled away down the hall, as quickly as he could without running or skipping. He partially just wanted to relieve himself of the embarrassment, but he was also filled with new hope. He would sit with his friends at lunch. It would be just like he imagined, if only he could find some way to show that he was just like them. It would be just like how things were in the summer, and everything would be okay.