What is “acceptable”, and how does something become “acceptable”? Practices once held in order to keep the peace between a tribe and its Gods are now considered “barbaric”. The reason for this is simple: Society decided that these rituals were “unacceptable” at a point in time.
Oh wait, the line moved. Gotta move up.
Where was I now? Oh, yeah. Laws, beliefs, trends, all of these are decided by society. In the world that we all live in, society is the final decision maker. However, occasionally, there are people who go against society. For better or worse, every time someone who had a different view from society spoke out, society changed. As time flowed, society evolved, and the “acceptable” things evolved along with it. And while others are going out there and changing society, I’ve been waiting in a line - one that seemed to go on forever. What other great way to start my day?
Turns out that the line didn’t actually go on forever, because I was shocked back into reality by a gruff voice, “Alright, what’s your name?”
“Conrad Straus,” I replied.
“You’re in group 7. They’re right around the corner, you’re the last one to arrive, so hurry up. Next!”
I looked around and found my group, which was pretty hard because there weren’t that many people in it. Then, I saw her- Katlyn. Although I’ve known her since middle school and had a couple of classes with her, I never really had the courage to have a conversation with her unless it was about schoolwork. I didn’t even know that she was going to go to the same high school as I was until one of my friends told me. However, because of all of that, I knew that she was definitely the girl that I liked. I mean, there were other girls that I liked to be around, but I saw Katlyn in a different way.
Then I realized that the group leader was talking to me, “Hey, what are you waiting for? Come on, we’re not gonna wait for you, you’re the last one!”
“Alright, I’m coming! I’m just not used to the size of this place yet,” I responded, looking for an excuse for why I just stood still for a while. Katlyn laughed a bit from my response, which I found to be at least slightly reassuring.
The leader brought us around the school and talked about how it was prestigious and large and all that. Basically the leader was just babbling about why the school was great and how we were all lucky to be allowed in, things like that. I didn’t really want to pay attention, so I just slowly allowed the group to pass me so that I ended up at the back of the group. Once I got to the back, I zoned out until someone tapped me on my right shoulder.
“Hey, you wanna ditch them?” Katlyn asked me.
Now that she was in front of me, I got a closer look at her. She was shorter than me, thankfully, but not by much. She had this really long hair that sometimes covered one of her eyes, which I found rather attractive. Her eyes looked as if they really cared about me, but for some reason, she seemed to be doing her best to avoid eye contact.
Wait, Katlyn asked me if I wanted to ditch this group for some time alone with her? Did I hear her right?
“Aren’t we supposed to be paying attention?” I replied, laughing nervously.
“Come on, all of this information is on their website anyways. If you won’t come with me, I’ll go alone.”
I didn’t really know what she was trying to do, but I decided that spending time with her would at least be more interesting than the orientation. Even though my life until now had been pretty eventless, it would have definitely been worse if it was boring. Although I generally didn’t care about how my days went, they were still pretty long sometimes, but Katlyn would be able to make even the worst of days pass by faster. “Alright fine, I’ll go with you,” I decided.
We took a couple of turns and went through a couple of hallways. It looked like Katlyn was leading me somewhere that I didn’t know, but frankly, I didn’t care where she took me as long as we were alone. She gestured me to go outside, where there was a nice, round table to sit at. We sat down facing each other, and for a while, neither of us said anything. I started to worry, and I guess it showed, because she moved so that she was sitting to my right.
“What are you doing?” I asked, not wanting to believe what just happened.
“You know, there’s really been something that I’ve been wanting to tell you for a while now.” She had a look that I’d never seen before on her face, almost as if she was somewhat embarrassed, yet resolute.
“It’s fine, tell me anything,” I responded, “I promise I probably won’t mess with you about it.”
“It’s just that, ever since that first time that you talked to me, I’ve felt that you were different from everyone else,” she said, looking straight at me. “I’ve wanted to talk to you more, to know you better, and to have more contact with you.”
“If you wanted to talk you could have just texted me or something, I’m sure you have my phone number because of some project,” I replied, although I really didn’t know why she wanted to talk to me.
“Yeah, but talking in person would have worked better,” she said, looking away for the first time in a while.
“Wait, why so?”
“Because you’d be there, you’d be right in front of me…” she said, slowly leaning onto my arm.
“What does that have to do with anything?” I asked incredulously.
“Because… I love you.” She said, resting her head on my shoulder.
No way, since when? I can’t believe that I never noticed. Now that I think about it, she’s always been able to talk to every other guy just fine, but never to me. How could that have escaped my notice? I know that I wasn’t able to talk to her because I would always get anxious and nervous around her, but at the same time comfortable and happy as if being around her was where I was supposed to be. I never thought that she could have felt the same way towards me as I did towards her. Well, at this point there’s nothing else to do except to tell her that I feel the same way, huh.
“I -”
That’s when I woke up to my alarm.
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Shit, that’s the third time this week. I’d been having similar dreams ever since I knew about the high school orientation. After dreaming about the day multiple times, the orientation had finally arrived. If only the dream would come true. As if that would happen, I thought, while looking in the mirror. The short, brown hair that I had somehow found a way to get messed up while I slept, so I did my best to straighten it out but to no avail. Looking down a bit, I found my dark brown eyes looking back at me, still looking somewhat tired. I didn’t have anything that really stood out, but I guess at least I wasn’t repulsive. But I knew that not being repulsive wouldn’t be enough. Looks like I’m not getting a girlfriend until college. Thinking that I had enough time, I decided to take a shower. Hey, if that dream really does come true, at least I’ll be prepared. I took more time than usual to get my hair back to normal and brush my teeth. In that state of mind, I decided to look at the time.
8:45 A.M.
That’s when I realized that contrary to my beliefs, I had woken up to my third alarm – not my first. Well, I’m screwed, the orientation starts at 9 and I take at least 20 minutes to get to school. There wasn’t any way I would get there on time. I immediately stopped what I was doing and went downstairs as fast as I could. Taking the key from where it usually was, I brought my bike out of the garage and pedaled as fast as I could.
Turns out, I’m nowhere near as fast as I thought I was. Even though I pedaled as fast as I could, I still took 30 minutes to get there.
“Dang, it’s huge...”
I mean, I guess it should have been expected of a school with a 1% acceptance rate. But even so, the building looked like it was built for billionaires to live in. I did a double take, making sure that this wasn’t some company hq instead.
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There were five floors and a stadium on the roof that would put Olympic stadiums to shame. I took a look around and quickly noticed that there wasn't any trash around. It'd suck to be a janitor here. They'd stay until midnight unless they had an army working with them. Then again, maybe that's why all the adults in this city are employed, they could always just work here. The entrance doors were both made entirely out of glass, and polished to the point where I didn't even notice there was a door until I went by it on my bike. The school was built like a skyscraper, having only windows, as if to say that anything that went on inside the school was presentable. From this distance, I could see the individual desks, each one flawless and meticulously maintained.
Coming closer on my bike, I suddenly noticed that instead of a parking lot, this school had a parking garage with 5 floors as well. The school was so long that it just seemed to keep on going. It would suck if I had to move from one side of the school to the other between classes. There wasn't any doubt that this place was for the best of the best. What am I doing? I’m already late, I can’t be wasting any time admiring the architecture. Realizing this, I stopped my bike at the nearest bike rack, which was easily the size of an average basketball court. I struggled to find an empty spot to place my bike. Looks like there’s actually quite a few people at this place, huh? I finally found a spot after a few minutes, and sprinted into the school. In my haste, I forgot that there were doors in the way of the entrance, and I fell down after running into them.
Looking up, I realized that I was in complete view of the teacher sitting at the registration desk. Flushed with embarrassment, I picked myself up and made sure to open the door this time. “Sorry I’m late,” I said with some difficulty as I limped inside.
“Are you alright? You took a pretty hard fall.” The teacher responded, genuinely concerned.
The teacher looked to be a Caucasian man in his late thirties. He had short, spiky, brown hair that led into a beard that seemed to have recently been shaved. He looked to be about as tall as I was; however, I wasn’t sure because he was sitting. He was wearing a plaid shirt, but hadn’t tucked it into his jeans. I looked around until suddenly our gazes met, which made me uncomfortable until I remembered that he was concerned because I had probably just injured myself. “I’m fine,” I lied. “More importantly, I’m late for the orientation. Where should I go?”
He checked me over this time for any visible injuries. “The orientation isn’t as important as any injuries you might have gotten,” he said, making eye contact again, “but it seems like you really are fine. Since you’re late, just go join any group you come across. All the groups started by visiting the hallway to the right, so you might want to try going there first,” he said, pointing to another set of glass doors on the right. “Just make sure to open the door this time,” he added, as if to poke fun at me.
“Got it. Thanks, Mr…” I started, quickly looking at his chest to see if he had either an ID on him or a sticker with his name on it.
“McCalister.” He replied, realizing what I was looking for. “I hope to see you at school in the future,” he added while reaching to shake my hand. I shook it and ran off into the hallway that he had pointed to. This time, I made sure to open the door before I went inside. He seems like a great teacher.
The inside of the school didn’t fail to impress me as much as the outside had. The hallway looked to be at least as long as a football field, maybe two. At least there were walkways on both sides of the hall that made getting to class on time possible. Classroom doors were located on both sides of the hallway, and all of these were, thankfully, made out of wood and much easier to see. It seemed like there was a digital clock every 100 feet or so of the hallway. I don’t see any lockers, so are we supposed to take our backpacks with us throughout the day? The ceiling’s lights were easily perceived to be top-class, as if this place would settle for anything less.
There were also tables on both sides of the hallway, but it seemed like this was only temporary because there were people moving the tables into various classrooms. All of these tables were bare, except for one of them which had a tablecloth on it, as well as what seemed to be a stack of papers. There was a person standing near the table too, so I decided to ask him for where to go.
After my first few steps, he heard me and turned towards me. He looked as if he was a student as well, and for some reason, seemed to brighten up when he saw me. Does he know me somehow? He picked up a paper from the stack and walked towards me.
“Are you a student at this school?” He asked. Turns out he doesn’t know me, but why was he so happy? He looked to be slightly taller than I was. He had warm brown eyes that radiated kindness. His straight, brown hair was long enough to reach his eyebrows and glasses. He was wearing a tie-dye “Class of 2031” school T-shirt, which, surprisingly, seemed to not be able to match well with any outfit.
“Yeah, I’m late for the orientation,” I responded, taking a few steps towards him, “Do you know where I could find a group to follow?”
His expression suddenly saddened, which made me feel slightly guilty. “I had my hopes up,” he said, “but I should have known better than to expect someone to come back out of interest for our club.” I didn’t really know what to say, so I just let him continue. He sighed, and eventually started giving me directions, “If you follow this hallway all the way down, and take a right-“
“Hold it, fucker. You’re not going anywhere.”
This new voice seemed to come out of nowhere, and completely surprised me. I turned around quickly, and saw another person coming up to me. Once he got close, I realized that he was at least three to four inches taller than I was. His jet black hair was unnerving to the point where just looking at it made me feel uneasy. I lowered my gaze to avoid looking at his hair, but looking into his eyes didn’t help - his piercing green eyes made me flinch. The pattern in his eyes seemed to be different each time I blinked. He was wearing the same shirt as the person I was talking to earlier was, but somehow he was able to make the same shirt look threatening more than anything else. I definitely don’t want to mess with this guy.
“Come on, Jace! He’s late for his orientation and he needed to know where the closest group was!” The guy that was now behind me pleaded.
“I use the bathroom while you’re putting away the materials, and suddenly you turn into a pussy? You know I don’t give a shit about if he’s late or not, Lykke. All that matters is that he’s here and he’s able to join our club.” Jace then turned towards me and gave me a smile that only managed to make me more nervous than before. “And you ARE going to join our club, right?” he asked.
I just looked at him in fear for a few seconds before I realized that he had asked me a question. I finally managed to muster together enough courage to ask him a question instead of accepting or declining his offer. “Why are you even here?” I asked.
“He’s the captain of our team,” Lykke answered, causing me to turn back around towards him instead. Then I noticed that even Lykke seemed to be nervous. “I’m the vice-captain. All the clubs were here earlier in the morning, doing their best to attract new members. Jace and I were the representatives for ours.”
“And while all the other clubs managed to get at least 30 new members each, this guy here didn’t manage to get a single one,” Jace said, obviously annoyed, “And even now when a possible member comes walking up to him, he’s still able to fuck that up by giving him directions right away instead of trying to recruit him.” He then turned back towards Lykke. “This is why I say that you’re a useless piece of shit.”
“Jace, I said that he wasn’t-” Lykke protested.
“Just ask him if he’ll fill out the form or not, and if he will, then he’s joining our club.” Jace interjected. He then turned towards me again, “So. Will you join our club?” He asked while handing me the sheet of paper that Lykke was holding until a few minutes ago.
The remaining part of my brain that still managed to work was telling me to have as little to do with this guy as possible, and to decline his invitation to the club. “I’m sorry, but I really have to –“
“You really don’t understand how badly you fucked up, do you?” Jace interrupted me in the middle of my sentence, lowering his voice so that I could hear the threat from his tone alone. He took a step closer and leaned so that he was talking right into my ear before continuing. “You’ve applied to a prestigious school in which punctuality is as important as your rank, and you’ve managed to be late for the orientation. To make things worse, you don’t have a reason to be late to an orientation group, since you didn’t join any clubs yet. So, you can’t say that you were so interested in a club that you stayed back for a while, which is allowed. I’m not asking if you want to join our club, I’m asking if you want to stay in this school. Do you want to reconsider your decision?”
“Jace, that’s being too forceful!” Lykke cried, looking completely shocked at what the captain just said.
“I’m telling it as it is, if he’s not a dumbass then he’ll know what he’s supposed to do.” Jace said while standing back up, not looking sorry at all.
I looked at Jace for a while. He doesn’t seem to be bluffing, and what he says makes sense. After a little while, I made up my mind. “Do you have a pen for me to fill it out?”
Lykke handed me a pen and I filled out the form. Huh? Why isn’t the club’s information listed on here? All this sheet asks me for is my personal information? Oh well, I need to fill this out anyways, so I guess I might as well. Once I finished, I handed both the form and the pen to Lykke. He took them and then held out his right hand to me. “Huh?” I asked, not quite sure what he wanted this time.
“I’m starting to think that you really are a dumbass, he’s obviously wanting to shake your hand,” said Jace from behind, audibly laughing.
“Don’t mind Jace too much,” Lykke said, with a sympathetic smile, “He can take a bit to get used to.”
Tell me about it.
Then Jace came closer to me and stuck his hand out for a handshake too, so I shook his hand too.
“Jace Dysart,” he said, this time with a smile that didn’t make me nervous anymore, “I’ll be your captain from here on out. Welcome to the team.”
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