Snippet #2530589

The bell rang on the first day back at Roseville High. Students filled the corridors, from wide-eyed freshmen to cocky seniors, exchanging stories about the summer with one another and creating a buzz of noise that filled the school with an abundance of energy. When the bell went, a few moments later the largely static crowd became a river of movement. People jostled this way and that, shoving and pushing and yelling names as they moved towards their first homeroom of the year.

"You trod on my foot, asshole!"

"Oh my god, don't touch my hair! Do you know how long I spent on it?!"

"What room are we in again?"

"Does somebody know where 109 is?"

"YO DREW, CATCH!"

As a football sailed over the crowd, Luca rolled his eyes, exchanging a glance with Jay as the two of them rounded the corner of the hall outside room 206, an English classroom and their homeroom - same as last year. The door was propped open, and they filed in along with a few others who reached the room at a similar time.

The layout of the room was predictable. The centre of the room was largely empty, but everyone who arrived was clearly steering clear of the seats that were claimed by default by Cynthia Ward and her friends, along with the jocks and other more popular kids. They'd turn up late, no doubt - just late enough to be cool, but not late enough to get in trouble. The front of the room was already lined with nerds. Cody and Jake were sat at a desk near the door, chatting with Annie who was one desk across from them. Hiro was sat alone fumbling with his books on the other side of them. Behind him, 'Rain' was sat doing her absolute utmost to look apathetic and bored, talking to ... was that Drake Jones?

Drake looked different than he had done at the end of last year. He'd always been known as something of a mouth-breather, probably with some sort of undiagnosed (or at least unpublicised) disorder or another. It would have been surprising to see him wearing matching socks, or engaging another human being in conversation without sweating... but a girl? That was just outlandish. Not only that, but his entire look had changed. He was wearing gothy makeup, a black and spiky jacket, and had grown his hair out. What the hell had happened to him over summer?

Carissa and Aisha were sat off to the side of the front of the room, a table over from Annie. Aisha was ranting about something (as usual) and Carissa was messing with her phone. Adrian gave the pair a wave and a smile from his seat a row forward from the back as they walked past, which Luca absent-mindedly returned. His eyes swept over the back of the class, as-of-yet empty aside from the two corner seats. In one, the skinny black-haired Nathan was sat glaring daggers at anyone who glanced at the seat next to him. In the other, Amy had her feet up on the desk boredly, paying more attention to a notebook she had in her hand than the rest of the room.

Jay and Luca sat themselves down at the desk in front of her. "Good to see nobody's changed all that much." Jay remarked.

"You kidding?" Luca replied, "Did you see Drake?"

"Oh yeah. Well, apart from him. Homeroom seems to be basically the same, is what I mean." Jay shrugged his shoulders.

"You mean aside from..."

Jay stopped and grimaced. "Right... aside from..."

There were two other reasons aside from Drake for homeroom to be noticeably different this year. Two quite big reasons.

Most of the people in school had heard - over summer, two of their classmates had died.

Well, one at least. Tom Wright was just 'missing', but it had been over two months, and Roseville wasn't a very big town to look in, so everyone was just assuming that he was dead too. His seat had been next to Adrian. As Luca recalled, the two had been friends, but it was Amy who had apparently last seen him. He shot the frightening blonde a brief glance. She didn't seem concerned.

The other was a girl by the name of Jamie Winters. She'd broken up with her boyfriend, a senior named Michael Castellanos, near the start of summer. Apparently, she'd overdosed only a week later.

"Can you believe it?" Jay said, snapping Luca out of his thoughts.

"What?" Luca replied, blinking.

"Overdosing over a breakup like that. Come on, man, that's just ... weird."

"Jamie always was a bit weird, I guess..." Luca said, frowning awkwardly. "Clingy as hell. Never thought she'd like... actually..."

"Yeah." Jay interrupted, saving Luca from having to finish his sentence.

"Have you seen Michael since?"

"Yeah, you kidding? Guy's already got a new girlfriend. I don't think he gives a damn." Jay rolled his eyes.

Luca stared incredulously, "What an asshole!"

"Right?"