Chapter 8

                                                               Mason

                 It was becoming more and more apparent that I wouldn't be able to avoid the Twins as easily as I thought, if they weren't pestering me in the classes we shared, they were blocking my path to my next class in hopes of talking to me for whatever reason they had. I took a seat in the back again on the other side of where the Twins were sitting to avoid having to talk to them, and put one of my earbuds in while we waited for the teacher to start class. While waiting, I took my notebook and pen out to continue writing the short story I had started earlier on during the day. I usually wrote whenever I was bored, and any stories that I was proud of and thought others would enjoy I would upload to a website that specialized in short stories and poems. While I continued writing, the teacher walked in and started doing introductions but in the best way that I had seen all day.

"I'm sure you've all heard more than enough times today the whole monotone 'Hello everyone, welcome to my class.' So, I won't sit here and bore you all any more than you've already been, I'm going to pass out the syllabus for this class and once I'm done with that you guys will decide what you all want to do for introductions," He said before picking up a stack of papers, "I know that nobody likes seeing these things, but they're important to know what's going on in this class. We'll be doing almost equal amounts of individual classwork and group work, whether that be debates and discussions or group projects and presentations is completely up to you guys."

               I could tell this would be one of my more bipolar classes, I liked history a lot when I was younger, but something told me that the Twins would end up causing this class to be a lot more irritating than it normally would be. When I was in school before, I enjoyed history because it was an entire class where we would explore the why of some of life's most tragic moments along with some of its greatest. Whether we were discussing why certain wars had begun or how different alliances had been built, it was always intriguing to me to understand how our world had gotten to the point it was at now. As I was thinking about this, and absentmindedly reading the syllabus, a ball of paper landed on my desk.

'Why do I know who threw this?' I thought before opening it to read a short, yet direct, message: Stop ignoring us, we're not going to bully you...yet. 'Well, that's comforting.' I looked over to where the Twins were sitting to see that Leo had another ball ready and was smirking like he was winning some kind of game before his sister threw another one that I caught before it hit my face. I set the paper down and decided against reading it, it wasn't worth getting worked up or getting an email sent to my mom over those two throwing balled-up notes at me.

"Alright, how do you guys want to go around with introductions? The standard name and something you enjoy or do you all have any ideas for something different?" The teacher asked and one student suggested a name alongside a lyric from your favorite song, "I like that idea."

                The rest of my last class for the day continued the pattern of students introducing themselves to the class, but at least this class had more of a twist to it. With the suggestion that we use a lyric from one of our favorite songs, there wasn't anyone with the same answer as another, the message may have been similar behind the lyric but everyone's answer was different. Towards the end of class, the Twins introduced themselves halfheartedly, which made me laugh at the fact that as stoic as they were they still had to introduce themselves as if no one had ever heard of them. They heard me laughing on the side and Leo shot me a look that I couldn't get a genuine read on, he was smirking but it was in a way that said 'I don't think you want to play this game' which is when the teacher called on me.

"Hello, My name is Mason, and my favorite song lyric would probably be something like 'I never gave in and so I welcomed every challenge in my life'."

"Can you explain why those lyrics are so important to you if you don't mind?"

"I struggled to get out of an abusive household, and so I have this mentality that if I was able to survive as long as I did with my father, at this point anything else I run into in life would be par for the course," I said before sitting back down with a couple of students clapping and the teacher nodding his head.

"I think that is a beautiful point to end on, that no matter the circumstances, you are stronger than any obstacle you've encountered thus far and will encounter later on as you traverse through life," He said as the bell rang and everyone gathered their things, the Twins stayed behind and before I could leave the class, Leo put his hound out to stop me.

"Okay, Leo, I don't know what I did to you two to get me on your bad side but I'd rather-"

"Just be quiet, my sister wanted to talk to you, I'm more so here to make sure you listen," He said before his sister stepped forward, still wearing the purple hoodie from earlier. 

"You were in an abusive household?"

"If you told me there was something in this world my father loved more than a full bottle of Vodka, I'd say you were criminally insane," I said through a chuckle, as much as it hurt to say it was as close to the truth as I dared to go, "My brother and I were more like pawns in his little game of chess than children to him; If I wasn't fetching him a beer, or my brother wasn't trying to avoid him or pick a fight with him, we weren't his kids."

"It sounds like you're in a better place now though, right?"

"More or less, I'm in a safer place but going to school with Twins that I can't tell whether they want to kill or kiss me is something I wasn't expecting," I said which caught them both off guard, Leo laughing hysterically and his sister looking like she was going to kill him, long enough for me to leave the class. 

'Hey Kiddo, I'm about five minutes from your school.'

'Awesome, see you then.' I answered my mom's text before heading for the entrance to the school. Based on how today went, my Junior year was not going to be as much of a cakewalk as I initially thought it would be.