New School

"Whoa, slow down there, Ace," the teenage boy says to me. "Are you really that eager to get to school?" I look up at the boy, who has a big smile plastered on his face and his hand extended to help me up.

"Aren't we all?" The teenage girl he's with asks.

I take the boys hand and he helps me up. "Boy, aren't you a tall one." He says while brushing some dirt off my arms. "It's not hard to tell which family you belong to." He points back to my Step-Uncle's house just in case I didn't know what he meant by that.

"We aren't technically related, though," I say, correcting him. "Ryder's my Step-Uncle."

"He knows that," says the girl. "We all know that." She in emphasizes "all" when she says that. Then she looks at me and says, "One thing you'll learn about this town soon enough, Tiger, is that everybody knows everything about each other."

As we walk together toward the high school I learn that the boy's name is Sai and the girl's name is Violet, and that they are my new next door neighbours. They are in the same grade as me, and they are twins. As a side note, I feel like I've actually met the two before, but when I ask them they say they have no reference of ever meeting me before.

By the time we arrive at the high school they are basically talking to me like we've been best friends our whole lives. Sia breaks off from us as we head into the high school, leaving me alone with Violet. I've been instructed to visit the guidance counselor upon arrival, so she walks me to his office before heading off with a group of other girls that swarm her like bees to honey as soon as they see her.

I knock on the guidance counselor's door. Moments later the door opens up and a young man escorts me into the office. The first thing I notice was he isn't dressed like any guidance counselor I've ever seen before. Instead of the usual suit and tie he's wearing a tank top and jogging shorts, which doesn't do much to hide his huge bulge. He's got short, scruffy facial hair and I can tell the rest of his slim muscular body has a good amount of hair too, not as much as Uncle Ryder but more than Liam.

"You must be Oaks," he says, leading me over to sit on a sofa along the wall on one side of the room. He sits down next to me, bent slightly to face me. "I'm Ash Martinez. I'm the guidance counselor, gym teacher and swim and track coach here." That explains the outfit, I think to myself. "While your here I don't want you to think of me as such things as "guidance councelor, teacher, grown up" ", he uses air quotes as he says these things, "I want you to think of me as "one of the guys". A friend. Someone you can talk to about anything with. I am your spirit guide through high school and beyond."

He hands me some papers. "This is your class schedule and map of the school. I see you haven't signed up yet for any extra curriculars." He looks me up and down. "Do you swim? You look like you have a swimmers body. We are always looking for new swimmers on our team."

"Actually, I was on my swim team back in the city I am from." I say.

"Wonderful," he says. "I hope to see you at the pool after school then." He puts one of his hands on my knee as he says this and rubs it a bit. "The other boys on the team will be ecstatic to meet you."

He keeps his hand on me knee a few more minutes, making me very uncomfortable, before finally getting up and escorting me out of the room and leading me to my first class. I can see Sia sitting at a desk in the classroom, and when he sees me he waves and points to the desk in front of him, which he's saved for me.

"Oh, do you know Sia Dusk already?" Coach Ash asks me.

"Kind of," I say. "I walked to school with him and his sister. They're my neighbours."

"Perfect," he says. "Sia's our best swimmer. Make sure he brings you to swim practice after school. I already feel that you two will be best friends in no time." And with that, Coach Ash leaves me alone in the hallway.

I go into the classroom and sit at the desk Sia saved for me. He rubs my shoulders as I sit down. "So, has Coach asked you to join the swim team yet?" Sia asks me.

"Yeah," I say.

Sia laughs. "No surprise. There aren't that many of us so we are always looking for one more. Please say you're going to join. I need some new competition in my life."

"Don't worry," I say. "I'm going to join... and I'm going to out swim you, too."

"Ha," Sia laughs. "We'll see about that."