Sebastian Hatchet thought moving was supposed to be hard. In movies, usually by the end, some character has to leave and there’s a little montage of their friends all crying. But it’s really not, especially if you don’t have any reason to stay. Sure, moving boxes sucks, and smelling trash the second your dad’s old black truck makes its way onto the lands of St. Elmore isn’t amazing, but anything was better than his hometown.

He could still remember what life was like back then. Being punched in the stomach and immediately vomiting his lunch up, having to run to the bathroom in the middle of class to have panic attacks in privacy, pushing his fingertips so far into his ears it hurt just so he wouldn’t have to hear what people were saying about him.

”Y’know that emo kid with the freaky nose piercing? God, have you seen his arm? Barcodes, literally.”

”God, he’s so weird. Can’t he just off himself already? It’s pretty obvious he wants to.”

”I hate that freak. I bet he’s a satanist. Even if he’s not, he’s totally still going to burn in hell.”

[~<3~]

He hadn’t made any friends on his first day. He’d expected that. Sebastian was a gangly teen with a septum piercing among others who didn’t do anything but look. Look out windows, look away from people, all he did was stare. He’d learned a long time ago, that the less attention you brought to yourself, the higher your chances of survival were. He’d do anything to avoid a repeat of last year.

And then, on his second day, everything changed. He was sitting at his empty lunch table in the corner of the lunchroom, sketching in his notebook over the table, until someone came. This really, really pretty person who didn’t seem to care that people were staring at them. Or maybe you just didn’t notice. Either way, he was staring too.