New Beginnings
“Oh, for crying out loud, what do you have to do to find a seat on this train?”
“Oh, for crying out loud, what do you have to do to find a seat on this train?”
Virginia “Ginny” Woodward was having a lousy day. Her boyfriend had dumped her via text (turned out “forever” to him meant “until summer is over”). Her dad left on an impromptu business trip early in the morning and didn’t wake her up to say goodbye. Then she was taken to Penn station by the driver because her mom was called urgently back to the hospital to perform a heart transplant.
Taking the train to New Haven instead of being driven to boarding school by your parents was a rite of passage for the Juniors of Fulton Prep, and yet Ginny was not enjoying it at all. She felt lonely and lost. Her friends would take a later train, but Ginny needed to get there early for soccer tryouts. She wandered up and down the corridor, dragging her luggage, looking miserable.
“You can sit here,” shouted Gregory Carson, who couldn’t stop the words from coming out.
Ginny backed up and looked at her classmate, confused.
“If you’re not scared. No need to be scared…” Gregory mumbled, lowering his gaze and blushing, mortified.
Ginny lifted an eyebrow and took a seat next to him, arms crossed.
“I’m not scared of you, Carson,” she said, huffing.
“I know, I mean, people kinda hate me, you know, like fear me and stuff, and I don’t want them to…” he said, looking at his shoes, his face burning, eyes prickling.
Ginny felt her heart cringe. She had never talked to Gregory Carson. The boy had a bad reputation by association. At 6'4" he was a football scholar with few friends, mostly insensitive teammates that hang out with him because his size was intimidating and he rarely spoke.
Back in the eighth grade, when the school recruited him, he had been grateful that the older jocks had taken him in. But for the whole of last year, he felt out of his element with them. They could be mean and easily got in trouble. Sadly, because Gregory was so shy and had difficulty making friends, his reputation as one of the bad guys was established; no one would sit next to him in…
