I was so ready to leave my old home town, the people there, the streets, the food, everything, I despised it. I considered coming up with a whole new back story, I was from somewhere else, a clean town with good people. People who didn’t call me,

“No way! Dutchman!” a familair unsettling voice rocked through my nervous system as if I had just taken my first recreational drug. I could only pause on the spot, unable to control how wide my eyes were when it landed on the same tuft of brown hair that had bullied me all through school. One of the very reasons I had let my own foot kick my ass out of my home town.

“Are you my roomie!?” the smile on their face, as if they didn’t make me contemplate suicide once or twice in sophmore year. My eyes darted around the room taking in the setting, his bed made and stuff scattered.

“Oh shit, sorry” he said bashfully as he quickly jumped in front to collect a pile of clothes on my presumably bed.

“How cool is this dude!?” he exclaimed, dropping his pile of rags onto the floor.

I still hadn’t said a word.

“And here I thought I wouldn’t know anyone here” he seemed to say with relief but I felt everything but. He looked at me expectantly but I was still at a loss for words. “A little quiet there Dutchman?”

“Dont. Call me that” I can’t stop the growl and his eyebrows raise in surprise.

“Have to come up with something new then. Fresh start and all” he shrugged, unbothered by my aggression.

Fresh start my ass.