Every one else seemed happy with where they were sitting. I wasn't too sad either. While Paul wasn't my best friend, he was quite funny. The only downside was many times teachers would ask us to stop talking or laughing. Pretty ironic considering they were the ones who made us sit together. But it used to worry me because I was afraid of teachers' opinion changing about me. Also, apart from being funny, he was also a little weird… The things he used to do creeped me out a little, but I just thought of them as him trying to be funny. I didn't need to fear him. He was fat and short. I could just hit him and run. Just kidding, I didn't actually do it, not to him.
Anyway, there were two girls who used to sit in front of us. I didn't know it at that time, but some rumours had started spreading. I and one of those girls were in love. Yeah, just because our seats were next to each other, and we used to talk to each other. I wasn't aware of those rumours. So, I didn't stop talking with those girls and it only made the matters worse. You would think that we were not kids anymore but there were some people whose brain hadn't grown at all. Those who would do anything but study.
It was none other than Dic who had spread those rumours. Why? Just to mess with me. Since I was a good student, he thought it would damage my 'reputation' in teachers' eyes and change their opinion about me. He also believed my classmates would make fun of me, but he didn't know that only he was a kid. A stereotypical bully. He told me the truth himself few years later, but at that point, I couldn't care less. None of the things he had wanted happened.
And since I wasn't aware of it, I didn't waste my time worrying about useless things. From time to time, my classmates would ask me if something was going on between us. When it happened for the first few times, it caught me off guard and honestly, made me a little happy. The fact that everyone thought I had a girlfriend… it felt pretty good. But I would tell them the truth, that there was nothing between us and we weren't even friends. Neither my classmates nor my friends would trust me but after seeing the truth with their own eyes daily, they couldn't say anything. It was annoying but eventually, they stopped caring. There were far more interesting things happening. It's not like they would have cared even if those rumours were true.
It was during that time when I got a strange idea. I wanted to write my own book. I was a big fan of fantasy novels and wanted to write my own. I actually started working on my idea and wrote a whole chapter… of two different novels. The reason I didn't continue was because I got bored of it and ran out of ideas pretty quickly. I don't remember the plot of any of those novels. Funnily enough, the person I commissioned to design the covers for my novels was none other than the girl I supposedly liked. She didn't even ask for anything in return. Maybe she did like me… well, it didn't matter.
But my quench for writing was going to be satisfied soon. Damn, it sounds so gross.
It was August. One day, a teacher came to our class and told us to go a certain classroom. That classroom was twice the size of a normal class and reserved for only special occasions. I say special because it was used only when guests would come to our school to talk to students. The reason it was special was because it was one of the two rooms with a projector. That day, few guests had come to our school to tell the students about a story writing contest their organization was organizing. As for who those men were, who knows. What we cared for were the prizes winners would get.
I really wanted to participate in it. I had stopped working on my novels just few days before and my hands had been itching to write down what my brain had been cooking. There were no participation fees so, my family couldn't refuse. All I needed to do was to write a story and submit it. That's it. We could write about anything. Many kids from my section had decided to participate, including me.
I don't remember anything about the story I wrote but its theme was fantasy. The only thing I remember is that I wrote my story the night before the last day to submit our stories. I went to school the next day and submitted my story. Then, few days later, I was called by our activities' supervisor. My school really had some creative titles for teachers. She told me that I had won, and I was selected to represent our city in the next level of the contest. It made me extremely happy. Not just the fact that I had won but that only one other kid from our school had won, and she wasn't from my class. But my happiness turned into disappointment immediately. She just handed me a certificate and told me to prepare my next story. I thought that I had won a prize or something. But all I won was a piece of paper. I finally knew who those men were, liars.
I was disappointed. She made it sound like a big deal but in the end, it was nothing. Before I left, she told me that if I won in the second level of the contest, I would get a prize. Maybe she realized what I was thinking and tried to motivate me but it was too late. My trust had been broken and I couldn't care anymore. I was discouraged and demotivated. So, I didn't submit another story. I thought it was pointless and I would get nothing even if I won again.
It's not easy to regain the lost trust.
It's pretty ironic. I didn't participate in that contest again because I wasn't sure if I would get a prize in case, I won but here I am writing this when I don't know if I will gain anything from this. I also wrote only first chapter of my novels while I have written way more than that of this story. In a weird way, I am doing what I didn't do during that time.