Jay

Dear Imena,

The next major event in my life was meeting my friend Jay. It was fourth year, so I was eight or nine. James and I kept buying honey from the twin's family and they made enough money to send the twins to Academy with us. I was in my History of Magic class one day, James and the twins didn't have that class at the same time as me so I was by myself. I remember I got up from my seat to turn in an assignment and I passed the new kids desk. There was a group of boys standing around the poor kid, and as I passed I heard them say something along the lines of the kid being stupid and inferior to them so I stopped to listen.

The boys all looked at me and asked what I wanted, so I asked them why they were saying those things about the new kid. The boys didn't respond, so I asked again, and Jay responded.

"Because I'm different."

"Well I'm different, and no ones ever bothered me before. All of these boys are terrified of me." I told him. "What's your name?"

"Jay."

I looked at the boys around him, "You guys need to leave him alone, he didn't do anything to you." Then one of the boys walked toward me.

"Or what? You'll fight no or something? I'm not afraid of you, Spirit." he said. He wasn't much taller than me, and he definitely wasn't threatening.

"If that's what it will take to get you to leave him alone, yes." I said. Before he even moved, I knew he was going to take a swing at me with his left hand, so when he did, I grabbed his fist. Then I pulled him toward me, kneed him in his stomach and threw him on the floor.

The class was silent.

I looked at the boy on the floor, who was clutching his stomach. Jay has told me that my eyes were different when I looked down at that boy, the usual warm brown hue of my irises was dark and cold. He says everyone must have seen it and that's why they were silent, they were afraid of what I would do next.

I guess I was supposed to do something meaningful that would scare everyone and show them I am not to be messed with, but I didn't. I looked back at Jay,

"There's a seat open next to me if you want to sit by me and get away from them. They won't bother you anymore. Right?" I asked, looking at the other boys around Jay, who all nodded.

I went back to my seat, sat down, and continued to work. Jay moved next to me a few minutes later. Our teacher saw everything, but he didn't say anything to me. The rest of the class went back to what they were doing after a few minutes, but it was quiet the rest of class.

At the end of the school day, Jay and I were called to the principals office. The boy had called his parents and told them what happened and they wanted me to get into trouble for it. But to be fair, he told them I swung first, which my teacher denied since he watched it all. In the end, the boy got suspended for a few days and I was warned that I should try to settle things more peacefully. My parents never said they were mad at me, but I do remember being a little embarrassed that I had been called to the principals office.

The next day, I introduced Jay to James and the twins and we started meeting up after school to hang out and sometimes Jay's little sister Roxanne would hang out with us too. Adam would tag along on a lot of our little adventures to make sure we were safe, but he was the one doing all the dangerous stuff like climbing up a tree and jumping off a branch.

Jay refused to tell me what made him so different from everyone else for years. I always assumed it was because he was one of the only African-American kids in our Academy, especially in our age group. Of course there were other academies throughout the twelve divisions but at the one we attended, he was definitely different than a majority of the kids. But for whatever reason he didn't want to tell me, so I respected it and supported him in the best way I could, by being his friend.

- 𝒮. 𝑅𝑜𝓈𝑒