Fully optimistic, I made my way to school, expectant that Sammy would be at the lockers waiting for me like every other morning. When I found he wasn’t my mind wondered. Sammy wasn’t the perfect attendance type but he always made sure to notify me if he was planning to ditch. He knew I hated walking around school by myself. When he was by my side, if people approached me attempting to start up a conversation, he would save me from the utter humiliation of my response. So where was my text? Of course I completely blow it out of proportion, imagining his blood painted across a highway and call his Mom. Just as she picks up, I hear a familiar booming voice, followed by a crash. What has he gotten himself into now?

“Hello dear, is everything alright?”

“Oh sorry, turns out he’s not dead.”  With that I hung up as fast as my hands could move and barrelled around the corner to find Sammy with a smug grin on his face; confidently looming over Ben who was cowering on the floor, rapidly bleeding from his nose.  As he noticed me and my expression, his face began to drop.

“He started it!” Sammy whined in anticipation of another one of my dragged out lectures.
“He thought that just because I’m gay, I was staring at his ass.” “Someone needed to deflate his ego.” 
My lifeless gaze spoke for itself which he took as another chance at a pathetic excuse.

“I tried reasoning with the guy but he somehow convinced himself I had some crush on him.”
I know I seem a bit cruel. I mean it’s not like the guy didn’t deserve it; it’s just that this was Sammy’s regular behaviour. Someone would say something Sammy didn’t agree with and instead of expressing his emotion through words, he did it with his fist. And especially with homophobes, violence only makes it worse. Now they just have more ammo and there mind set is still the same.

As Sammy was desperately attempting to defend himself, the three gay haters tried to scuttle away like frightened beetles until I stopped Sammy in his tracks by calling out to them. “What made you think you were good enough to be in Sammy’s eye line?”
All three halted simultaneously.  The largest one, Ben, spun around and arrogantly strolled up to me.
“He’s gay.” He spits out with c***y grin smeared across his face, without a moment’s thought.

I was beginning to understand Sammy’s impatience. “Are you serious?” I glared at him and crossed my arms, infuriated at his ignorance whilst he widened his eyes as if I was the idiot.

“So by that logic, every straight girl must have a crush on you too?” He seemed to take this as a compliment as his face shone with pride. “Why not?” 
“You would have thought with a head that big, you would hear how much people hate your conceited, bigoted, self-entitled ass.” Alas every word of what I said seemed to fly straight over his head. Shortly after my remark, he and his friends dispersed without a reply. But at least I got my point across for the people that did hear and understand me. Sammy certainly appreciated the sentiment. I also noticed a mysterious figure all in black at the end of the hallway, intrigued in my useless effort to enlighten that lost soul. I took a wild guess at who that was.

“Are you blushing?” Sammy chuckled, interrupting my daydream.

“Uhhhh… it’s just so hot in here!” I protested, fanning my face with my hand.
“Sure. “ He gave me a sarcastic eye roll then continued with: “I’m never going to understand girls. “
“At least the feelings mutual,” I sighed, with my head turned to face him as we were separating to head to class.
See Sammy is gay as I’m pretty sure you have figured out by now; but he is completely open about it. I remember when he first came out. It wasn’t a shock to me at all but everyone else seemed so set in their views of what a homosexual person is like and Sammy doesn’t fit a single one of the stereotypes. He doesn’t give a second’s thought about clothes, he doesn’t gossip, he doesn’t drink c***tails, he doesn’t live to party; the list can go on and on. He seems as straight as they come yet he still doesn’t fit into that other category of being a “top”. He isn’t promiscuous, he isn’t a frequent gym visitor and he isn’t particularly dominant. However, he still got a lot of shtick about what he’s “supposed to wear” and how he’s “supposed to act.” And they’re not even the ones that are particularly against gays. You can see how he got into a lot of fights.
That day was the worst possible day for it of course because I was dying to tell someone about what was happening to me. And it only got worse as the day progressed. One class left until lunch, one class until I could finally tell Sammy. My body was filled with relief. That was until Mr too lazy to plan a lesson placed a pop quiz in front of me. My luck was going to be the death of me I swear. That was the subject I was supposed to be studying while I was obsessing over my newfound powers. I just needed more time!

Everything was closing in around me, the ONLY thing my parents cared about was appearances and even on a pointless pop quiz, if I failed; I was therefore a failure. Panic overwhelmed me and minutes were going by like seconds, the monotonous sound of people writing their answers and turning the pages was playing so loud in my head whilst I was getting nowhere. With that, the room fell silent. No more endless scratching of pencils, no more of the deafening tic of the clock and no more sound whatsoever. My gaze gradually moved from my paper to around the room. I could see it coming; I just hoped I was imagining it. Nope. I was right. Everyone was frozen. How am I supposed to get out of this mess? I could barely control my first powers and now I’m finding more? Have I frozen the whole world or just this room?

Desperate to see everything was normal elsewhere, I sped straight into the hallway. Sure enough, when I looked through the glass on the door of the classroom opposite ours, it was the same. “Uggggghhhhh!” I threw my hands up to my head and groaned. “WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME?!” I screamed at the ceiling frantically.

“I thought there was something different about you.” Dropping straight to the floor in surprise, I saw none other than Mr Perfect leaning against the lockers facing me, looking incredibly amused.

Who what why? Why was Mr perfect not frozen like the rest? What did he mean by” I thought there was something different about you” how did he know? Endless questions were running through my mind. Of course a normal person would have just got up and asked these questions rather than cowering into the nearest Janitor’s closet, torturing them self, when the answers are just beyond the door. But it’s me we’re talking about here; the logical approach has never been my forte. What can I say? Normal is boring. Okay I had been sitting in there long enough; my problems weren’t just going to disappear. I had to face my demons; which in my case happened to be a sweet, gorgeous sixteen year old boy.  At least I think he’s sixteen. My mind wondered, attempting to distract myself from my most recent predicament. Abruptly I snapped myself out of my daydream, knowing that I needed answers and if there was even a slight chance that he knew something, I should’ve been jumping on it. With that I swiftly arose and threw myself out the door; only to end up on my ass. Yes that’s right as if it wasn’t bad enough; I had just tackled Mr Perfect. “You’re always popping up where you shouldn’t be.” I mumbled, dusting myself off.

“I like to make an impression” he chuckled. “So in your mind, you run into a closet and you are magically invisible to the world?”

“I never came to that conclusion, but it wouldn’t exactly be a far stretch,” I shrugged. “So I’m guessing you noticed time being frozen?”

“It’s pretty hard to miss.”

“Thanks for the help Mr Sarcasm.”

“Awr what happened to Mr Perfect?”

“Well maybe if you told me what the hell you have to do with all this then you would deserve that title again.” “Wait I meant if you actually tell me your name, none of these Mr titles would be necessary”

“Nice save.” I couldn’t be angry that he laughed at me again because he has an unfair advantage every time he flashes me that priceless smirk of his.

“So… am I spending the rest of my life in the dark?”

“Fine I’ll tell you Miss Exaggeration.” His amused grin shortly disappeared when he noticed the highly unimpressed look smeared across my face.  “To be completely honest I’m just as weirded out as you are. I mean finding out there is another witch at this school? What are th-”

“A what?!” I screeched as he continued completely oblivious.

“Well obviously I’m a witch too or how could I be talking to you right now?”

Eyes widened, I clung to my hair in disbelief and backed up into the wall, sliding down it to the floor.

“I know it’s a bit of a surprise but don’t you think your being a bit melodramatic?” His eyebrows furrowed with curiosity.

“I-I just… I can’t believe it.” I knew I had powers but I had no idea there were others like me. And now instead of being gifted I was suddenly a witch!

“Have you never met another witch before or something?”

“I didn’t know I was one!” Our eyes were locked.

“Oooooooooh.” He held his hand up to his face awkwardly.  “Oopsi I kind of bombarded you a bit there.”

“You think?!”

“So you’ve never been to the witches’ clan?”

“There’s a witches’ clan?!”

“Stop screaming.”

“Why?! Who the hell is going to hear me?!”

“Well for starters, me.” He whined while squinting his eyes and rubbing his temple.

“Oh man up.”

“I, am plenty man, thank you.” I rolled my eyes with annoyance as he proudly patted his chest with his fist.

“Just found out I’m a freaking witch over here!”

“Aaand back to the shouting.”

Gently, I arose and began walking towards him. “I’m going to ignore your constant sarcasm and just ask you nicely to please help me get time back to normal.” I spoke through my teeth, calmly, holding in any frustration.

“Oh that’s easy.”

“Thanks for the confidence boost.”

“Okay, close your eyes.”

“Okaaay.”

“Now you paused time because you wanted it to stop right?”

I nodded softly.

“So just do the opposite.”

I stood there for minutes attempting to re-start time.  As I was becoming aggitated at my lack of progress, my face screwed up while straining and I started stamping the floor.

“You’re over thinking it.” He said, behind a slight chuckle. “You have to feel it.” He placed his hands on each of my shoulders delicately and I instantly relaxed. “You don’t want time frozen forever do you?”

“Who would make the food?” I whined.
“Exactly.”

After a moment of meditation, everything felt like it was moving around me and then there was a sudden jolt. Sure enough, it was back to normal. However when he removed his hands from my shoulders, I felt a wave of disappointed wash over me. And just like that, everything stopped again.
“Okay, let’s go over this one more time.” He sighed as I pouted.

It didn’t take me that long to master, just a bit more than the average witch, apparently. Of course when I did get back to class, I had to pause time again to be able to pass the test with all the extraordinary information swimming round my mind. This left me with an amused Mr perfect outside the classroom door, glaring at me. All that talk about witches and clans and he still didn’t tell me his name.

He even got around to telling me about how back in the 1600’s a witch got caught hovering and suddenly mortals everywhere were being accused of being a witch and that’s how we have mythical withes. But he didn’t have a second spare to give me something to call him. How big a secret do you have to share with someone to be allowed to learn their identity?! He frustrated me sometimes; it would have been so much easier if he wasn’t so damn perfect. At least I wasn’t alone anymore, I had someone to confide in about my powers and who could help me control them. I was still going to tell Sammy, but I decided it was best to wait until I understood everything myself, instead of leaving him with all the unanswered questions that I had.

I thought it was best to let all the witchy stuff set in before I started learning more so I told nameless I would meet him after school tomorrow. I went straight from school to bed, but not before using my new ability to avoid my parents’ b****ing. At least it was coming in handy.