Finally, the boy took him to the library.

“And here’s where I often spend recess with my friend Elisa. It’s the quietest place in the whole school. An oasis of calm in a sea of madness and hormones.” Daniel said. 

“Cool... but who’s Elisa?” He asked, looking through the library’s window.

“It’s the super cute one over there with the reading glasses and the huge book. Come on, she’ll love you~” Daniel said, grabbing him by the shoulder.

Max was dragged into the library, and Daniel sat him in the chair in front of the dark-haired girl.

“Good morning,” she said without taking her eyes off the book. “I was wondering when you would show up, for a moment I thought you had abandoned me.”

“Oh, don’t be like that, you know I could never live without you. But I have someone to introduce to you. You’ll love him~”

“Ok...” The girl looked at Max and explored his face. “Hello...” she greeted a bit awkwardly. 

“Hey.”

They looked at each other in silence for about a minute. 

Elisa wasn’t sure what to say. She had never been good at talking with boys in general, but Max’s intimidating aura made her especially nervous. The girl tried to calm herself down and avoid looking at the scar he had across his face. 

Max, on the other hand, was just nervous because the last time he talked with a cute girl, she and her friends looked at him like he was some kind of weird animal. And then power-walked away because they mistook him for... the other one.

“Well...” started Daniel, trying to break the awkward silence. “This is Max, he’s cool, and barely left home in the past… 4 years? 5?”

“More or less, yeah.” Yep, that guy was a mind reader… Or maybe his aunt hired him to be his friend? Nah, he was being too obvious about knowing everything about him, and not even amateur actors were that bad… Maybe he belonged to the mob and was trying to get close to his uncle through him?

“Nah, I’m an actual mind reader,” Daniel said.

Max looked at him and took a deep breath through his nose, blinking slowly.

“Sure, why not?” the orphan sighed.

“So, you want to be our friend, is that it?” Elisa questioned, closing her book and giving him her undivided attention.

“Daniel kind of dragged me here, but I might as well give it a try.” He smiled awkwardly, tring to keep his cool. But I might as well give it a try... What way to soud like a total jackass...

“Hmm…”

“Well, we’d better get going!” Daniel said, looking at his watch “Our English teacher this year is a dick, and goes into the classroom before the bell even rings. And FYI, our new PE teacher is a cunt and a pedo. So... Yeah. This will be a good year.” He got up while rolling his eyes.

“Ok. Ah... see you guys here in the next break then?” Max asked, getting up as well.

“You’re in the same class as us.” the mind reader clarified.

“Really, in what class are you?”

“8ºF,” Elisa informed, storing her book in her backpack.

“Me too, cool. Wait, does that mean I’ll have to deal with the pedo teacher too?”

“Nah, we're safe; he only likes ‘real girls’. Still, he might go harder on you and Elisa…”

“...Why did you put so much emphasis on ‘real girls’?” he asked, making quotation marks with his fingers.