one

two

Sophie's point of view

Waking up on the first day of the rest of my life it was impossible not to feel somewhat intimidated. Not only was I living in a totally different part of the country but with someone I barely knew. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't trying to avoid my aunt, after all, in the wake of the last few months, I was grateful to have anywhere to live at all, but since she was always out, we hadn't really had much chance to bond. 

I sighed, letting the hot air out of my mouth in small puffs and laughed slightly as it tickled the tip of my nose. "Jesus, don't be such a child", I muttered under my breath in retaliation flipping off the ceiling with a bold smirk. 

...

About twenty minutes later I was walking to school, guitar slung haphazardly over my back. I had no idea if there would be chance to play today but I sure as hell wasn't letting it out of my sight. Moving so suddenly had meant that I forgot some quite essential things, namely underwear, pretty much all my clothes and anything vaguely practical, but I had my notebook, cigarettes and guitar so in my eyes I had smashed it. It was with this, slightly dubious, attitude that I had got ready for school that morning. Thankfully, I had always worked hard so, academically, the prospect of new courses wasn't too daunting. Socially on the other hand... whatever I had my headphones for company. 

Arriving much earlier than everyone else, I went straight to the headmaster's office to collect my timetable and alleged buddy who was apparently meant to show me around. Ironically, however, my buddy had decided not to turn up, so, after a confusing and frankly, absolutely-useless chat with Mr Groff, I was left to walk alone to my form room. 

... 

By lunch it had already been a somewhat shit day, not only had I been late to all my classes, something I would never actually intend to do, but I had managed to make a total of approximately zero friends and felt more alone than ever. It was as a result of all of this that I ended up in the middle of a corridor, ten minutes late and with no idea where English was. I banged my head on a locker in desperation, attracting the attention of a boy just coming round the corner. "Hey" I called over to him, "I'm late, like really late for English and I have no idea how to get there. It's room 26F." Expecting a somewhat helpful response I smiled at him, only to be met by what can only be described as a really, really hostile look. Without a word, he strode off. Was he going to English? He turned round abruptly and gestured: "Are you coming or not?"

Panicking slightly, I tried to work out the exact distance I should stay behind him so that it wouldn't seem like I was intruding but he knew I was still there. Honestly, I didn't get the impression that he gave even half a fuck though. 

Suddenly he kicked open a door disrupting what had previously been a hard-working class. "Sit", he said pointing to an empty chair at the in the second row from the back. "Um yeah no of course, sitting down now, sorry, new, me" I said, my voice breaking about every second word. Wow that went brilliantly. 

...

English was actually really interesting in the end. I didn't learn a huge amount due to the fact that at my last school I had been in an advanced scheme, meaning that the material was already fairly familiar, but it was still useful time to scope out my classmates. As far as I could tell, attitude-guy who had led me to the classroom was always that mean and judging by his constant interruptions it seemed likely that English wasn't his strong suit. Next to him was a guy in a bottle blue helmet and faded, striped coat. Now I don't want to say weirdo but who the hell wears a helmet in a lesson. To be fair if I was sitting next to attitude-guy...

The only other person I noticed was a girl sitting directly behind me.

It's hard to know whether it was the battered copy of "Sense and Sensibility" on the edge of her desk or the fact she spent the lesson-time filling the cracks in her nail varnish with black sharpie but the odd contradiction between the way she presented herself and her arguably fairly traditional book choice made her devastatingly interesting. Helmet-boy and attitude-guy I had figured out in five seconds but her, no she was worth getting to know. Any hope of that happening was kind of crushed though when I turned round only to be met by her middle finger. Great.