Always

07| part two: pov switch

CARINA

I woke up to a dark room. My eyes fluttered open and drifted to the clock on my bedside. It read 07:15 a.m. My mind immediately went to the fact that I have to go to school, and I gave a slight groan. I jumped out of bed and went to the bathroom immediately, and brushed my teeth. After taking a quick shower, I got into my new clothes.

I pulled a simple pastel pink dress from my closet and pulled it on. I then paired it with some boots and a beige jumper pulled over so I don't feel cold. Grabbing my bag, I triple checked everything. Books, pencil case, files, and my PE kit.

Everything was in check. I looked at myself in the mirror and was pretty confident I looked great. I picked up my white backpack and went downstairs to join the others for breakfast. I didn't see Genevieve or Ace, so I assumed they were already gone. Romeo and Amara looked ready to go.

"Ready for school today?" Luca asked Alex and me as Alex grabbed an apple from the fruit basket, while I set down for some pancakes again.

"Yes of course!" I nodded. The thought of meeting new people always excited me.

Alex shrugged in response. "It's school," she replied.

Even in the simplest of clothes, she managed to look amazing. Unlike me, she didn't have to try hard.

Once everyone was done with breakfast, Alex and Liam went into his Mercedes, while the rest of us piled into the white car. I was near the window again, Luca beside me, Layla next to him, and Lucas in the driving seat.

"Excited?" Layla asked me, once we were on the road.

"You bet," I replied, grinning. New place, new people, new friends. It's my thing.

"I'm sure you'll do well," Luca said, giving me a warm smile, which I returned.

"I hope so, yeah."

"You'll love the school as well." Lucas chimed in. "It has this amazing huge cafeteria with equally amazing food..."

I zoned out after that. The thought of a new place made me nervous as well. What if no one likes me? What if I don't fit in? Those thoughts kept looming in my head.

But like Alex had a pretty good poker face, I could mask my nervousness with excitement.

"Right Carina?" I heard Lucas say and snapped out of my thoughts.

Then I said something really intelligent like, "Huh?"

"Have you been listening to anything he was saying?" Layla asked with a laugh.

"Nope, sorry."

"There goes my rant on why you'll love our school," Lucas said, laughing to himself.

"Don't worry, you'll do fine," Luca said as if he'd been reading my thoughts.

I nodded, trying to tell myself the same thing. Surely nothing worse than what had already happened recently could start. After all, hadn't we just technically had several car crashes? And my foster father had died, though I didn't care much about that.

"How long till we get there?" I asked, trying to change the topic to anything but me.

"Five minutes, I'd say," Layla replied, looking at her watch.

Sure enough, five minutes later we reached our destination. She was pretty good at assuming times, and I was jealous. It would be a cool trait to have. I started to feel better; maybe it wouldn't be that bad. Lucas pulled up into the school parking lot, and got out first, followed by the rest of us. Just as I stepped out, all the eyes turned to me. I took a deep breath.
 
Here we go.