"Have a good day at your new college Mads, I have to go, love you."
I had left St. Edmund's Sixth Form behind in July. It was the Sixth Form College that was attached to my old high school. The same teachers, the same building, the same people around me. The only difference was that I had to wear office wear and we got a common room. The bitching had gotten worse and tensions were high before the summer, so I applied to Sir William Blake's Sixth Form. That's where I was going to start again. A new beginning for my second and final year of college education. One last year in this small town before I went off to University, scary stuff but I could handle it.
My best friend already went to SWB. She knew all the gossip and could get me in with loads of awesome people on my first day. She had promised me that I would love the people she chilled with and that this year was going to be the best year of my life so far. The parties were the best she'd known and the family unit they had in college was like the family you could choose. It sounded perfect.
"Oi, let me in, I'm outside," Lexa shouted up at my bedroom window. I skipped downstairs holding my floppy black fringe back and opened the door with a huge smile on my face as if I hadn't seen my best friend in years. "Someone's excited about her first place in paradise," I nodded like a child hyped up of coffee and signalled for her to follow me upstairs as I continues getting ready.
"What lessons have you signed up for then?" I had told her this over and over again, but she was incredibly forgetful.
"Performing Arts, English Language and Psychology."
"Oh," she replied quietly with a giant smirk on her face.
"What? What's wrong with that?"
"Oh, nothing. Just make sure your flirty hormones don't get the better of you," I had no idea what she was talking about, but I nodded along, finishing my eyeliner.
"Right I'm done, lets go," hauling my back pack over my shoulder, I got up and left the house with Lex. The college was a walkable distance and it was a sunny September morning, so I had declined the offer of a lift from my mum before she left for work, knowing I could walk with Lexa.
"Mads..." Lex sounded wary, it confused me but I went along with it.
"Yeah..." I replied in the exact same tone.
"Promise me you won't get hurt at SWB."
"Lex, I know I'm clumsy but that's taking the mickey a little bit isn't it?"
"You know what I meant. There's a lot of hot guys at college but most of them are just out for one thing. They'll drag you in like a fish on a rod then once they've looked at you and taken a few pictures to show off how great you are they'll throw you back in the water," Lex's dad was a keen fisherman and she had grown up around it. The fishing metaphors made me giggle but I knew exactly what she meant by them. I had always easily been led on and therefore very easily hurt. She was basically telling me not to let the guys at college take advantage of me for one reason, that one reason that according to my Nan, all guys are set out for.
"I promise I'll try. You know what I'm like though so I can't promise fully."
"Yeah I understand."
As soon as we got to college Lexa took me to find out my form. 3STI1. STI? Really?
"Ahh that's Stan, Stan Tickle, he's a Music Tech teacher, not too bad looking if you ask me, but you never know, you might not see it, not many people do," Lex explained. I was still stood giggling that my form was STI, unfortunate name. We still had half an hour before we had to go to our forms so Lexa decided to take me to meet some of the awesome people she had told me about.
