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First day problems

One breath in, one breath out, you don't have to deal with everything all at once.

Autumn Barrett repeated to herself over and over, counting in time as her feet hit the concrete sidewalk.

No one is expecting you to be perfect.

The voice of her latest therapist echoed in her mind. The grey-haired woman who'd she spent every Thursday evening with for the past three months and who she was very grateful never to see again.

"It's fake."

"I don't know."

"Oh come on it's just a stunt to improve her follower count." Luke Kent insisted to Ryan Armitage.

The cold morning air bit at Autumn, she tucked her blonde hair into the collar of her black coat. October 1st was the perfect day for her to rejoin Doves End High School for the second time that year. At least that was what she said last week.

One at time

"Come on Autumn. What do you think?" Ryan gently nudged her.

One of Autumn's great ideas was to walk to school on with her best friend Luke and sort-of boyfriend/ kind of ex Ryan. She'd desperately wanted them to find some common ground.

Fifteen minutes into the journey and they were bickering about Sandy Quinn's snapchat last night. A thirty-second close up of her face breathing heavily, some people said they saw the outline of blood, others said they saw the shape of a ghost, but most said it all looked fake.

A stress headache broke out across her forehead, like white-hot needles pricking the inside of her brain.

Once upon a time, she'd have a witty comeback, something funny to say. Back when she was normal. Before her mom's car skidded off the road and she was in the passenger seat. Her mom died, and she survived, nothing was the same, she wasn't the girl she was before.

"It does sound like something Sandy would do," Autumn muttered. Luke smiled triumphantly at her side, walking a little taller.

"Ryan I'm sorry, it's just Sandy has been talking about getting more attention it does sound like her." She stammered almost crying. She knew it was stupid, but she didn't want to hurt Ryan.

"It's okay, I mean you're probably right, the video did go viral." Ryan smiled and grabbed her hand.

That million-watt smile, the result of a cosmetic dentist as a dad and a beauty queen for a mother, it was the first she'd noticed when they'd been put together in Freshman chemistry, it'd broken her when she broke up with him at the start of summer.

"But more importantly, do you think it will be enough of a distraction that Mr Simmons will cancel the English test?" Luke joked changing the subject, Ryan laughed although Autumn suspected it was to quell some of the tension between them.

Doves End High looked exactly the way it always did, imposing, impersonal and a little cheap. With the grey sky above them, not helping the overall depressing nature of the school, Autumn tried not to dwell on it.

"You ready, I've got Hammond for Math first period, what about you?" Ryan asked he stopped slightly in front of her, not noticing her surveying the school and the people.

"Autumn promised me she'd read my history essay before I hand it in but you two can meet up again at Lunch right?" He smiled, sounding almost like he liked Ryan. Ryan looked like he was about to say something, a whisper of something that looked like an argument played on his face but instead, he swallowed it, waved at the two of them and went to join his baseball teammates.