Dark. Broken. Pathetic. Just a small chunk of the words used to describe the child with the sunset hair and hazelnut eyes. The child wringing their hands under the desk with eyes full of tears and ears full of whispered taunts. The child who would forever regret the day they bestowed their trust upon them: the ones who betrayed her.
High school is very different from middle school. For one, everyone else is taller than you. For two, it's way bigger. For three, everyone expects you to know what you're doing. Pixie definitely did NOT know what they were doing: everything was in the wrong order! Their classes were numbered from the top of the building to the bottom and from right to left and some of them seemed to be just placed randomly where they didn't belong. The first bell had already rung and everyone had dispersed leaving Pixie alone to catastrophise about what would happen if they missed the start of their first day.
"Everyone will watch me walk in and they'll think I'm stupid or what if the school calls my mum because they think that I'm truanting or..."
It would appear that Pixie was wrong in their first assumption that they were alone, for there was another. Standing against the lockers staring at them, watching as they turned frantic circles, was a figure in a tie-dye dress, a pair of what their dad would describe as stomping boots and a shit-eating grin.
"Need a little help?"
Pixie glared: how dare she not announce her presence? However, they really needed help and there weren't many other options.
"Yes," begrudgingly they accepted, "I can't find my form room and I'm going to be late."
"Mr Hutchinson's class?"
"Yeah, how did you know?" they asked with a raised brow.
"Y'know usually I prefer to be fashionably late on the first day but seeing as you appear to be in desperate need of assistance I suppose it is my duty to allow you to follow me to class."
"How charming," Pixie laughed. "and what do I get to call my lovely chauffeur?"
"Alison."
"Pixie, can we go please?" They had resumed shuffling from foot to foot in a state of mild to moderate panic.
"Pixie? That's your name?" The shit-eating grin had been replaced by a look of amusement as she pushed off from the lockers and sauntered (yes sauntered) over towards the stairs at the edge of the courtyard.
A look of hurt flashed across Pixie's face but was gone in an instant, "Yeah, that's my name, what's wrong with it?"
Alison swung around to face them, almost taking Pixie out with the messenger bag hanging around her shoulders, continuing to ascend the stairs backwards.
"Nothing wrong with it. It fits the forest princess aesthetic you've got going on."
"I think that's a compliment but forest princess?"
"Y'know the whole flowy white shirt and the flowers painted on your jeans and the woolly cardigan around your shoulders that looks so comfy and where did you get it I want one?"
"My mum gave it to me and thank you I guess?"
Suddenly they were standing in front of the door to classroom C4 and Alison was turning the knob.
The room was almost full of acne-ridden, sweaty teenagers. Scrawls of curse words and male genitalia covered the ugly cream walls and the desks were missing legs so every so often there was a clunk as they wobbled uncomfortably.
"Alison and Jacqueline I suppose?" came a voice from the front of the room. It belonged to Mr Hutchinson: a burly man, barely compressed by a suit, with the kind of beard that looked like it belongs in a biker gang or the kind of pub that attracts hipsters.
Alison moved to protest but Pixie cut her off, "Yes sir."
"We're sitting in alphabetical order by last name so you two lovely ladies are sitting here in front of me," he said, gesturing to the desk nearest to the door.
Pixie was already sitting at the desk while Alison's brain trying frantically to catch up because Pixie is Pixie not Jacqueline but Pixie didn't correct him and...
"Alison would you please take your seat?"
The entire class was watching as she snapped from her stupor and, face flushing, took her seat beside Pixie.
"Hey, why did he call you-"
"There will be no talking when I am speaking Alison," Mr Hutchinson interrupted. "I'm sure your little conversation can wait until after class."
Alison opened her mouth to defend herself but Pixie's hand on her arm stopped her. Instead she slumped, defeated. Form would be over in 20 minutes but she wasn't sure she could wait that long. The minutes crept by until the bell finally rang out to signal the beginning of first period. Everyone leapt up but Pixie, taking their time to place the notebook they had been scrawling something in inside their bag and to push their chair in. Alison tapped her foot impatiently. They were barely outside the door when Alison grabbed Pixie's arm causing them to almost fall backwards.
"Why did you lie about your name?"
"Hey, get off-"
"Not until you tell me why you lied."
"I didn't lie, get off!"
"Then how come he called you Jacqueline but you said your name was Pixie."
"My name is Pixie and will you get off of me?" Pixie snapped, wrenching their arm from Alison's grasp. They looked around at the throng of people surrounding them.
"OKAY, okay, I'm sorry," Alison held her hands up in surrender and smiled weakly.
"Jacqueline is the name on my birth certificate but it isn't my name. My name is Pixie and I need to get to class. Come find me at break, I'll explain properly,"
Alison moved to protest but Pixie had already merged with the crowd and disappeared.
