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It was exactly six am when the shrill ringtone of a phone cut through the silence of the early morning.
A red-haired girl lifted her head sleepy and looked around her dark room. She growled, rubbing her eyes and turned the alarm off. After blinking a few times to get her eyes used to the darkness, she let herself fall back into her pillows.
For a while she just stared at the dark ceiling. Not a single fiber of her being wanting to stand up.
She debated whether she should just go back to sleep, but before she could make that decision, the girl heard a familiar voice from the corridor.
"Charlotte Elizabeth Miller, stand up or you are going to be late for school."
"I'm up, mum" Charlie yelled.
She crawled out of her bed, missing the warm feeling of being under the covers immediately.
Charlie stood up and saw her own pale face looking right back at her from the mirror on the wall. It was probably only her fire red hair which made her look so pale.
Or at least that was what she told herself.
Quickly, she put on the first pair of jeans and hoodie she could find in her closet and got ready in the bathroom.
20 minutes later, she was ready and grabbed her backpack.
"Have a good first day at school," her mum said. Charlie just smiled, too tired for an actual conversation.
"Thanks mum" was all she mumbled while already stepping out of the house.
One look on her phone told Charlie that she would have to run to the bus station in order to get to school on time.
But she absolutely wasn't in the mood for exercise and who cares about school anyway?
The truth was that Charlie did in fact care about school a lot. She was quite a perfectionist when it came to her grades, but she was also very lazy.
Charlie put her headphones on and started listening to some music.
As she should have expected, the bus came too late.
Anxiously, she started bouncing her legs on the ground and chewing on her fingernails.
"Don't worry, it will be fine."
She kept repeating to herself.
Fortunately, the bus came, and after just 10 minutes she stood in front of her school.
The building was quite old and it was obvious that no one was taking care of the small garden and the plants in front of it anymore.
She really had kind of missed this place. She had missed having a scheduled plan for the day.
The ringing of the school bell brought her back to reality.
Hastily she walked towards the big entrance doors.
Once she was inside, Charlie realized that she had no clue about which classroom she had to go to. Luckily, she suddenly heard a familiar voice behind her.
"Late as always Charlie."
With a big smile on her face, the red-haired girl turned around to face her best friend, Ava.
The two girls immediately hugged each other after being parted for the whole summer.
"Thank the lord you are here," Ava added,
"I did not intend to endure Principal Andersen's speech without you."
"Well lucky you, now you wont have to." The 2 girls started walking toward the gym.
"How was egypt?" Charlie asked.
"Amazing, it was so crazy to see the Pyramids, but also a normal city right next to it.... Ava kept talking, describing the beautiful landscape and funny experiences she had during her trip.
Charlie smiled. She loved to listen to Ava rambel about anything. But she had to admit to herself that she was a little jealous about not being able to afford a that kind of vacation.
They arrived at the gym and sat down at the very back of the crowded room on the floor.
Principal Andersen was already have way through his speech:
"So I wish you a successful next school year. As some of you might have noticed, we have gotten some new students over the break. The central high school across the city sadly had to close, due to teacher lack of teachers. And I encourage you guys to be kind to them and incorporate everyone into our school community."
Then he started to read out the name of every student to go to the front and get their timetable.
"I didn't even notice that there are any new people here," Ava said, turning to Charlie.
"Yeah, me nether," she answered.
"No wait, Ava said, Look over there."
And she discreetly pointed at 2 girls sitting in the last row of chairs.
One of them had brown shoulder long and the other an odd mix of red blonde hair.
"Wow, a wannabe ginger and Belle," Ava smirked, finding herself hilarious.
"Don't be so mean, we don't even know them. They are probably very nice people."
"I am not being mean. Ava added," I'm just honest." She smirked again.
"Oh come on, didn't we say last year, that we wanted to make some new friends."
"Yeah, sure, but do we actually want that? Cause that involves talking to other people. Besides, we have other friends."
And while she said that the "other friends" came walking towards the two girls.
"Hey Kate, hey Josie" Charlie smiled and stood up to greet them.
"It's so nice to see you guys again."
"Charlotte Miller" principal Anderson's voice echoed through the large hall.
Charlie walked to the front and took her timetable. She studied it while walking back to her friends. Suddenly she bumped into another girl.
"Oh shit. I'm sorry" Charlie muttered, taking a step back to see the wanne be ginger standing right in front of her.
The other girl looked at her with a slightly grimm look.
"Don't worry" she said in an annoyed tone and brushed past her.
Charlie raised her eyebrows and walked back to the others.
"And? How was your first interaction with the wannebe ginger. You still want to be her friend? Ava said, teasing Charlie.
"Nah, I'm fine, Charlie answered, she was kind of rude."
"I mean you were the one running into her," Ava added, simply to annoy her best friend.
"On which side are you on Ava? Charlie replied with a smile.
Then it was Ava's turn to go up to the front. While she was gone, Josie began to describe her trip to Greece in close detail.
"And I was at the beach every day..."
Ava came back and Charlie immediately started to compare their timetables.
"We barely have any lessons together," she stated sad.
"Don't worry," Ava added, "we still have geography and PE together.
"Yeah true."
"Omg, we have nearly all classes together," josie squeaked, hugging Charlie from the back."
"Yesss," Charlie cheered too.
Of course, she was sad about not having many classes with Ava, because she had become her best friend over the course of the last year.
But all the years before, josie and kate had been her main friend group.
Still, Charlie has never been a full part of that group. Or at least she felt like that. Because all the others basically grew up together, going to the same elementary and middle school.
Charlie had always been the new friend and never got really close to them.
Nowadays, this wasn't bothering her as much anymore, because now she had Ava.
The principal was finally done reading out the names and all the students went to their classes.
"What do you guys have now?" Kate asked.
"I have English," Charlie replied, "On the third floor," she whined.
"Have fun during your stair workout," Ava joked and the group parted at the end of the corridor.
Charlie went upstairs alone and found the English room surprisingly fast.
A couple of students were already standing in front of it. She recognized a girl from her old class, but not any of the other people. But all the others already seemed to know each other.
"Great, you're the new one again," Charlie thought, pushing a strain of hair out of her face.
When she got closer, Charlie saw that one girl was standing apart from the group. It was the friend from the wanne be ginger.
"Well, you need to start making friends somewhere," Charlie thought and walked towards the brown-haired girl. She was a bit shorter than Charlie and wore a white bluse with a baby blue sweater on top and a dark tight pair of jeans.
Her dark brown hair fell onto her shoulders and her fingers were clinched around her brown bag as she looked anxiously on the floor.
Usually Charlie wasn't a very extroverted person around new people. But she had always wanted to change that. So Charlie slowly walked towards the new girl.
"Hey," Charlie said. The other girl looked up.
"I'm Charlie and you are new, right? The red-haired girl immediately regretted what she had just said. What a stupid way to start a conversation, she thought.
But the girl didn't seem to care and smiled.
"Yeah, I'm Gracie, nice to meet you."
She held out her hand and Charlie shook it a bit awkward.
Gracie looked at the girl with a puzzled expression on her face. Arent you the girl who walked into Audrey before?
Charlie could feel herself blush a bit.
"Oh yeah, that was me. But I really didn't mean to."
Gracie laughed at that.
"Don't worry, she smiled, Audrey will get over it."
In that moment, their new English teacher, Mister Brown, opened the classroom and everybody started to head inside.
"Do you want to sit next to me?" Charlie asked a bit nervous.
"Yeah, sure," Gracie replied with a shy smile and the two girls sat down in the back of the classroom. Relieved, Charlie exhaled. She had been really afraid of sitting alone in this class, but Gracie seemed to be a very nice person.
The lesson started and Mister Brown gave his students the typical first period of the new year speech. Charlie was really nervous about this year and took notes throughout the whole lesson.
Then the bell rang and the break started. Charlie shifted her attention towards the girl next to her. She thought of a good first question to ask Gracie but her mind suddenly went blank.
"So are you nervous about this year too?" Charlie then asked. She mentally slapped herself again. When had she lost the ability to start an interesting conversation.
"Hmmm, I don't know," Gracie answered with a smile. "I am not really nervous about the lessons because I am quite good at school. But being here with all these new people is kind of scary.
"I get that. Charlie said. "It is scary for me too and I should know most of these people."
They continued their small talk and Charlie found it quite nice to talk to Gracie. She was a kind and also very intelligent person.
In the second period, they actually started to work. Mister Brown handed a political speech out and they had to analyze it.
Charlie mentioned some important points and was really pleased with her own work.
But she had to admit that Gracie did it even better. She found metaphors and other stilistic devices Charlie had never even heard of and explained everything in great detail.
The whole class was impressed by how much Gracie knew about the historical background of the topic.
"Very well done Miss Abrams," said Mister Brown when Gracie was done explaining.
But Charlie was not only impressed by the things Gracie said but also how she said them.
Cause Gracie was incredibly well-spoken. She had an elegant way of articulating herself and Charlie already admired her for that.
After the lesson, the two girls left the classroom together, talking about the homework they had gotten.
"Yeah, I don't think this task will be incredibly difficult," Charlie said. Gracie nodded, but before she could say something herself, Audrey abruptly walked up to them.
"How was math?" Gracie asked her friend. Audrey pulled her away and started talking.
Charlie found herself left alone in the corridor and watched as Gracie and Audrey left the school together with a tall boy.
The red-haired girl sighed and looked for
her friends in the crowd of students.
"Charlieeee," she heard a voice behind her and Ava grabbed her hands to escort her to a bench outside.
"So how was english?" She asked Charlie.
"Surprisingly good we are currently talking about politics and I am sitting next to Gracie."
After Charlie saw Ava's confused look, she added: "The friend from the wannebe ginger."
"Ohh, Belle," Ava laughed.
"And? Is she a "nice person"?
Ava drew Quotation marks in the air.
"Actually, yes she is." Charlie smiled.
The two girls continued to talk about their day and ate their lunches. 5 minutes before the school bell rang, Gracie, Audrey and the tall boy walked pass them again.
"Ahh there are our friends again," Ava commented with a bitter smile. Charlie's eyes followed the three of them entering the school.
She felt her cheeks flushing red in embarrassment again as she remembered the situation before.
Had Audrey done this on purpose?
Was she still mad?
Has it really been as embarrassing as Charlie thought?
And would Gracie remember?
She really had to chill a bit. All this was not that deep.