𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙖𝙡𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙮𝙤𝙪 [𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙞 𝙖𝙪]

03

nina spent almost two hours the next morning getting ready for her first day of school. she wanted to make a good impression in front of all her new classmates and the people she was going to spend the rest of her year with.

when she was finished getting ready she heard ashlyn's mom call her down for breakfast.

"good morning!" nina exclaimed as she walked into the kitchen to grab some food.

"morning nina!" mrs caswell replied, "ashlyn already left cause she had to hold a meeting for the volunteers who are touring the students around, so you're going to have to take the bus that picks up the new students."

"the bus?" she questioned.

"yep! don't worry the bus comes right at 7:55am and it's right at the end of the street."

"oh okay," nina hesitantly responded. she's never taken a bus before, she would always just drive or carpool. a sense of relief washed over her as she realized this was only going to be a one time thing, but still, she was nervous.

she went on her phone and texted ej their usual good morning texts and conversed a bit before she checked the time and saw that the bus was going to be there in 5 minutes.

she quickly put her plate in the sink and ran up to her room to get her backpack and a jacket.

4 minutes.

she looked in the mirror in her room one last time to check her outfit and ran downstairs to put her shoes on.

3 minutes.

she checked her pocket for her keys but they weren't in there. she forgot to get her keys from ashlyn the day before.

2 minutes.

"nina don't forget your keys! they're on the table in the kitchen," she heard mrs caswell say.

1 minute.

she left the house, locked the door, and ran to the end of the street, seeing kids start to board the bus.

5 seconds.

just as she was approaching the bus, she saw as the last kid went in to board and the doors closed. the bus started to drive away, leaving nina standing there, breathless from running.

"no! stop!" she yelled as it drove further away into the distance. "fuck! what am i going to do now?"

nina stood there for five minutes not knowing what to do. she hoped another bus would come and pick her up, but that wasn't the case.

she didn't know how to get to the school so she slowly walked back to the caswell household.

"nina?" mrs caswell asked as she heard the door creak open, revealing the short brunette. "what happened? why aren't you on the bus?"

"um, i kinda missed it..." the teenager replied.

the woman sighed and went into the kitchen to grab her car keys, "alright, let's go. you might be late but better late than never."

a smile grew on nina's frowning face, "thank you so much, i owe you even more now!"

"don't worry about it honey, you're family!"

+

meanwhile, outside the school, ricky bowen, along with a couple other classmates, were being told what to do once the new students arrive.

"okay, so the students should be here any minute. remember to show them around the whole school and take them to their first class," ashlyn reminded the group of volunteers.