Slowly learning that life is okay (GirlxGirl) [COMPLETE]

Ellie - Should I stay or should I go?

She fucking hated first days. She hated not knowing where to go, if the teachers were rude or if her classmates were arrogant. And this school was just so big, she wasn't surprised they gave her a map.

And then she lost it.

She sighed at herself, tying her shoes and leaving the gym. It was nice that they now lived close enough to the school she could walk to it and that she had found a gym not so far away either.

It hadn't been as bad as Ellie had expected, though. There was that obviously popular girl, Dina, that helped her. She'd pointed her to the right buildings, gave her the best routes and tips to avoid being spat on. That Dina girl was nice.

And she was beautiful. Dark hair pulled up in a ponytail, her thick eyebrows and her kind brown eyes. Tanned skin, strong nose and a nice smile.

Which made sense since she seemed to smile all the time.

Ellie caught herself smiling too, in the middle of the street, and quickly frowned. What the fuck?

With her earbuds on, she went home.

Was she making a friend? No, it was too early for that. But Dina seemed nice enough... Would she want to befriend Ellie, though? The whispers travelled fast, and she saw a bunch of students already looking at her with suspicion. Was it over before it even started?

She straightened her back, tugging at the straps of her backpack. She had survived alone before, it wouldn't be hard to live another two years like that before heading to university.

And she wasn't alone, she had Joel.

Ellie checked her phone, wondering if he would be home already. Should she try and do something nice for him? Maybe not, the old man could have a heart attack from the surprise.

He would probably ask her about school, though.

"Oh yeah, Joel, some pretty nice girl showed me the school, can you believe that? But that was before the gossip, so I don't really know."

Yeah, maybe she should just say it went fine.

"Ellie?" she spun so fast on her heels one of the buds slipped off her ear.

The pretty girl from school, Dina, was sitting on a table outside a café, sipping on a coffee and with a smile on her face. She had Jesse and a ginger girl beside her too, their notebooks open. She waved Ellie over, and for some reason, she saw herself walking to their table.

"Hey," she said, hearing how awkward she sounded. Jesse nodded friendly at her and the redhead just stared.

"Would you like to sit with us? I could really use some help here," Dina pointed at the open notebooks in front of her, "it's kinda hard to split my attention."

Did Ellie have things to do at home? She knew she only had some Math homework, but that was easy enough that she wouldn't need to go home just yet. She could lie, say she had stuff to do. Should she lie? She didn't know these people, but how would she without trying to spend some time with them? And Dina just looked at her with those big brown, half invitation and half pleading puppy eyes.

She sighed to herself, not believing her actions when she pulled the chair and sat on it, in front of Dina, who just beamed, perfect picture of happiness and relief. It wouldn't hurt to help them.

"I don't know if I can help," she said quietly, but with a quick glance to Jesse's notebook she knew she could, "oh, you gotta divide the exponents here first, you'll get to the answer faster," she pointed at the equation on the paper.

"Oh. Thanks, man," he erased and corrected it, brow furrowed in concentration. Ellie could feel eyes on her, but she decided to ignore them, instead helping Jesse with his work.

It's not that Jesse was dumb, she noticed, he just seemed like he couldn't focus, often overlooking important details on the problem or missing a part of the expression he had to solve. Once he actually got to the point where he could just "do the math", he solved it quite smoothly.

Dina worked well with the redhead, though she seemed a lot more frustrated than Jesse. She seemed calm, through it all, patiently explaining how to solve the problems.

She was glad she was with Jesse then, she probably wouldn't have that much patience.

Ellie checked the time on her phone.

"Uh... I gotta go," she said, nodding at the three and standing up. Her backpack suddenly felt heavy.

"Oh shit, I'm going to be late for dinner," the redhead said, closing her notebook and tossing everything inside her backpack with extreme speed and without any care.

And just like that, the four of them were walking in the same direction.

Why did she feel so weird?

"I can give you a ride too," Dina said when they reached the end of the block, but Ellie just shook her head.

"Nah. I live close by."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. Thank you, though."

She nodded, turning towards her car, and Ellie waited for the light to turn red so she could cross.

"Hey, Ellie," Dina called again, half-yelling, one hand on the door, "I'll see you tomorrow! In the cafeteria!"

Ellie felt a smile tug at her lips, and she raised a hand to wave them off.

'I'll be a few minutes late for dinner', she typed and turned her music on.