Henry and I walked the length of the road together. At the end, where it joined up with the larger road, was our bus stop. He was quiet on the way down, and gave me walking space. We hadn't really talked that much since I'd been living here. But he had told me he would walk with me to the bus stop since I didn't know where it was and it could be easy to miss.

It was humid and warm already, promising to be one of those unpleasant late summer days. Henry stopped at the intersection. There were a couple other kids here. They lit up when they saw Henry, then warily eyed me as an imposter.

Henry didn't acknowledge them, and instead stared at his phone until the bus came. It was a yellow boxy thing just like what I'd seen on TV and in pictures. Inside though, only two seats were taken so I had a chance to sit as far from everybody as I could.

Henry chose the seat directly across the aisle and took out a book to page through while the bus bumbled along.

I watched the familiar surroundings leave. The bus joined the main road and stopped shortly after to pick up a few more kids.

This cycle repeated several times. My nerves grew as I got more lost in relation to the house and the number of seats between me and the next stranger shrank.

The bus finally came to a stop in front of a brick building. It was a single story and rather ugly, with once brightly colored panels beneath every window which were now dirty and faded pastels.

The kids all stood up, almost in unison. I slowly joined them, pulling my backpack onto my shoulders.

Henry walked off the bus behind me and pointed to the entrance. “Just inside and to the right is the main office. That’s where you go if you ever need anything paperwork-wise.”

I nodded. There were so many people here. Most of them were children. I was boxed in on all sides and it made my skin crawl. Where could I go to get away from everyone? There wasn’t anywhere to hide, and not really anywhere to run to either. We were far enough away, I wasn't confident I could get back to the house.

“Your first class is with Mrs Fitch. She's super nice.”

I nodded again.

Eventually Henry split ways from me and I was left to stare at my designated locker. It took a few tries to open it, being old and creaky. Once I did, I squeezed my backpack in there and pulled free a couple blank notebooks and folders.

With that done, I found the classroom. It was a relief to step inside and find it mostly empty. I could then slide into a far away seat and breathe for a bit. Before long a bell rang and the seats filled. Mrs Fitch called attendance, then passed out some papers and I sat there silently, listening, trying to follow each word carefully. She was going over a syllabus, I gathered it was an outline for the entire year's class. 

She finished shortly before the bell rang again and there was a disorganized shuffling of kids from one room to another. 

I joined the crowds and felt my heart rate quicken. The stress was bad enough my hands shook so I balled one into a fist and gripped my notebooks with the other. In the next classroom, I sat in the back row of seats and tried not to glare at everybody. There were so many of them, and many only gave me a passing glance before they sat down. Still it took many breaths to steady my racing thoughts and remind myself, these were only children. Children who hadn’t been trained to fulfill contracts since a young age. They didn’t have any interest in that side of the world. 

I relaxed and managed to pay attention to the second syllabus of the day.

Before I knew it, I was back in the throngs of teenagers and felt the panic come back again..This many people felt claustrophobic and overstimulating. There were so many different individuals with their own objectives I couldn’t check each person for signs of hostility but my instinct was to try anyway. With so many people, my brain was beginning to melt. At least my next two classes were in the same room… but once I found it, I hesitated. It was labeled as the Reading Room with colorful bubble letters. It felt a little… immature for teenagers, but the number on the door matched.

I pushed the door open, quietly and stepped inside. The air conditioning was nice there. The paint was still out of date and the floors scuffed and polished at the same time, but the air was clean and comfortable.

“Oh, are you Taylor?” an older woman asked me. She got up from a desk in the back corner and approached me.

“Yes,” I told her.

“Okay, good. I'm Ms. Rico. I'm here to help you get through all of your class work and fill in any gaps in your knowledge to help you succeed.”

“Oh, okay.” I understood. This was because I hadn't been in school for the past twelve years. I hadn’t expected to understand most of anything, but it was nice knowing someone would help me with any difficult things.

“Have a seat, Taylor and I'm gonna get you a few tests to see where your knowledge level is.”

I tentatively put my things down at one of the small round tables and sat on the chair. She returned just a few moments later and set some papers in front of me.

“So just do your best to fill these out, take your time and don't worry if you don't understand something, okay? I'm here if you need any help.”

I nodded. She went back to her back desk and just a few moments later another student came in. Ms. Rico sat him down and started discussing study plans with him. I turned my attention back to my papers. They were filled with questions and problems. I did my best to fill them out but I knew so little. Basic addition and subtraction wasn't hard. Multiplication and division was more difficult. Reading was easy but defining words, even if I understood them in a sentence, was near impossible.

The bell rang but I kept going. I was supposed to be in this room for the next period anyway. 

Ms. Rico came around again and sat with me for a little bit, looking over papers I'd already completed. She was frowning, which probably wasn’t a good sign. Still, once I finally finished my last set of problems she smiled at me. “It looks like we're gonna have a lot of work to do this year.”

I nodded. The bell rang soon after and Ms Rico saw me off at the door.

The school day finished after attending two more classes and then returning to the resource room to do simple math problems for the last two periods of the day.

My anxiety was teeming by the time I got back on the bus to go home. Henry got on after me, looking relieved as he dropped a backpack onto a seat and slouched down.

Then the bus set off.