"You look nice, dear," Mother signed to her daughter, smoothing out the small creases in the black skirt that Zelda wore.

Zelda stared down at her outfit, an outfit consisting of blacks and whites, designed nicely with expensive materials. After all, the Harkinian's were a wealthy family. Zelda saw no point in spending money on expensive clothes, but her parents liked doing just that.

This outfit made her look proper and fancy—something that could go a good way or a bad way.

Others would think she was stuck up or snobby, while the other half of those people would admire her clothes and worship the ground she walked once they discovered she was rich.

Zelda bit her lip when her father walked in, wearing a grin on his face when he laid eyes on his happy daughter.

Father began to talk to Mother, then smiled at Zelda and signed the words, "Breakfast is ready."

Zelda nodded and signed for them to leave her room, which they obediently obliged to, talking happily as they closed the door to her large room.

Happy daughter. That's what he thought, that's what Mother also thought, but they didn't know.

The brunette was dreading her first day of high school. Who wouldn't in her situation? She had only had one friend throughout the fifteen years she had lived, and in the eyes of society, that proved you had no life.

Why do people care so much about the quantity of your friends? Quality over quantity, Zelda always told herself.

She didn't want the bullying, but she knew that it would happen again this year. It always had since the day Link Forrester began to tease her in kindergarten.

Then Zelda wondered, where is Link now? She hadn't seen him since fifth grade. He just disappeared all of a sudden. But Midna told her tales of what Link had been doing at school. So, she assumed he had been avoiding her. Since the fifth grade. What if she saw him again this year? What would he do now? What if—

Zelda closed her eyes and silenced her thoughts. She didn't want to think too much before the busy and stressful day ahead of her.

Looking in the mirror, she groaned at her appearance. She hated it, even though Midna and the rest of her family members always said otherwise.

Nevertheless, Zelda thought it was suitable enough for today. After all, it was just school. Many things could go wrong today, but they couldn't be that catastrophic.

She exited her room while blankly staring at her feet, watching them lazily carry her over to the kitchen where a breakfast of french toast awaited her.

Zelda quickly signed a thank you to her father, but he didn't see because he was speaking to Mother about something.

The brunette wondered what they were talking about. It could be anything. They could be talking about her, even. But she would never know unless they began to use sign language. That wouldn't happen, though. They only use that around her and her only.

Quickly, Zelda finished her breakfast and grabbed her backpack, stuffing her sketchbook in there and zipping it up. To save herself from embarrassment, Zelda bid goodbyes to her parents as she walked outside. She didn't want them to follow her out there as she boarded the bus.

Luckily, the bus was already out there and she entered it. She had to sit in the front, because that's where the freshmen had to sit. As you got older, your seating placement moved further back into the yellow bus.

Zelda stared down at her hands, noticing that her knuckles were slightly red due to the cold weather. It wasn't extremely cold, but frankly, Zelda wasn't expecting it to be this chilly in August. It was currently 47 degrees Fahrenheit (about 8.3 degrees Celsius), which wasn't that bad compared to the winter weather that was approaching, it was just surprising for August.

The bus parked at the new high school, opening the doors and allowing the students to exit the vehicle. Thankfully, Zelda was in the front and reacted hastily, so she made it off the bus first.

Pacing towards the entrance of the school, she entered the warmer building and let out a sigh of relief when the warm encased her freezing hands and body.

Zelda pulled her schedule out of her pocket, unfolding it and examining the blue paper. She noticed how the paper shook in her hands and cursed her own anxiety. When the bell rang, Zelda made sure to rush to her first period class as quick as possible, in fear of being late. Walking into a class late was always terrible. When she entered, she was the third person to sit down.

Immediately, she pulled out her pencil and math book, since this was a math class. This was a classroom for students like her, with disabilities and other "not normal" things. A teacher who could speak sign language would teach her math and all her other subjects.

Class went by smoothly for Zelda and the others, and not much happened on her first day of school. Lunch had arrived and that was the only thing Zelda was excited for, because she would finally be able to see Midna.

Midna had immediately found her once the bell rang for the first lunch (thank goodness they got the same lunch). They hugged and smiled so broadly, as they hadn't seen each other since last year in middle school.

They had found a nice table to sit at, in the left corner of the large cafeteria, where others barely acknowledged or approached. Some students sat in other tables around them, but it wasn't as crowded as it was in the middle of the lunchroom. That's where cool people sat, but obviously, Zelda and Midna weren't apart of that group.

"It's so loud in here—it hurts my ears," Midna signed to Zelda, chuckling a bit when she did so.

Zelda grinned slightly and just nodded, not really knowing how to respond properly. She couldn't agree with Midna because she couldn't hear a thing.

Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a boy with blue eyes and chestnut hair sitting down at the table across from Midna and Zelda.

Zelda watched in awe. She had seen this guy before, but from where? He bore a striking resemblance to somebody she knew once, but no matter how hard she searched for his name, she couldn't find it. Who was he again?

Midna tapped Zelda's shoulder, breaking the girl from her gaze. An embarrassed blush crept its way into Zelda's cheeks, a nervous and innocent smile spreading across her lips.

"You shouldn't stare at people like that," Midna signed, but was still smiling at her. "They'll think it's weird."

"I know," Zelda signed back. "I just thought I recognized that person, that's all."

Midna looked over at the familiar boy and her eyes widened. Her head turned back to face Zelda with the surprised expression still on her face, and Zelda wondered if her friend could recognize the familiar guy.

"You don't remember?" Midna asked, then shook her head. "I can understand why you don't, though. You haven't seen him since fifth grade. And you probably chose to repress those memories, I mean, I would—"

"Fifth grade? So I knew this dude once?" Zelda signed back with a questioning look on her face, glancing back and forth at the boy and then at Midna.

"That's Link," Midna said finally, not wanting to keep Zelda in confusion and suspense for too long. Midna knew how much it aggravated herself, so she didn't want to do that to her friend.

"Link?" Zelda repeated. "As in—as in Link Forrester? I remember hating him..."

"Yeah, you did, because he was an asshole," Midna said. "Don't try to talk to him. He'll just do the same things he did to you in elementary. Assholes never change!"

Zelda stared blankly at Midna for a few seconds, before deliberately nodding as some sort of reply to her friend's statement.

Then she remembered a few moments that she had with Link, none of them being positive or making her smile. She remembered all the times he teased her and made their whole class laugh at her, and even the time in third grade when he purposely threw a cup of strawberry yogurt at her and caused the entire cafeteria to laugh at the mess all over her.

She cried a lot because of him. He was the reason she was so...sad and lonely now.

She furrowed her eyebrows and nodded more confidently, even though Midna wasn't paying any attention to her at the moment.

Never again would she let Link ruin her life like that.

But, doesn't everyone deserve a second chance?

Zelda screamed no at the back of her mind. She wouldn't let Link approach her or try to make her life more miserable.

Never again.

••

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