Fortunately enough, the bird had defecated onto it and not into it but I still felt a little reluctant to pass out brownies, now.

Once I got to Emmy's car, she was chuckling so hard that tears came out of her eyes and rolled down her face.

"You're kidding me, right? You... you literally just left your house and then a bird just crapped all over your bag?" she asked through her bursts of laughter.

I continued to wipe off my bag with one of the wet wipes that I had brought, as I sat down next to her.

"Oh no, honey. You need to get out of this car now and burn that bag before you get that bird crap up in here! What are you doing?" she asked me.

I felt my eyebrows crease together slightly at her question, which just caused Emmy to laugh once again.

"I'm only teasing. Starbucks time?" she asked me.

"You know it," I replied.

Emmy managed to start up the car, through her bursts of laughter, and soon drove off to Starbucks. We arrived there minutes later.

Emmy had always been far more practical than me. She had passed her driving test almost as soon as she was able to.

In the meantime, I still relied on lifts from other people, but it was okay. I didn't think they minded all that much. My presence was appreciated, or so I believed.

Almost as soon as Emmy had cut off the engine, she removed her seat-belt and practically sped towards Starbucks. Nothing could get in between that girl and coffee. It was her one addiction. I was half-convinced that she would sell part of her soul for a cookie and a cappuccino.

Once we had bought our cookies and cappuccinos because of course they were necessities, Emmy and I walked over to the nearby table and sat down there. Moments later, we were joined by Emmy's twin brother, Elijah, who was doing his shift before work.

"How are you doing, little brother?" she asked him.

Elijah raised an eyebrow at her.

"I was born a minute after you, what thinks you have the right to refer to me as little?" he asked.

Well, he did present a good question in all honesty. After all, he was about 6'5 tall now, a giant compared to my tiny 5'2 frame.

"You're right. Anyway, when does your shift end? You don't want to make Miss Mack annoyed," she said.

Miss Mack was our art teacher.

Emmy and I did the same classes together, fortunately. The three A Levels that we had picked included art, French and mathematics. I would never, never, forgive myself for picking mathematics. Unfortunately, being gay was not a good enough excuse for being bad at it.

"My shift actually just finished," Elijah said, with a grin.

"Oh no...I suppose you'll want a lift?" Emmy asked him.

"Please," he replied.

"Okay, little bro," Emmy teased, as she smiled back at him.

Elijah just rolled his eyes, as he broke off a part of Emmy's M&M cookie and placed it into his mouth. It warranted a look of disapproval from the manager, but she quickly realised who he was talking to and relaxed a little.

"That's better than mother's Afang soup," he said, as his eyes closed with contentedness.

Emmy and Elijah's mother had moved from Africa to England to be with their father, who lived in London. The two of them had been born two years later, after their parents had got married.

"Should we go?" I chimed in.

"Good plan! Let's go," Emmy said with a grin.

Soon after that, our trio wandered back out into the sun of the day so that we could get back into Emmy's car and she proceeded to drive us the way to school. We arrived relatively quickly, thankful that there hadn't been much traffic on the way in.

Emmy was a calm soul, she didn't experience road rage. Her brother, on the other hand, did. Even as a passenger!

It was slightly funny, though, but if you laughed at him you would face his wrath in the form of his dark brown eyes staring almost directly into your soul.

After I had arrived at the school with my two close friends, Emmy and Elijah Rose, we walked up to the front door and made our way to reception so that we could collect our lanyards.

Once we were done, it was time to head to the library to get a head start on collecting textbooks for the year ahead.

At least, Elijah had wanted to.

While we were there, Ryder clapped his hands together, as he grinned towards our group.

"Hey, you guys!" he said, as he made his way over in his red t-shirt and jeans.

"Hey Ry," I greeted him with a warm expression, "Brownie?" I asked him, as I took the box out of my backpack.

He raised a hand up to signal that he didn't, in fact, want any of my mother's delicious brownies. I would probably still eat them. The bird had only pooped on the outside of the bag! Call me disgusting all you wanted. It would be fine...probably. Maybe I could just go and get some brownies from the canteen and use those as a bribery tactic instead...

"I'm good. You know, I have to try to get these muscles back this year," he said, as he flexed his arm. He quickly moved his arm away, as he caught sight of Emmy's disappointed expression. "You see! This is exactly my point!" he said, "I still look good, though," he said with some confidence, as he motioned a hand through his light brown hair, that had grown considerably longer over the summer.

I could only smirk in my amusement at that statement.

"Ah, there's the good old Smith arrogance," Emmy commented.

"It's called self-love, darling," Ryder said, "It looks good on everyone."

Soon after that, he walked away.

"That boy always gets on my nerves. Let's go to class," Emmy said.

So, we did. We walked to our first class of the day, art, and sat down at our table.