Jessa walked out of school with Maggie, whose entire family were waiting outside to take her to The Pizza Shack for a special first-day-of-school dinner. They said their goodbyes and then Jessa, too, headed off toward home.

A wave of tiredness crashed over her, and she suddenly regretted not training herself to wake up earlier each morning in preparation for the new term at school. “I’ll try,” she’d said to her mother. And for the past week, she had tried. Sort of. She had, at least, set her alarm for 6:45. And every day it went off at 6:45. And then again at 6:55, 7:05, and 7:15, at which point Jessa had, every day, given up on the snooze button and slept in until ten.

She trudged out of her daydream about bedtime and noticed up ahead a familiar yellow and blue polo shirt.

“Flynn!” she called out to him, but he couldn’t hear her over the music in his headphones. She jogged to catch up with him and tapped his arm.

“Oh, hi, Jessa.”

“Hi.”

“How’s it going?”

“Fine thanks. Look, I’m sorry if I embarrassed you at lunch.”

“It was nothing,” he shook his head.

“I really didn’t mean to make you feel weird.”

“I know you were just trying to be nice, but honestly? Yeah, it made me feel weird. I just don’t want everyone to think that I’m like a…” he trailed off.

“Like a what?”

“I don’t know. Everyone at Winsbury has loads of money. I don’t want everyone to think I’m poor.”

“Nobody thinks you’re poor.”

“‘course they do. My clothes aren’t new; my mum cuts my hair… I know what I look like. And usually it doesn’t bother me because none of that stuff is important anyway, but sometimes it makes me feel rubbish. I especially don’t want my friends to feel sorry for me.”

“It’s hard not to feel sorry for people, though.”

“I guess,” he shrugged. “But being treated like a charity case makes me feel really pathetic.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think of it that way. I never thought of you as a charity case. I actually think you’re pretty cool. And I like your clothes. And I like your doofy haircut.”

He laughed.

“I’m serious!” she said.

“Okay,” he smiled.

“Friends?”

“Yeah, friends.”

“Oh hey, this is where I turn off. I live down the road here.”

“Cool. I live up that way,” he pointed in the opposite direction.

“See you at school tomorrow, then.”

“Yeah, see you!” he waved.

“Wait, Jessa!”

“Yeah?” she spun around.

“I forgot to say thanks. For the sandwich. I did appreciate it,” he gave her a thumbs up of gratitude.

She smiled and gave him an exaggerated thumbs up in return.