"It's going to be fine," Dad said and gave Sky an encouraging smile.

Sky glanced at the school and hugged her backpack tighter against her chest. West Valley High, said the letters on the wall, and Sky's stomach knitted on a tight knot that climbed up her throat and threatened to choke her.

"That's what you said the last time, and look what happened." She muttered, turning her eyes back at Dad, who sat in the driver's seat, his long fingers resting calmly on the steering wheel.

He let out a sigh, his smile faltered. "You could always stay home for another week?"

Sky replied with a shrug. There was nothing new in that proposition - it was what the doctors had suggested too because Sky still wasn't fully healed. But the truth was that no one knew when - if ever - she would be fully healed, and she was sick and tired of staying home, sick and tired of staring at the boring walls of her room all day long while all her friends, and her boyfriend, were at school. It was now a full month since the accident, and Sky's patience had worn paper thin.

But now, looking at the school building through the window of the car, her determination faltered. There was an appeal to the idea that she could ask Dad to just drive her back home. She knew she couldn't do that, though - no matter how scared and nervous she was. She had promised to live, and staying home forever because you were afraid, was not living. Kat would tell her to get her shit together already.

"No, I'm gonna have to do this sooner or later," Sky said and gathered enough strength and courage to give Dad a smile, no matter how fake. "You're right. I'm sure it's gonna be fine."

"That's my girl," Dad flashed her a warm smile. "But just in case something happens—"

"I know. I'll give you a call."

"And I'll pick you up."

Dad's encouraging words lingered with Sky when she stepped out of the car, and they made her feel stronger than she was, more ready than she was. But as Dad steered away and Sky was left standing alone on the sidewalk, the undesired thoughts and fears began to creep back on her like vines, trapping her feet to the ground so that she couldn't move.

Entering the school after everything that had happened... She had too much experience of that for one lifetime. The memories swarmed her mind in one, anxious heartbeat.

The worst of them hit her the hardest, taking her breath away as if a wrecking ball had smashed her lungs in - the day when she had tried to go back to school after Kat had died. She would never forget how it had felt - to be the one everyone was staring at, to hear the hushed whispers behind her back. No one had dared to say it to her face, but Sky had known it nevertheless, from the anonymous messages she had gotten - that they all thought it was her fault. That if she hadn't been such a slut, Matt never would have done what he did, and it was her fault that the captain of the football team was in prison, the golden boy who could do no wrong, the homecoming King, the most popular guy in the whole fucking school. So of course it was all Sky's fault, she had been a slut who had broken his heart and he had just been desperate, the gunshot probably just an accident, Sky had ruined everything for him, and that's why they all hated her. If only Kat had been there by her side, she could have taken all that, all the whispering and snickering and the mean messages she had gotten because it didn't matter that they had all hated her - no one could have hated her more than she already hated herself, after all. But Kat's absence had been like an open wound in her heart, bleeding out her soul, and that first day back at school when walking to the cafeteria - see you at lunch, bitch - lol, I hope they have pizza - seeing the spot where Kat had bled to death, where she could still smell the disinfectant they had used to scrub Kat's blood off the floor tiles, Sky had fallen into a pit of dark despair and suffered her first PTSD episode - and so it had become her last day at that school too.

They had moved here soon after.

But that hadn't been the end of horrible beginnings.

There had been the first day of school in this place, less than a year ago, walking in through the doors as the new kid, mid-semester, traumatized and scared and in desperate need of friends.

And then the time after she had first kissed Eli - the photos of the kiss had been turned into a joke, she had walked into the school with cold stones in her stomach, tasting the steel of fear on her lips - and she had gotten into a fight with Yasmine and Kyler, gotten suspended for a week.

But the worst beginning was the most recent one. The day exactly one month ago. Sky remembered the clear, beautiful early autumn morning, the blue sky, the scent of ocean in the air, her black converse sneakers, the feeling of Kat's old T-shirt that was worn paper thin, the softness of the fabric against her skin. And she remembered her trail of thoughts that day - her mind that had been a black, hopeless pit of despair, so ugly and twisted that now she wanted to shun away from even the memory. The boys in the hallways had called her a 'crazy slut', her phone had been full of messages telling the same and everyone had looked at her like she had some kind of a contagious disease. Suicide girl, they had whispered as she walked past. A stupid slut.

She had thought that day couldn't get any worse - but life had always had a wicked way of proving her wrong. Suddenly she was back in the moment when she had rushed up the stairs to help Sam, she felt Tory's kick meeting her face, tasted blood on her lips.

Sky sucked in a trembling breath and grabbed the strap of her backpack harder, her grip enough to turn her knuckles white. The school bell was already ringing, and kids were rushing inside, some lingering behind as always, but soon Sky would be standing here alone with her fears and her shame, and she would have to call Dad to pick her up before he had even gotten back home.

"Hey, hey, hey—" said a familiar voice behind her shoulder. "What is a lovely lady like you doing alone in a place like this? If you are looking for someone to escort you in, I am just the hero for the job."

"Demetri," Sky replied, the relief of his presence making her knees wobble. She had never been happier to hear his voice in her life. "Please, please do. Be my knight in shiny armor."

"With pleasure, milady," Demetri provided a mock of a bow and offered an arm for her to lean on. "As it happens, I was just about to fight off the hordes of ogres to enter that castle of ancient wisdom. You might as well cling to my side and you'll get in there safely."

Sky couldn't help a smile. Suddenly the air was easier to breathe, the taste of blood and fear disappeared and the ground was one more solid under her feet.

She wasn't alone. She didn't have to do this by herself.

"You're seriously calling our peers a horde of ogres?"

"A fitting comparison, in my opinion." Demetri shrugged.

"Maybe. But thanks... for saving me," she said as she started walking towards the entrance, taking the arm Demetri offered and leaning on it to keep her balance. "I own you one."

"Oh, you owe me more than one," Demetri replied. "Luckily you'll have a chance to pay me back tomorrow. I have asked Yasmine to my place after school, to work on the science project, but she keeps declining. You must help me, and persuade her to come."

"You sure you want Yas anywhere near your Legos?" Sky asked with a laugh.

"I don't care if she just sits on a chair, glares daggers at me, and calls me rude names all day long. It would still be the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me. Please, just talk to her, will you?"

"Fine, I will. No promises it will work, though. I'm pretty sure she said her contribution to this project was just to pay for the materials."

But Demetri wasn't discouraged - his constant prattle never stopped as they walked in through the doors and all the way to homeroom, and Sky was grateful for every word that fell off his lips. They grounded her and pushed away the past that had threatened to drown her. This was the way he kept saving her life again and again and again, and Sky knew she could never do enough to pay that debt, no matter if she had a hundred lifetimes to do so. But it didn't feel like a debt. It felt like love, like family, like happiness, like she had a future filled with good things, instead of new tragedies just waiting to engulf her.

This was a new beginning. And this time nothing would go wrong.

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