-Just a disclaimer that I couldn't include in my summary-

Hi, my name is Chiara, this is my real name and you're going to read my real story.

I'm about to tell the events that deeply affected me in the last year or so of my life.

I've started writing this online diary on August second, 2016, because I can't keep this to myself only anymore.

I live in Italy and I am now 19 years old.

Please note that the only real first names I use in the narration are two, mine and another one that I'm going to introduce in its own chapter, so for privacy purposes every surname and name other than these two is going to be fictional.

Hope you guys enjoy, hopefully there's something I lived that might help you in your lives as well.

The story begins on September fourth, 2015.

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This year the first day of school was going to be on September fourth and it was unusually soon compared to the other years. Moreover, it was two days before my eighteenth birthday, the day in which I would have finally been able to drive a car, legally buy cigarettes and be responsible for whatever damage I could cause to me or others, but most of all, the day in which I would have finally achieved my freedom.

I woke up feeling less tired than usual and I quickly went towards the window in my room to open it.

An incredibly warm gust of wind hit my face from outside and I couldn't seem to accept that condition for the first day of school that I always keep in my imaginary as rainy, cloudy and grey. Instead, I found myself facing a shiny sun, the bluest sky and, basically, the classic Italian summer temperature, so I sat on my window sill, with my legs waving in the air and I stayed there watching the sunrise for a minute, then, the sudden realization of being late hit me like a stone and I sunk back into reality.

I headed to the bathroom and had a nice, cold shower; when I came out I was finally fully awake and ready to have breakfast. My parents were already sitting around the table, as usual, and so I took my mug, filled it with milk and coffee and grabbed some dried oats to eat. While I was happily feasting, my mom started talking:

"You look like you… are… a natural disaster. What are you gonna wear today?"

"Oh god, I'm gonna figure it out hopefully! By the way thanks…" I said to her.

"You're welcome!" She added cheerfully.

My mom had never been the encouraging, protective kind of mom, she was more concerned with other things in life than obsessing over my behavior, we used to fight a lot with each other, even if always for the good. My dad, on the other hand, was much more attached to me, even though never as much as a stereotypical protective parent.

As soon as I had finished my breakfast I went back to my room to sort out some cute clothes to wear and although I tried assembling something the day before I ended up with a pile of clothes arranged over my already messy bed. Eventually, I sorted out a pair of dark green skinny jeans and a floral print crop top and decided it was gonna be good enough, so I quickly put them on, added a choker along with my favorite pair of creepers and considered putting makeup on, to conceal my dark circles.

As I was trying to somehow style my hair, I started thinking about how this would have been my last year in high school, but these thoughts didn't seem to affect my mood that much and I ended up with a big lump of messy hair feeling worried about seeing again all my classmates.

As you can imagine, I wasn't really happy about going back to school, but at the same time its familiar background gave me some sort of security and "there will be Rudy" I said to myself, trying to boost my confidence.

Rudy was probably my best friend in school, a total -libra- social butterfly that would be able to make friends in the middle of the amazonian rainforest, an amazingly caring and loving guy that would treat me like a daughter, literally.

In the mean time I was making my way to school in a hurry, trying to avoid being late for once.

When I finally arrived in front of the school's door I saw two of my classmates outside, Veronica and Alice. I've never really been that much of a friend to them I guess, but we never openly despised one another, either, so I greeted them with a kiss and they started complimenting my appearance:

"Oh my god, you look so skinny!" said Veronica in an overly excited tone.

"That's so true! How'd you lose so much weight?" echoed Alice.

"Sheer luck." I replied and we had a laugh together, then I decided to enter so that I could take place next to a window, my favorite spot in the classroom.

As I went into the structure, four years of my past high school life came back to memory: the same smell of dry and dusty paper, the same green walls scratched all over, the sound of people chatting in the hall, laughs, hugs and confusion, some familiar faces and some unknown ones and then, the stairs.

The stairs were crowded by new students confused about the location of their classroom, they would go up and down in groups and search for the door with the fatal letters attached on.

I, on the other hand, already knew where I was going so I approached the stairs and went on the upper side, turned to the right and immediately found the classroom. On the door was written "5BC", indicating the year, the section and the specialization of the studying address, which was classical studies. I thought "this is it" and, taking a big breath, I stepped into the room, filled with people I knew and three new girls.

I greeted those who were already there and approached one of my best friends, Donatella, to hug her after three months we didn't see each other. After a quick chat, I went back to the centre of the room where the three new girls were standing and so I introduced myself to them:

"Hi, I'm Chiara, nice to meet you."

"Anna Maria, nice to meet you too" said a dark-skinned girl with beautiful teal eyes and blonde hair.

"I'm Sara!" said another girl with black hair, feline eyes and a little mole over her lip.

"And I'm Giada, enchantée !" added the last girl, shaking my hand. She was plumper than the other two, she was wearing glasses and an ugly striped cardigan which she didn't really need in the warmth of that day.

While I was talking to them, asking them about their old school and their friends here, a screaming Rudy appeared on the door and he basically started hugging everybody until he noticed me and then he hugged and kissed me, taking me up in his arms and detaching me from the ground, so I started laughing and he put me back down.

"How are you Cihara?" he said excitedly, stressing my nickname.

"I'm good Ruds, how about you?" I responded swiftly.

He was about to answer my question when a flood of other classmates invested us and we kept on greeting each of them patiently.

Finally everyone had taken a seat and I found myself in the back of the classroom sitting between Rudy and Donatella and, to my pleasure, just beside the window.

A warm breeze was making the dirty curtain fluctuate and stroke against my naked shoulder, while I was still intactly absorbed in my thoughts, when, suddenly, the maths' teacher came in and said:

"Good morning and welcome back everyone."

The whole class replied:

"Good morning."

And so the first lesson of the year started.

An hour later the maths' teacher was gone and we were waiting for the second lesson of the day, so, in the mean time, we were chatting in groups talking about summer, changes and exams that would have been the main concern of our scholastic journey during the year.

I was sitting on my chair talking to Rudy and Donatella, giving my back to the teacher's desk and we couldn't stop talking about our summer days:

"You guys can't even imagine how beautiful Sweden is, I'm so happy I finally had the chance to visit, and it helped a lot with learning Swedish, I feel like I improved so much!" I said.

"You're so lucky! My parents would take my brother on vacation and leave me home by myself! I didn't spend ONE DAY at the sea!" added Donatella.

"Wow, your parents are cold-hearted, I'm sorry for you… I've actually gone back to Poland with my family for a week or two, it was fun, but we had to clean the house and-" Rudy interrupted himself and started heading back to his seat quickly, at the same time, all the other people in the classroom became quiet and I realized someone was entering the room, so I turned myself into my seat and saw.

The philosophy and history teacher had entered the room:

"Good morning" he said quietly in his usual low pitched voice.

A choir of voices responded.