I stood outside the school entrance and took a final deep breath before slowly climbing the steps and walking inside.

It was the end of September so the school year was only a few weeks old. My mom had been offered a once in a lifetime type job opportunity and we'd made a pretty 'live for the moment' type decision to up and leave our home in Massachusetts to start a new life here in a small town near Pittsburgh. When we had started to discuss it just a few weeks ago it had become pretty obvious pretty quickly that this would be the best decision for all of us. It wasn't just for my Mom. It was for all of us. My Dad would be able to change his role in the army in the next few years swapping his current job in active duty to an office job in Pittsburgh and for me it was all about swimming. I love swimming and have ever since my Dad taught me at the age of 4. Here in Rosewood they had a fantastic swim team. Highly competitive, popular and best of all amazing facilities.

We packed up our stuff and moved.

I started the school year at my old school but now here I am ready to start all over again at Rosewood high.

As I enter the school for the first time I quickly scan the hallway looking for the main office. I spot it and make my way to the desk where a youngish woman hands me my schedule and tells me to take a seat.

About 10 minutes later a short, dark haired girl walks up the woman who points to me. The dark haired girl walks over to me and offers her hand for me to shake and says, "Hi. You must be Emily? I'm Aria." She's bubbly and welcoming making me feel immediately relaxed. I stand up and shake her hand and she continues with, "Welcome to Rosewood!"

Aria quickly shows me the main and important areas of the school like the bathrooms and canteen as we chat about little things like where I'm from and family. I find out that she has one brother and that her mom works as an English teacher at the school. When we've finished the mini tour a bell rings and she asks to see my schedule. "Cool" she says. "We have double English together first with Mr.F."

The first few lessons went by pretty quickly with minimum awkwardness. I had my first 2 lessons with Aria and one of her other friends Hanna. Hanna is blond and fun. We immediately hit it off. Mainly because she does most of the talking which means I have little opportunity to say something stupid. I don't usually say stupid things but today I'm feeling a little nervous and overwhelmed. After English Hanna and I have the same class again. We say goodbye to Aria and agree to meet her at lunch.

At lunch Hanna and I make our way over to the table where Aria is sitting with another girl. Aria jumps up to hug Hanna and turns to the other girl at the table and says, "Spencer. This is Emily, the new student I showed around this morning." Spencer stands up to greet me and points to a space so I can sit down. Spencer is different from the other two girls. Less bubbly but I can tell that she has a friendly side, it's just not as obvious of a way as Hanna and Aria. They all sit eating lunch and ask me a few questions about where I used to live and what brought me to Rosewood.

When I tell them about swimming Aria says, "You should meet Paige then. She's the swim team captain and can show you the pool and stuff."

The three girls continue to chat about boyfriends and other stuff when suddenly Aria stands up and shouts, "Paige!"

A tallish brunette girl walks over, who I vaguely recognize from English this morning. I remember she walked in a little later than us and took the only available seat on the other side of the room so we hadn't met yet. I remember her eyes as she walked in the room; they were the most beautiful eyes I had ever seen. But in a flash they were gone and replaced with the back of her head as she took her seat closer to the front than where we were sat.

"Hey, Paige. This is Emily" Aria points to me. "She says she going to be joining the swim team." Paige looks at me and holds out her hand for me to shake and says "That's awesome! We have practice tonight, are you coming?" "I haven't met the coach yet, but I was hoping to start as soon as possible." I reply. Paige smiles and then offers to meet me after the last lesson to introduce me to the coach and show me around the pool. I gratefully accept and she sits down across from Spencer and joins in with their conversation.

I'm not paying full attention to everything that they are saying because I don't know any of the people they are talking about, but something Aria say's gets my attention. "Paige, how's Jamie?" "Fine, I think." she replies. Paige has a boyfriend. "She's been real busy lately applying to college and stuff so I've barely seen her." Paige has a girlfriend? And she's older than we are? Right after she's said this I see her looking at me with those beautiful eyes. It's like she knows what I'm thinking. I hold her gaze for a few moments until she smiles and looks away.

I hope that I didn't look too shocked. I didn't want anyone to think badly of me. I just wasn't expecting it. After a few more minutes of chatting it's time for afternoon lessons.

The afternoon goes by without any problems and I sense myself staring to feel anxious as the end of the school day looms. I haven't swum in over a week because of the move, but I'm nervous and excited to swim for the first time with the team that will hopefully get me recognized by some big colleges.

I meet Paige at the end of the school day and she takes me to see the swim coach. The coach is the right amount of friendly and authoritative with all the swimmers. I already feel motivated by her to do my best. She explains the practice schedule and other important things before we start practice.

At the end of swim practice the coach blows her whistle to let everyone know they can stop. I decide to continue on for a little longer to warm down and as I look to the left I notice Paige has decided to do the same.

Twenty minutes later I get out of the pool and head for the showers. When I get out with just my towel wrapped around me I notice Paige stood near to the locker I was given. She must have just finished showering too and we are the only ones left. She smiles at me and nods, "Hey". I say hey back and she begins to fumble around in her locker for her clothes.

"Does it bother you?" She say's looking directly at me. "Having to change in front of me knowing I'm gay, because you don't have to. I can leave or close my eyes?" Paige say's quietly but with a hint of light heartedness.

"No, it doesn't bother me at all." I say smiling. A few seconds later I start, "It's just…" I stop to try and think how to word the rest of that sentence. I know what I want to say but I don't want to say too much.

Paige just stands there giving me a look that says 'oh, I get it. You're just saying it doesn't bother you but in reality it does'.

I quickly shout, almost a little too loudly, '"No. Agr." I lower my voice and I try and find the words that I want to say. "It truly doesn't bother me at all. I promise. I was just wondering…does it bother you? Having to ask that? Having to wonder if every girl in here is thinking you're checking them out when you're probably not. I mean, just because you're into girls it doesn't mean you are gonna stare and each and every one of them while there just getting changed." I quickly look away to avoid eye contact just in case she can look into my soul or read my mind.

I feel here eye's staring at me and she simply say's "Yeah, it bothers me. A little less now that it did at first. But there's nothing I can do about it so I just try and avoid any awkwardness. I'm here to swim, I love to swim. I'm not here to pick up 'chicks'." She smiles as she says the last sentence and I find myself smiling right back at her. I don't know how she manages it but she's just the right amount of confident and nervous about her sexuality. She's not shoving it in your face but she's not hiding it either.

If she's figured me out she doesn't try and push the issue. This is another thing I find myself liking about Paige.

"That was very insightful you know. I think you and I could be good friends."

The next few minutes are silent. We both put our clothes on and pack our stuff into our bags. "Well" Says Paige. "I gotta go and pick up some homework I forgot about. Are you okay getting home?" I nod quietly and then after waving goodbye and shouting, "see to tomorrow" over her shoulder she's gone.

At that moment I'm glad that there is no one else in the changing room to see me sit on the bench and over analyse everything I have just said. Did I say too much? Maybe when she called me insightful she didn't actually realize why. Maybe she didn't realize that I'm so 'insightful' because that's exactly how I feel. If people knew I was gay would they think I was looking at them in the changing room? I'm okay with being gay. Ever since I admitted it to myself I've felt…free. Like everything suddenly made sense. I found feelings I'd never had before. I'd never looked at someone before and felt attraction. Yeah, I'm fine with being gay but I'm not ready for other people to find out. I've never kissed a girl. I want to experience some kind of connection with a girl before I shout it from the rooftops.

Eventually I pick myself up off the bench and tell myself to stop worrying and concentrate on not getting lost on my way home. All things considered, today wasn't a bad first day at school.