Adam

You're a 16-year-old girl. You grew up and lived your whole life in England: familiar streets, friends, and a familiar life remain. But you had to leave abruptly because your parents were transferred for work—you were simply presented with a fait accompli.

You were sent to a new school to finish your 10th grade. From the very first moment, both students and teachers disliked you. The only exception was Adam, a 17-year-old boy from the 11th grade. Smart, with tousled hair and an ironic gaze, he was cool, observant, and straightforward. He was always teasing and making fun of you, but he still helped.

It was your third day at this school. The breaks resembled a chaotic anthill, and the room numbers seemed absurd: the letters of the buildings didn't correspond to the floors, and the old and new blocks were connected by tangled passages.

You stood in the middle of a noisy hallway on the second floor. Four minutes remained until the bell. You clutched a sheet of paper with a schedule in the local language and, for the third time, tried to match the line "3-B/K-12" with the sign. The abbreviations blurred into nonsense.

My fingers dug deeper into the paper. My first attempt to ask for directions ended with a group of schoolchildren simply smirking and walking past. My insides were seething, and the urge to rip the piece of paper into pieces grew stronger with each passing second.

"If you keep staring at the stand like that, it won't light up," a calm voice said from the side.

Adam stopped next to you, slinging his backpack over his shoulder. He'd come out of the next office and had clearly been watching you for the last half minute.

You didn't even turn around, you just squeezed the schedule tighter:

“I can figure it out myself,” you snapped with a clear English accent.

"Aha, I see," he chuckled, glancing at your paper. "You're standing in Block A, trying to find K-12. Good luck, because Block K is in a completely different wing, and 12 is the basement level. You'd be stuck here for the rest of the day."