This is essentially an intro, just setting up the background before the story kicks in. Sorry for it's length, but I think it's worth it to understand the situation and characters properly, stick with it! Thanks.
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I slumped into my usual seat on the bus, staring idly out the window as the masses of people walked across the field towards their various forms of transportation home. It was 3 o clock, and although this was a collective sigh of relief from everyone else, for me it was an embarrassment.
I was 18, and had just started my last year at 6th Form College. The school I attended saw itself as one big entity; it saw college as being an extension of high school, grouping everyone together for simplicity. Classrooms, teachers, break-times, lunch, transportation, uniform - nothing changed if you decided to stay on for further education, you were still treated like a kid. I'd been here since I was 11, when I first started high school and, needless to say, I loathed the place. Now, of course, I wished I'd gone to a proper, separate college when I'd turned 16, but I'd always been a shy girl, and decided it would be better to stay on with what few friends I did have around me, than to leave and have none.
3 o clock was the worst time for me. Whilst nearly all of the 6th Form students piled into their cars, or got lifts home from friends or boyfriends, I was cursed with the shameful bus, surrounded by young, babbling school children. I might as well have still been in school. Richard - probably the only other kid in his final year who took the bus too - took his usual position beside me, with a polite nod as the bus began to rumble forwards. He was similar to me in a lot of respects - quiet and socially awkward. He also blushed when he spoke to people he didn't know very well; like I did.