WARNING: This book contains strong language, scenes of a sexual nature and references to substance abuse. Reader discretion is advised.

Standing in the foot of the doorway, I make one more attempt to stay home.

"Mum, I know you think I'm overreacting but... I don't... I –" I exhale, my heart beating out of my chest. Hands sweating and throat dry, I try to pull my thoughts into a coherent sentence. "...I don't fit in here. I miss home – my old college and my old friends." The words choke in the back of my throat as I try to quell the building anxiety expanding in my chest.

Mum wipes a tendril of hair from my face and sighs. "Holly, I know it's different, and heavens knows, this is not what your dad and I had planned, but life is full of complications. You need to relax and give it a chance - a real chance, please? For us?"

Rolling my head against the nape of neck, I sigh deeply and agree.

Having spent the last six years living in a bustling neighbourhood in South London, moving back to this quiet Hertfordshire suburbia had been a real change of pace. During the final weeks of my first year at South Thames College, my Nan was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. She needed constant care and my parents decided to move us back here and into her home to take care of her. Her frail body battled on for just three months before succumbing to the awful disease.

Having uprooted our lives to move back to the suburbs, mum and dad made the difficult choice to sell our home in Tooting and keep nan's as our permanent residence. It's a beautiful semi-detached home on the Hertfordshire border, just on the outskirts of North London. As a child, we'd lived in a similar house about ten minutes from Nan but, after dad got a promotion, we packed up and shipped off to pastures new. And now, with his new job requiring him to travel more frequently, the need to stay in London wasn't quite so important.

Having lived here until I was 10, I was lucky to still have my two closest childhood friends still living in the area, Carly and Leila.

Carly, an only child of her Jamaican mother and British father, was medium height, with green eyes and wild black hair. Leila, the youngest of three, had two older brothers. They were a trio of striking blonde hair, perfect bone structure and sparkling sapphire blue eyes.

Being able to connect with them again after 7 years, had made the move back less difficult. But the first two weeks at college had felt so alien, so unfamiliar, that I hadn't returned since. And although Carly and Leila went to the same college, we took completely different classes. With friendship circles already formed last year, I felt lonely. The anxiety had been a new and unwelcomed side effect of the move, and one I was still trying to get a grip on. South London Holly was confident, vibrant and full of fun. Hertfordshire Holly was lost, frail and easily overwhelmed.

Just as it did each morning, everything inside me was telling me to run, or at least run back up to my room and into the warm and comfortable duvet awaiting me. But Mum wasn't going to stop trying to get me to take a chance, to build a life in this seemingly unfamiliar environment. Come tomorrow, I'd have to do this all over again.

So, taking a deep breath, I take another chance and step out into the surprising balmy, October morning. Looking out onto the quiet street, I watch as Carly appears in the distance, climbing the steep hill towards the house. We live in neighbouring streets, but hers is much further down, resulting in an uphill trek.

"I didn't expect to see you this morning " she pants as she reaches me, placing her hands on her hips to catch her breath. Her hair is already sticking to the sides of her face, and she looks flustered.

"I told you I was coming in." I reply meekly, looking to my tatty converses to avoid her stare.

"Yeah, but how many times have I heard that over the past two weeks? I'm just glad you actually took the plunge though, well done you." She says, a little patronisingly. She leans in for a quick, if a little sweaty hug, which ebbs away at the small panic attack building inside me.

"Can we get the bus now, please? That hill never gets easier!" I giggle. Our college is little more than 20 minutes on foot, but I'm more than happy to pay the fare and forego the walk today.

As we wait for the double decker bus to arrive, Carly describes the latest episode of a new reality TV show in intricate detail. She makes it sound riveting, but having struggled through the first two episodes myself, I gave up in favour of watching anything else.

The bus crests over the hill and even in the distance, I can see it's pretty full. I reach out my hand to flag it down and when the doors creak open, they reveal a mass of other people on their daily commute. We pay and push ourselves into the bustling crowd. The bus pulls away, and I quickly reach out to the fluorescent handlebar in front of me to keep my balance.

When the bus stops opposite the college's looming front gates, the doors open to release a sea of heaving passengers. Walking across the black and white pedestrian crossing, I notice Leila, headphones in, leaning against the wall.

Leila and I had been friends since the age of 4, after meeting at the church Brownie group. She introduced me to Carly, who was the daughter of her mum's work colleague, and we'd been close ever since. When I first moved away, I kept in contact with both girls. But age and new friendships meant that our calls became less frequent and less chatty. When Leila heard we'd moved back here, she was the first to reach out. Though we'd moved, she'd remained close to my Nan, calling her such since having lost her own at a very young age.

"Jesus! I didn't expect to see you in today!" shouts Leila, headphones still in. I roll my eyes and shake my head.

"Oh, for goodness sake, not you as well. I told you I was coming in!" I retort, pulling her earbuds out.

"Yeah, but you've said that before, haven't you?" she points out, snatching the headphones from me and sinking them into her pocket, before turning to walk down to the campus.

"That's what I said!" Carly chimes in. Feeling self-conscious, I mock-laugh at the pair, "Alright, alright. I'm here now, aren't I? Let's move on."

Walker College campus is a stunning combination of historic buildings and perfectly maintained gardens. It's impressive, the sort of place that Americans fantasise about when they think of England. Very Hogwarts. The buildings are course dependent – English, history and law are in one block, Sciences are in another, and so on. As an English Literature, Art and Photography student, I have quite the distance between my two main buildings. Fortunately, there's enough of a gap between their start times, so I can make the journey without too much difficulty.

With my nagging desire for coffee and Leila's desperation for a chocolate muffin – oh to have her genes – we head into the canteen.

"Do you remember where your first class is?" Leila jokes, removing her book bag from her left shoulder and dropping it onto an empty chair. "Ha. Ha." I reply in annoyance.

As we stand in the queue, Leila and Carly's other friends, Kelly, Sarah, and Molly file in for a tea and a chat. The three had been friends since school, and Leila and Carly had gravitated towards them when they joined last year. I'd met them briefly over the summer holiday but was still getting to know them.

"Holly! Welcome back!" Kelly says, her deep voice booming in the space between us. She's a little shorter than me, with mousey brown hair that sits perfectly below her jawline. Her meek exterior drew you in and her louder than life personality spat you out.

"Yeah, well done for finally showing up!" Sarah joins in. She's the tallest and most well-spoken of the three, indicating a life of wealth and good fortune. With her pointed features and formal sense of style, she looked ready for the boardroom, as opposed to college. She wasn't unfriendly but had a sarcastic nature that left me uncertain.

Kelly is the quirky one, with deep red hair and tawny brown eyes. With her overalls and platform mules, her style emulated the vibe of a hippy mum or an art student. She was firmly the latter.

We spent a few minutes catching up, but having missed two weeks of class already, I didn't want to be late. So, grabbing my coffee, I make my excuses and high tail it to my first lesson.