Chapter 2
TWO
DION
FIFTEEN YEARS AGO - SEPTEMBER
“Alors,” Mademoiselle Bonneville says with a clap of her hands. “Because we lost a few students at the end of last year ...”
I suppress my snort as she continues talking.
We didn't lose them. They dropped out because French at A-Level is not for the faint-hearted and the thirteen students she's referring to realised it's also a waste of time when the majority of people speak English anyway.
I considered it myself but it's my best subject even if I put half as much effort into it as I do Art and English Lit.
I guess I just have that je ne sais quoi.
Or maybe it's the French movies I binge-watch while painting and sketching all night because I sure as hell don't seem to need sleep like normal humans.
It's a lie. I do need sleep. Although I am anything but normal. Apparently.
“So we are now a small group of eight,” Mlle Bonneville continues, “and I would like to welcome Claire, Greg, Benjamin and Hashimi to our class.”
She gives another clap, and it echoes in the ensuing silence.
Are we supposed to say something? Wave? Sing a song?
I ask Raquelle all these questions with my eyebrows when she catches my eye.
She shrugs and goes back to doodling Miles Richards’ name on her notebook, dotting the eyes with love hearts.
I barely suppress my groan. That girl will never learn.
He's already finger-banged her twice at two separate house parties over the summer, and then ignored her for weeks afterwards.
What makes her think he's going to suddenly fall for her, or even acknowledge her for that matter. He’s a football-playing, hair gel over-using, Lynx-drenched popular boy.
And she's like me, a weird alternative kid who cuts and dyes their own hair, listens to emo music from any of the last four decades and never wears anything that hasn't experienced our wrath in the form of a pair of scissors or a Tipp-Ex pen.
She's one of my best friends but she's so delusional she makes even my own daydreams seem possible.
Not that I'd ever share what they are with her. Or anyone.
Not yet at least. Maybe one day.
Or maybe never.
“Bon,” Mlle Bonneville says when the silence lingers approximately twenty seconds too long. She switches to French and instructs us to pair up with the new additions and to talk about ourselves and our summer.
Racquelle is paired with Claire, and Greg and Hashimi are quickly joined with the other two girls who I knew from last year, which leaves me with Benjamin Smith, aka Miles’ best friend who also spends too much time kicking balls, spraying cheap deodorant and styling his hair so it looks like a bird’s nest.
Fucking great.
Reluctantly, I swap places with Greg and find myself sitting next to Benjamin Smith and his Adidas-tracksuit, Nike Air trainers and Reebok backpack. Vom.
“Bonjour D—,” he says, applying a damn near perfect French accent to the name I was born with. “Ca va?”
I answer his question with absolutely no enthusiasm and ask him the same one with even less.
He answers with more animation than anyone should have in first period French on the first day back at school, and I resist the urge to roll my eyes at him.
It's when he's been talking for nearly two solid minutes, and he's lost me more than a couple of times that I tell him to stop.
“Hold on, hold on. Are you making words up or are you ridiculously good at French?” I ask in my best hiss-whisper English.
A blush creeps across his high cheekbones.
He's a skinny, tall man. And yes, he is a man.
Even at seventeen or eighteen, and dressed like a walking advert for Footlocker, he's got a more mature appearance than most of the male students in our year.
He has stubble and broad shoulders and feet the size of canoes.
And when he smiles, which, much to my horror, he's doing now, laughter lines bunch up in his cheeks and in the corner of his bright blue eyes.
“Sorry, I spent the summer in France,” he explains. Deep voice, another manly attribute. “I'm actually still thinking in French more than English.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and shake my head at him. “I'm sorry, what?”
He leans closer to me and glances across at Mlle Bonneville, who's sipping her coffee and reading French Vogue.
“I spent the summer in Toulouse. With my mother's family.”
My jaw hangs open. “Your mother is French?”
“Yeah,” he says slowly, carefully. The pink is still in his cheeks and it contrasts with the intense blue of his eyes. I didn't know he had blue eyes. I expected with his dark brown hair and that two o’clock shadow his eyes would be brown. The fact that they’re not knocks me a little off-kilter.
I blink at him. “Your mum is French? And you're doing French A-Level?” My voice lifts as I point a finger at him. “That's cheating!”
He frowns at me and his mouth twitches like it can't decide if he wants to smile, laugh or scowl. “Er, no. It's not.”
“It so is!”
“How?”
“You grew up speaking French, right?”
“Yeah, but my maman speaks English too and when my dad was around I spoke English with him.”
“Doesn't matter. If she speaks it with you then you have a clear advantage over all of us. It's not fair.” I fold my arms over my Green Day T-shirt.
He looks at my arms for a second and then quickly looks up again, the blush back in his cheeks.
“As far as I was aware, this isn't a competition. It doesn't actually affect you if I'm better than you are.”
I scoff, loudly. “I didn't say that you were better than me.”
His eyes narrow. They really are disarmingly blue if you look at them too long. “Maybe not, but you think you're better than me. Or rather, you think you're the best in the class and now you feel threatened because you might not be.”
His tone isn't accusatory. In fact, it almost sounds like he's explaining something to himself.
“Bullshit,” I tell him.
“Et comme dit-on ca en francais?” He raises an eyebrow in challenge.
“Merde,” I say for want of a better expression.
“Actually, I think c’est des conneries would be more accurate.” He offers with a smug look that makes my skin crawl.
Bullshit des conneries, indeed. This is going to be one long school year.