19. nineteen
nineteen
LYSANDRA
Ezra didn’t seem as obnoxious as I first believed him to be.
Last night, my perspective of him changed.
It was daring of him to tell me what he thought about me so straightforwardly, but I couldn’t bring myself to be angry with him because it was all true.
Just the fact that someone finally understood me, someone finally heard me without me having to say a word, was refreshing.
I was looking forward to seeing him in the lecture hall today.
We shared two classes, but only in one did we have the chance to properly converse.
I would finally have a friend who understood me.
Camille was already a great friend to me, but I found it difficult to explore my wounds with someone who didn’t bear them as well.
And something told me that Ezra must have understood my experience from our conversation the other night.
Which meant that I wouldn’t be so lonely in this school anymore. Thank God.
As I walked into my history class, I saw him sitting with his friends. I learned that the boy with platinum blonde hair was his best friend, Zack. There was another brunette guy who I heard was called Beckman, but I was still unsure of the other boy’s name.
A false smile was plastered on Ezra’s pale face. How did I know it was fake? Because whenever his other three companions would look away, he would look down at his fidgeting fingers with a gaze full of shame. I wondered what was haunting him.
I sat down in my usual spot. Refocused my attention on pulling out my binder, packet, pens, and books from my pack, acting as if I had not noticed that he hadn’t been sitting next to me.
As if it didn’t feel strange to not have him beside me.
Would he sit with his friends today? Was last night’s conversation just a game to him?
Could he have been speaking to me only because he wanted to win the petty contest between us?
Then, I saw his raven-haired strands move among the classroom as he strode toward the back seats, toward me. My heart began to race wildly as he approached me, and his blue eyes piercing into my heart as he got closer.
“Hello, Guerrera,” he greeted.
“Hello, Van…” I began. “Dorren? Correct?”
He nodded with a roll of his eyes.
“Sorry, I’m just not used to all the richness of old snobby surnames.”
“Ah, I thought we were past this,” he said with a slight frown.
“Apologies, I was joking.”
He furrowed a brow. “You have a strange… sense of humor.”
“I don’t have a sense of humor, to be frank,” I replied.
“That is horrid. Well, that’s all about to change now that we are friends,” he said.
Ezra sent me a narrowing glance, but I couldn’t help but notice the corners of his lips lifted most stunningly.
“Who said we’re friends?” I asked.
Although I wanted a friend. I needed one. I yearned for one. I was just testing him; would he give up too easily? Was he truly the embodiment of hope that I wanted him to be?
My suspicions about his radiant spirit had been confirmed when he smiled and leaned toward me. “Your word count suggests that you want to be my friend. But do not fret, I wish to be yours as well.”
“Hmm.” I nodded. “Very well. You mentioned yesterday that if I were to need assistance, you’d be able to help me study.”
There was a spark in his encompassing stare. I felt like I had been drowning within his gaze, so deep, so captivating.
“Of course. What classes do you need help with?”
“Do you happen to suck at Calculus?” I asked. “We have a big test coming up at the end of the month, but to be truthful, that is not a level I’ve ever reached before. Not even at my old school.”
“I happened to get an A* in Calculus last semester. How? Don’t ask me,” he said.
I snorted, “You nerd.”
“Who are you to even say anything?” he asked.
I remained silent, a questioning look on my expression. I was far from a nerd.
“You were accepted into a Scottish boarding school. Not just any academy, but the leading academy in all of Europe because of the excellence in our teachers, students, and curriculum. You enjoy learning about literature, history, and poetry more than your classmates do. You read books for the fun, and you are a poet. You are a nerd just as much as I am.”
I glared at him. “Then, I am an aesthetically pleasing nerd. Also, me being accepted into the school could have been a happy accident. Like my old school, the only reason it hasn’t been shut down yet is that there would be no other high school for the surrounding eight towns.”
The color left his face. If he’d been pale before, he was now ghost-white. “Eight towns? And only one high school?”
“Don’t ask. I don’t know how they make it work either,” I replied with a shrug.
Loud claps had echoed into my ears, snapping my attention in the direction of the sleazy professor at the center of the classroom.
“Time for our session to commence. We will be concluding the section on the societal regulations for ancient Greece and entering the beginning of the downfall of the Roman Empire.”
“When’s your test?” he hushed, eyeing me from the side of his vision.
“On Thursday,” I said.
He widened his eyes. “How does today at 4:30 p.m. sound? Classes end at 3 p.m., get some rest, eat some sustenance, then we can meet at the library again.”
“That sounds great. Thank you—” I found myself unable to say his first name. It felt too personal, almost as if I had been crossing lines and boundaries I wasn’t supposed to.
He looked back at me, confusion running wild across his expression, before returning his eyes to the professor.
I didn’t know why, but I felt nervous. More nervous than the previous day.
This whole experience was all new to me. Different to everything before. I had never had a real friend before. Well, a friend who was a boy.
I looked down at my book. I’d been rereading Jane Eyre, which was my all-time favorite.
It was a book I opened whenever I needed solace.
I didn’t have a mother or a father to provide consolation, but I had books, and that sufficed.
Beside me, I had the uncensored version of The Picture of Dorian Gray. Staring back at me, mockingly.
I’d brought it with me since I mentioned it to Ezra the previous night.
He had been kind enough to agree to tutor me and help me prep for my upcoming test, so I thought I could bring the book since he said he had been wanting to read it for the longest time.
I questioned whether this was the most cordial gift I could give to someone.
I wasn’t sure how this whole friend thing worked. But I was trying.
I guess the best rule I could follow was to think about what I would want others to do for me.
His figure appeared through the golden-lit hallway that led into the archives. His glasses were propped over the tip of his nose, his lips had been quirked down, and his brows had crinkled. There seemed to be a certain edge to his demeanor and not the usual brilliance I saw. It was gone.
He sat down before me, quietly setting his leather bag on the cedar bench.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“Yeah, why?” he asked, concern spilling over his features.
“You just seem off,” I said.
“You said the same thing yesterday,” he said roughly, causing me to pull away from him, which he noticed. “But I’m okay. Just stuff with my dad, thanks for asking.”
I didn’t know how to reply. Would I come off as too nosey if I asked? Did he expect me to ask? I left him alone; if he wanted to talk about it, he would.
“Well, if you ever need to talk about anything, I’ll be here to listen.” That was the best I could offer.
“Thanks,” he said dryly.
I didn’t wish to burden him with my academic problems if he was going through a rough patch with his family. “Are you sure you’re up for tutoring right now? We don’t have to continue, I can see if my roommate knows someone else—”
“Stop. It’s fine, plus this will help me forget about it all. So don’t worry,” he began.
“Oh, so I’m just a mere distraction to you?” I asked sarcastically, crossing my arms, leaning back against the cushioned wooden chair. The chair creaked as my weight shifted.
“Greatest distraction of all time. I can’t even think when I’m around you,” he replied with the same amount of sarcasm in his tone.
I smiled, and he grinned in return. It was the best smile I had ever seen before, which made me squirm internally.
These European men definitely had an enigmatic look to them.
“What?” he asked with a slight lift in his brow.
“Nothing, I just realized that we have wasted a good five minutes of study time, and my time is precious, sir.”
He chuckled. “You’re the one who asked me to come help you. If anything, my time is more precious since I am providing my services to you.”
“Services? What are you? A gigolo?” I laughed, covering my mouth and my eyes bulging when I realized it had been too loud for the library. Multiple hushes echoed through the bookshelves of the grand archives of Blackthorn.
“Haha, very funny.”
The harsh shushes and hisses that vibrated through the dim archives continued to be spewed sporadically.
I tightened the grip around my face, unable to stop giggling.
It was a good feeling. I hadn’t felt it before.
Although it might sound pathetic that I had been laughing at my own joke.
There were so many aspects about him that I could make fun of him for, and it was more hilarious because he was left astounded by my lack of humor.
“Fine, fine. I’m sorry.” I snorted in my hands.
“Why are you snorting, you animal?” he said in a hushed voice.
I breathed in through my nose, finding my ground and inner balance. My reputation was being cauterized, I had to get myself together. “Okay, let’s start with studying then. These are the assignments that I need to go over to prepare before my test this week.”
“Wait, so your professor is making you take a test before the actual test?” he asked.
“In other words, yes. That is what he’s doing. He said he wants to see where each of ‘stands’ on the subject.” I nodded.
He shook his head and examined the paper below him. “Sounds like a real Blackthorn House Academy teacher.”
I watched intently as his deep blue gaze scanned the problems and questions printed on the page. It was the same look he gave me when we were having a conversation, since the first night that we met. As if he had been studying me, watching me, trying to understand me.
Knowing that, I didn’t know what to think about it. Did I want him to understand me?
“Okay,” he said quietly.
“You can help me?” I asked.
“Of course I will. We’re going to start with this question right here.”
We spent the rest of the evening going over the math problems. Most times, I would get the answers wrong, but he was patient.
He taught me how to find the right answers until he confirmed that I could solve the problems on my own.
I heard him faintly sigh whenever I would repeatedly get it wrong, but his patience never ran out.
Instead, he joked and explained it again.
It was a completely different experience from what I had been accustomed to.
Mario would yell at me, pound at the table, and insult me whenever I couldn’t solve a math problem.
Perhaps that was where my hatred toward the subject came from.
Ill memories had been so deeply rooted in my mind that I couldn’t bring myself to love mathematics.
Instead, I spent the entire night laughing. At first, with anxiety when I realized I had gotten an answer wrong, but happy when he would jest and make me feel better about not understanding the problem set.
As if he had been unweaving all the rotten recollections of my childhood.