13. thirteen
thirteen
LYSANDRA
Two days later, I walked into my new seminar. Several heads turned toward me.
They must’ve noticed how bland I seemed. Brown hair, brown eyes, beige skin. I wished Camille had been in this class with me. Her excitement would’ve give me confidence.
It was then that I noticed the young man from the night I arrived staring at me too. His smug grin infuriated me in seconds; it’s like he thought I was stupid and naive. My fingers curled tight around my binder, leaving marks between my palms.
“Everyone, let’s welcome Lysandra Guerrera from the United States. She is an international student who will be completing her studies here at Blackthorn House Academy. Please give her a warm welcome.”
I gave them a pained smile with a small wave. The students chanted in a monotonous tone, “Welcome, Lysandra.”
Their lips were shut and their brows knitted together. I was an anomaly to them. A stranger. The unknown. And it seemed like I was also unwelcome. But I gulped down my embarrassment and gave a silent nod before heading to the back of the lecture hall.
The boy with raven-black hair and the dark blue vest gave me a tighter smirk. I sneered in return, my hands hadn’t been curled around my binder only because of anger, but also with anxiety.
Today, I intended to observe everything and everyone here.
I would get to know each person in this classroom, that way I’d know who to avoid and who to befriend.
But I already knew that avoiding Ezra was a given; I knew he wasn’t worth it.
I could tell that he was far from good news from the way his lips curled.
I already hated him. His pride suffocated the air around him, leaving me almost completely breathless.
Not just his pride, though, his good looks too.
He watched me slowly with that same drowning expression as I made my way to the edge of the hall.
I wanted to smack that smile off his face.
I shifted my gaze toward the teacher. I examined the professor in her plaid trousers, loafers with gold chains, and ruffled white blouse.
She seemed young, probably not much older than rest of us.
We spoke about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and the dangers of curiosity.
Once the teacher dismissed us, I immediately gathered my belongings and headed to the next period on my schedule.
There were a few familiar faces from my previous class that I recognized when they walked in the same direction as me.
Which caused me to look around, hoping that the raven-haired guy didn’t have the same class as me.
I’d pretty much begun to hate my time here already.
I sat down in the back, away from interlopers. Perhaps I wouldn’t be noticed if I sat there. Until a red-haired girl neared my desk. I tried my best to ignore her tense demeanor as I pulled a notebook out of my backpack. She stood with her arms crossed, glaring at me.
“This is my desk,” she snapped.
“I don’t see anyone’s name on it,” I replied.
She gulped, making me believe that she wasn’t used to being challenged. “Get out of my seat.”
“Like I said, I don’t see anyone’s name written on it, so that means it doesn’t belong to you, but to the school,” I argued. The corners of my lips almost curving upward when her face turned crimson.
“Don’t you realize that there are people in charge here? People who matter. Those people get to choose where they sit.”
“Well, guess I chose before you.”
“You dirty brown trash,” she spat.
I could already feel my nostrils flaring, my fingers curled inward, readying myself to throw her across the room. I’d break her sickly body in half just for that comment.
I was fighting with myself to remain calm, but my patience was already wearing thin. Did I really want to be sent back to California on my first day attending Blackthorn? Hell no. I bit down on my tongue.
“Leave her be, Scarlett,” someone said. The girl turned, and I got a view of the one person I wished to be parted from.
It was almost impossible not to roll my eyes as I screamed internally.
“This is Lysandra, she’s new here. I’d suggest you give her the cordial welcome we are obligated to give our foreign friends. ”
Silence followed as she scanned me once more and walked away to another group of girls, giggling among themselves before glaring back at me.
Great.
“I know we didn’t start off on the right foot. So, I’d like to formally introduce myself to you. I’m Ezra.” He extended his hand toward me, but I ignored his sad attempt to fraternize. I pursed my lips profusely, and continued to take out the rest of my belongings from my backpack.
“So, you’re gonna go mute on me again?”
I gave no reply. Nothing made me angrier than the arrogance of men.
I sighed loudly and waited for the professor to come in, but Ezra remained standing by my desk. “Well, since you refuse to speak to me, I have no other choice but to force you to talk and suffocate you with my insufferable presence.”
Then, his black hair bobbed around the table until he plopped his behind onto the creaking chair beside me.
I slowly turned toward him, my hair falling over my shoulders, squinting my eyes with unhidden contempt.
I had planned to be quiet, focused, and learn even more while I was here.
But there had already been too many mishaps, and I refused to allow these spoiled snobs to ruin the greatest thing that had ever happened to me.
“Are you sure you want to sit next to this brown trash? You should be careful, you might get stained,” I exasperated with a sarcastic smile.
He sighed with a slight roll of his gaze. “Don’t pay mind to her comments. I find your people’s culture respectable and beautiful.”
“Hmm,” I replied, turning my attention to the man with a thick white mustache and a black vest walking toward the large desk, which was chaotically stacked with books. He stacked two more volumes above the section of what seemed to be his favorite works.
“That’s Professor Daine,” Ezra whispered. “He’s a wicked teacher. I had him last semester in another class, and I decided to ask to take this one.”
“You asked for this course?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Crazy how a person can have so much money that all they have to do is point a finger to get what they want,” I muttered.
“I-It’s not like that,” he stuttered.
“Oh, really? So, what’s it like? Do you command your servants to create a curated schedule just for you? Isn’t that what your life is like?”
He shook his head. His gaze almost showed defeat. I knew I was being the insufferable one then, but my goal was to push him out of this seat. Ezra Van Dorren had already caused way too many problems for me, and it wasn’t even lunch hour yet.
“Hello class, I am glad to see a few familiar faces, and unfamiliar ones as well. Tells me that I am taking my job seriously. This semester, we will begin with the fall of the Roman Empire. We will go over details of their strategies to become one of the most powerful empires of their time, the beginning of their downfall, the aftermath, and the cities that were affected.”
Ezra no longer bothered me for the rest of the session, but he remained beside me since the room was filled up before he could change seats. The awkwardness of his fidgeting almost set me off, which made me the first one out of the classroom.
Rushing, I pushed between the crowds of plaid-wearing teenagers who loitered around the black and white tiled hallways, speaking to their friends about their experiences during the recent winter break.
How I wished I was that excited to talk about my life with someone else, but there was nothing to even be joyful about.
I did nothing over the holidays but work and fight with my stepfather.
I sent the thought of Mario out of my mind.
He wouldn’t ruin my life anymore; I was thousands of miles away from him.
It was not necessary to ruin my first day completely.
I put on my earphones and played music. Songs with pianos and violins filled my mind with a serene cadence as I walked to the dining area.
Stepping into the cafeteria, I grabbed myself a plate and began to scoop food onto it.
Everything looked delicious, causing my stomach to grumble once I had walked to the farthest unoccupied table.
The tables in the darkly lit cafeteria were long and made of juniper.
I watched as students pushed through the rows of tables and screeched with excitement when they set eyes on their friends.
I was thankful I couldn’t hear them through the music I was blasting.
Some might have worried for my eardrums, but personally, I didn’t think there was a better way for my hearing to be impaired. Blasted eardrums were the best option to tune out the obnoxious conversations.
As I set my dark blue platter on the mahogany bench before me, I locked eyes with the ginger girl from my earlier class.
She’d been sitting on a table, surrounded by more girls with the same mid-thigh skirts and tight button-up shirts.
They seemed just as whorish as the girl who confronted me about the desk.
Ezra sat with a couple of friends not too far from her.
He laughed with them, perhaps about some esoteric joke, his expression softened when we locked eyes.
I looked away and began to eat. I had an itch to glance over at their table, to make sure they weren’t staring at me while I ate.
It made me feel self-conscious about chewing food.
I had noticed that most of the girls here weren’t even eating the food, but if I had to be honest, I was hungry, and I had never had food like that before.
I survived on pizzas, burgers, chicken nuggets, and bread whenever I wasn’t at school. My old school’s lunch was criminal too, but it was free, and it was a constant.
A figure appeared before me. I looked up and noticed his piercing blue eyes before recognizing his arrogant smirk. My lips immediately fell into a frown.
“Oh, come on,” his lips read. His mouth continued to open and close as he formulated words that I refused to even try to process.
I continued to chew on my rice.
Then, he leaned forward, reaching for my ear. I pushed back my chair and glared at him. “Dude, what’s your problem?” I asked him, taking the earbud out.
“I just want to talk to you,” he argued, holding his hands up.
He was enjoying this. The chatter I had once heard had silenced. Ezra and I had caught the attentions of almost everyone who sat in the lunchroom.
“Leave me the hell alone,” I uttered slowly.
I pushed the platter away from the edge and grabbed my backpack, leaving with rosy cheeks from anger and embarrassment.
The best choice I had right now was to wait outside my next class.
My boots clicked and clacked beneath me.
The glances and stares of so many people caused me to squirm internally.
Today was going to be a long day.