The Thirteen Zyres

Prologue: Admitting Nothing and No One

It wasn't supposed to be this hard, saying yes to the dress and all that jazz. This place was supposed to fit anyone like a glove, or so they said.

I could feel it the second I set foot on their campus for the first time. Whatever Catalyst Academies was or perhaps wasn't? It was only different in enough ways to come full circle in others that proved it simply wasn't.

In my younger years, people told me to dare to dream and I most certainly had. Whatever was bubbling up inside of me, it certainly wasn't for the faint of heart to stomach. I hated it here, effective immediately, yet still I trudged through the motions of applying.

The letter that came wasn't the one that was supposed to come. Joining their ranks was supposed to be nearly impossible unless you had parents who paid more than a few pretty pennies to make sure you had every pre-requisite in the book and then some.

I found myself agreeing or applying through all sorts of forms I didn't even bother to read one lazy scribble of a signature at a time. There simply was no logical reason for them to truly bank on me, yet here I am... And there he is.

Antonio Zampieri.

He looks like he's never worked an honest day in his life. Natural born king of every hill, current student body president.

I hate him.

I hate him and I don't even know why.

It's a gut instinct sometimes, an instantaneous response... A core aversion I can't shake... A deep gut feeling I can't ignore... A call to avoid at all costs... But here he comes.

Dark hair, dark eyes, dark suit, dark aura.

He's everything you don't want a guy to be if you don't want to regret the moment they had you at hello. He radiates an unnerving level of confidence, simply completely unbothered by the expression on my face that hardened into a scowl on his approach.

Dark intentions almost always follow any attempt to get to know someone like me when it's coming from someone like him. We were not cut from the same cloth, or so I thought and still keep begging myself to stay cognizant of.

"Mr. President." I nodded curtly.

"Do I know you?" He quirked a brow.

"Not likely." I clipped.

Wherever this was going? It didn't seem to be going nowhere fast. Something was off about him today and I hated it all the more.

"Should I?" He challenged with a smirk something inside of me was vaguely tempted to slap right off of his smug face.

"I should hope not." I quipped, trying and failing to sidestep him.

This magnetic dance we seemed to do rarely required exchanges of words. We did not run in the same circles and I had no intentions of changing that perhaps ever.

"Seems we must have got off on the wrong foot." He posed gently, but I highly doubted there was anything gentle about his type.

"With all due respect?" I led coyly while offering him little to none via my demeanor. "I'm certain you have better things to do than whatever it is you're doing."

"Not my biggest fan, huh?" He chuckled almost nervously, a seemingly warmer glint than I was expecting shining through his gaze. "Whatever I did to offend you, I'd appreciate the chance to make it right and that starts with knowing what I did wrong."

"You could start with letting me get to class." I suggested sharply.

"How about helping  you get to class instead?" He chimed without missing a beat.

"Hard pass, Mr. President." I nodded: curt, short, sweet. 

I could feel the silence in the courtyard thickening in the courtyard before my ears picked up on it too, the plot thickening all the while. Whatever his latest social campaign was? My patience level for random agendas has always been non-existent.

If the most annoying kind of push there is came to shove? I would likely take zero interest in being a romantic conquest on the next dating tour of duty from either of the Zamprieri brothers.

I have little to nothing in common with the kind of girls they like to keep on their arms and I take no shame in that. I couldn't care less how many donors their conglomerate of a family ropes into attending all of the biggest events. I made it perfectly clear in my essay to the admissions office that I have never nor will I ever be interested in being a show pony that fancies institutions that uphold relatively archaic values.

The sound of his voice brought me back to reality faster than I realized I'd even managed to make a swift exit from it. Exhaustion was the name of the game when it came to refusing to play any with anyone for any reason.

Why Antonio Zamprieri of all people was continuing to pursue conversation despite my blatant effort to ward him off with a glaring lack of friendliness? Only he seemed to know.

"You're new here, right?" He frowned as I tried and failed to sidestep him faster than I found him obstructing the sidewalk I was on in the main courtyard yet again. "Your bags look heavy and the first year seminars are that way."

As if his words weren't already added insult enough to injury, his mansplaining level of sweetly pointing in the exact opposite direction from which I was heading helped no one.

The bitter scoff that left my mouth was more than enough to shut him up somehow, I could just feel it. Something was shifting, but whatever was in the air? It simply couldn't be love. It reeked of frustration and impatience rather than the indifference... Something about his lingering proximity shattering the wall of solitude I had been crafting along myself long before I'd been approved to transfer here.

"You're not a first year, are you?" He inquired meekly, shame and confusion on his face.

"I'm not an idiot either." I seethed.

The longer we stood there, the more I became certain the world seemed to slow around us somehow. Two very different people from two very different worlds who had somehow been on a collision course long before we ever laid eyes on each other.

The awkward silence? It sang like a canary just fine.