Lost Horizons

Chapter Twenty Three

His mother could never afford such a school on her own. She was a single mother with a middle class job who had spent most of Parry's life trying to raise him and his sister. She had wanted both her kids to attend the prestigious school. Scarlett had been the only one in denial at first.

"Why do we have to go to some stupid snobby rich kid boarding school? I'm perfectly fine where I am," Scarlett had argued with mother.

"It will be better for you in the long run, for both of you," mother explained.

"Why? Huh? Why? So that you can tell your friends where we graduated from? Ugh! I don't want to go. I'm not going." Scarlett yelled as she stormed up to her room and slammed the door. The sound echoed throughout the house like a loud thunderstorm.

"I'm sorry mom," Parry tried to apologize for his sister.

"It's okay, son. Everything will be okay. This will be good for you," she said sounding as though she was trying to convince herself more than her son.

The flashback ended with the sound of the loud shrilly school bell. It was time for the students to attend their next class. For Parry, that bell meant that his volunteering time organizing the different balls and sports gear in the gym closet was over. He watched Sienna as she jogged off the court and into the girl's locker. He watched with disdain as Tristan Bellicose headed to the boy's locker room. He hated to admit it, even to himself, but he was painfully aware of his enemy. Tristan, however, was not aware of Parry's daily activities.

The animosity towards Tristan had started out as childish lets-make-this-new-guy-our-target-this-year, among Parry's group of popular friends. Tristan had been easy to make fun of. He was the weird lonely guy who avoided everyone. It had been Parry's idea to pick him since he was the one who had access to the school files. Nathan had access too but Nathan didn't care enough. Parry had also picked Tristan because he knew most of the guys would be on board with making his welcome to the school anything but welcoming. That was mainly because the guys at Oak Wood felt threatened by Tristan. That had to do with Tristan's looks. He was the silent, tough seeming and handsome new guy who would gain the female population's attention. He was the high school definition of a bad boy. Parry, on the contrary, was the symbol of the good guy who cared about people. That was far from his true self. Parry only cared about three people; his mother, his sister and now Sienna.

That was the reason why Parry had included Sienna in their group. He had suggested they welcome her right in before she made friends with others. Sienna wasn't anything special to the others but Parry had fallen for her from the first day he had seen her arrive.

So it didn't take a genius to realize why it turned out to be a huge problem for Parry when Sienna started taking an interest in Tristan.

The others had wanted to expel Sienna from their 'In crowd' but Parry had defended her. They said she wasn't It material, he argued that she was special. Since Parry was a big influence in the decisions of the group they kept the new girl. Sienna had no idea any of that had happened. Maybe that was why she didn't think twice about sitting with Tristan at lunch that one day instead of sitting with them. Maybe that was why she didn't care about skipping a day to hang out with her friends because of Tristan.

Parry had thought they could discourage her from her interest in the new guy. Apparently he had been wrong. Those two were very good friends now. They were so close that they actually visited each other's dorm rooms, which against school rules. Parry had caught Sienna leaving Tristan's room yesterday. They hadn't known he'd been watching but he was.

He planned to use that against them. Parry planned to use that information to keep them apart. He watched Tristan exit the boy's room first. He had thought Tristan would stay behind and wait for Sienna but he didn't. He continued on to the cafeteria. They were probably going to meet there. Sienna was still in the girl's room.