Liars in A Row (Book 1, 2 & 3)

t w e l v e : late night macarons

Girls' voices, singing hymns, floated down King Street where Julia was just turning the corner, cursing silently as her long plaid tie clapped on her stomach violently. The assembly had finished when she reached the institute. Headmistress Lewis was sauntering out of the chapel, ginger hair knotted into a neat bun, sharp in a gray Chanel tweed suit. Julia turned towards the old building quickly.

"Julia Eden?"

Julia had just reached her locker when she heard the deep male voice. Kevin Murray, the only student present in the hallway, stood six feet five inches before his own locker, across from her, very comfortable in his college uniform. Murray looked surprisingly cheerful, his thin dark face glowing.

"Hi, Kevin. How are you?"

"I'm fine. You look great, Jules," he responded with a toothy smile, shutting his locker.

Oh, she certainly didn't look great.

"Sweet of you to say, Murray," she snorted. "I'm too late for a conversation by the way. But you need to know something."

"Michelson is back. Yeah, I know." He gave her a knowing look, his full lips stretching in an assuring smile. "I won't be causing any trouble, I promise. I know Lewis warned you."

"Good as long as you don't. I have English now."

"Me too." Murray joined Julia as she dodged down the deserted corridor and into the courtyard towards the English department. "And what do I hear about you and some big-shot lawyer? When have you been a fan of playing Lolita, eh?"

"He is a law student, Kevin. Not more than probably..." Julia crunched her nose, calculating a default age of a Harvard JD student. "...five years older than me. And he's not even a friend."

"What's Clarke saying?" Kevin stated the obvious, with wiggling eyebrows and gleaming brown eyes on her.

"Well, should he be saying something?" Julia smirked at him, her skin gaining a healthy blush.

"Well, if some pedo from out there tried to steal my girl, I'd be saying something,"

"I'm not Noah's girl." Julia rolled her eyes as she slid inside the classroom and muttered more to herself, "Not yet."

Noah wasn't in class. While Julia went back to Hampstead, took a quick shower and slid inside her uniform, she also assumed that Noah would reach before her since his house was closer to  'Pristine Academy' than hers. They only had two classes together; English and Biology. Despite Julia's dislike for Biology, she had chosen it for Noah. He either sat behind her or in front of her in both English and Bio, almost making it a ritual since eleventh year. Today, Dee sat behind her while Liv was on the left row just across from her seat. Mr. Ledwell, a thin tall man on the verge of retirement, was standing behind the podium, wearing a white shirt he had paired with khakis. This might as well be his first and last class of the year.

He was passing out paper copies of The Three Kings by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Julia reached for a pen from her Hello Kitty pencil case and wrote her name on it absentmindedly, her eyes flicking towards the door. If she talked to Noah just once, she would know how the kiss between her and Neal had affected him. But he didn't show up at the first period or any period that day.

Julia had been at the sixth form centre, the eighth building, when the bell for lunch started ringing. Not only she was one building away from the dining hall, but also a large amount of year seven students had came out of the nearest building to block her path. It took her ten minutes to reach the hall, one of the only places in this college she absolutely adored. Maybe it was the renaissance splendour that appealed to her most.