Money: Luke Hemmings

28

5th of January 2016

'Remember, seniors, that university applications are due at the end of the week students!' Miss Spell said at the end of our back-to-school assembly with the whole school.

'Where have you applied?' I asked Harry as we walked to English together.

'Yale, Harvard, Brown, Oxford and Sydney Uni,' he said with a smile, a slight laugh admitting from my lips at the last one. Harry was smart enough to get into any university or college that he wants, and as much as we both hate to admit it, our last name carries some heavy weight when it comes to this kind of stuff.

'Why Sydney?' I questioned as I clutched my books and laptop to my chest.

'Just want the option if I feel like going home at the end of this,' Harry said truthfully and I nodded. 'What about you Belle?'

'All the same as you, except I chose Columbia instead of Brown.'

'You always did love the heart of New York,' he said with a grin as we walked up the stairs together.

'Just a Serena wannabe' I laughed as we walked into our English class, sitting down in our usual middle row seats.

'Annabelle you are Serena,' Harry laughed as I just rolled my eyes at him as Jake came and sat down next to Harry before class officially started.

English class always consisted of me trying to actually focus and get my assignments done in class so I would not have to do them outside of class so I could focus on my more difficult subjects, and that was all going well until Jake and Harry showed up in my class.

'You two are absolutely ridiculous,' I scoffed, shaking my head at the two best friends who were laughing about the photos they had been sending people in class, including myself.

'Oh come on Belle you know they are funny,' Jake laughed as he adjusted his tie and I just rolled my eyes at him. Two terms ago I would have found the gag hilarious but considering we have only got six months left of high school ever, I really wanted to focus and get into a good university afterwards.

'Nah you two are just stupid,' I laughed as I walked into the dining hall to find Luke who had his head in a book, something which I would find him doing often when we were in Sydney together.

'Hey pretty boy,' I said as I sat down next to Luke, who had taken off his lip ring for the first time in forever. 'No lip ring?'

'Nah Miss Spell threatened to give me a detention if I wore it for the rest of the school year and I can't risk that going on my transcript,' Luke laughed putting his book down on the table. 'But hey gorgeous, how was English?'

That one question was all it took for Luke and I to not stop talking for the whole of our short break, barely having anytime to actually eat food or have a cup of coffee to keep us going until lunch.

That is the way it has always been between us, we got on like a house on fire. Today's topic of conversation is the book that we had been reading in English for our latest assignment, 'The Underground Railroad,' and what Luke and I are planning to do next weekend when we go and scope out Oxford in London.

Luke had also applied for pretty much the exact same University's as myself, as well as applying for Cambridge and the University of Pennsylvania. The latter one I was not sure why until he explained that they have an excellent teaching program there and he has always liked the area that the university is in.

The rest of the day went past in a blur. Calum and I ate lunch together whilst he was blabbing on about his date with Eloise that would be happening on Friday night. We had an athletics meet on Saturday morning, so Calum was taking her out for pasta in Nomain, which was one of Eloises pre-meet rituals.

Athletics training in the gym after school was the definition of hell. As we could not be outside and the soccer team was using the indoor athletics arena for god knows why, we were banished to the gym to run laps for an hour and a half, before doing half an hour of core work to round out our two hour training session.

'I actually think I'm going to throw up,' Violet said. It was her first training back after tearing her hamstring and if the rest of us were all struggling, I could not imagine what she was feeling like right now.

'Well if you are going to do that, can you please do it in a bathroom?' Clara asked sarcastically, Violet just rolling her eyes at her before heading to her bedroom.

'I will see you guys at dinner yeah?' I asked Clara and Eloise who both nodded with a smile before we all headed off to our bedrooms to shower and get dressed before dinner.

My shower was quick and getting dressed was even quicker because I just pulled on a pair of white jeans I found on my bathroom floor, as well as a black blouse and a pair of black boots, as I needed to stay in the teachers good books for the rest of the year.

'So I was thinking on Sunday we could have lunch?' Luke asked me the second I walked out of my bathroom, a regular occurrence by my boyfriend ever since we had gotten back from Sydney.

'Well I don't know about you but since we won't be studying Saturday during the day, or Saturday night, I think we should study.'

'What is Saturday night?' Luke asked.

'I think Eleanor is just having a party in the common room to signify the beginning of the end of school,' I laughed. The one thing about going to this school, is that there is never a shortage of party's to attend.

'Okay but Annabelle can we still get lunch on Sunday?' Luke questioned as we left my room and walked to the elevator to take us to the dining hall for dinner.

'Why?' I questioned. I wanted to, do not get me wiring, I just had a ridiculous amount of study to do and I could not let myself get into the habit of going out for lunch every Sunday.

'Because I want to take my girlfriend out on a date, it has been a while.'

I smiled at his words and he did have a point, we had not been on a date since we had come back to school. Both of us had been too caught up in school work and athletics, wanting to go that extra mile for the last months of school.

'Okay,' I sighed giving into Luke who let out a small cheer. 'But only lunch, no shopping afterwards and definitely no Starbucks afterwards either,' I laughed.

Every time Luke and I found ourselves having breakfast, lunch or dinner in Nomain, we always ended up Starbucks afterwards, no matter what. Luke always got an iced coffee, whilst I always got a vanilla frappe.

'No promises baby.'

A/N

Just a cute chapter kinda giving context to what's gonna be happening for the last part of the book lol

How's everyone's day going I'm just chilling at work lol I'm so bored

Thank you for reading xx