Beyond the lies

Chapter 9

"Can I choose the music?"

The two stopped their yelling and glanced at each other before shrugging. She got the message and took out her phone and connected it to play a calming piano piece. The boys didn't say anymore for the rest of the journey and she could tell they liked it.

As Marco parked the car, she stopped it and put her phone back in her pocket.

Rocco was the first to break the silence, "that was so good, where did you find that Sof?"

The twins looked at her expectantly and she looked at them in amusement with a ghost of a smile on her face.

"I made that."

Since she had already been emailed her schedule which she then printed, her brothers walked her to her first class, English. Along the way there were several shocked and curious faces from students as they wondered who the new girl was and more importantly, what the heck was she doing with the Carmine brothers?!

The three stopped outside her classroom and she was given a quick hug by Rocco and a nod by Marco before they went off and she was alone for the first time. She entered the classroom to find most of the class had already settled in and the teached walked over to her with a bored look on her face.

"New student?"

Sofia nodded.

The woman introduced herself as Mrs Winters and yelled at the class to be quiet before looking at her expectantly.

"I'm Sofia Carmine, nice to meet you." Her voice was low however with the pin-drop silence every word could be heard, followed by a series of new questions being yelled at her.

"Carmines? You're their sister?!"

"You're lying right?!"

"Where did you come from?!"

"Why's no one seen you before?!"

...Well this sucked. It took another minute for Mrs Winters to make everyone quiet again and she instructed Sofia to go sit beside a girl who had been quiet the entire time. Just before she went the teacher looked her in the eyes and spoke warningly, "I've had your brothers before and they weren't pleasant to teach, I hope you'll be better than that."

She nodded and left, dumping her schoolbag under her desk. For the rest of the lesson she made sure to pay attention and write out all the notes in an attempt to show her teacher that she was definitely not like her brothers.

In the middle of writing down her analysis of an extract the class were reading independently, she felt a poke at her side and noticed it was from the girl she was sat next to. She had light brown hair and coffee-coloured eyes.

The girl gave a wave and Sofia raised an eyebrow, confused about what she could want.

"Hi...I'm Vera. Vera Garcia."

"Hi."

At Sofia's old school she had avoided almost all people and since most people in the area knew each other well, over the years nobody would try and approach or talk to her as they knew she would ignore them. Here things were different. She supposed...it couldn't hurt to talk to her?

"I've never seen you with the brothers before."

"I used to live with my mother, but then she died and I moved here."

"Oh! I'm so sorry."

"It's fine, I-" 

As Sofia looked into Vera's eyes she noticed unfeigned sorrow and realised that she was actually feeling sympathy for her. She couldn't finish her sentence as she could only stare at the other girl's genuine feelings towards her. Sofia had spent her life around fake people, so she knew from the look in Vera's eyes that this girl wasn't like that.