━━━━━━━━
I N C I T I N G S E C R E T S
caput sex ❝you truly do intrigue me❞
━━━━━━━━
WEEKENDS AT ST Farlingtons Manor were different compared to many schools across the country. Saturday was no different to a regular day, classes still went on but only for half the day. The rest of the weekend was reserved for the extra activities that were compulsory. However, for the senior students, they spent the time getting ready for the next step in their life.
University was crucial to the students, their parents and the teachers. Everyone who attended the institute landed a spot in a Russell Group University. They didn't settle for anything less and no one ever left St Farlington Manor without a fixed place. The schools spoke for themselves, Universities loved when students had come from private schools like The Manor. Students at the academy were the standard.
Did this mean students almost got an easy entry? Yes, but it wasn't like they weren't getting A and A*s. No one in the school even predicted a C at A-Level.
Ileana was stressed during this period, the thought of going to university scared her, but she was excited. She couldn't wait to get out in the world and truly focus on something she loved. It was also something she didn't want to speak about, it made her feel uneasy and it didn't sit well with her. So, she quietly got on with task alone.
She huffed out loudly as looked at her mothers missed call, "Can people stop disturbing me?" Ileana had been working on her personal statement that should have been done a while ago, but with revising for exams she couldn't possibly get everything done.
Leyla looked at her friend and ignored her. She wasn't surprised at Ileana's response, she was honestly used to her and didn't think her sudden reaction was alarming.
"This is the third time she rang me in five minutes. Why do mothers? It's not like I am not in school." Ileana announced as she reached for her phone and shook her head.
Leyla shrugged her shoulders, "Perhaps, she needs to speak to you. It might be important, you should send her a text and call her back later."
"But, I am at school and she knows I have fixed times for when I call her." Ileana stared at her screen before failing her mothers' number. Maybe this was important, I mean why else would she call her?
She stood up to get a good signal by the window and leaned on the window frame. Ileana had a great relationship with her mother, she was her best friend who she admired so much. Her mum was her role model in all aspects of life. Being the only daughter, Ileana spent more time with her mother than she did anyone else.
She didn't have to wait long before her mother picked up, "Ileana Amari Daher, I have been calling you all day, why haven't you picked up my phone?" She missed her voice, even though it hadn't been long, Ileana was happy she was finally speaking to her mother after a couple of week. The woman was currently screaming on the other end, but Ileana didn't care.
She lifted the phone a few inches from her face, to save her ears from the loud torture. "Marhaba, MaMa. How are you?"
"Ileana," Her mother repeated her name in a serious tone. "What have I told you about putting your phone on loud? I wouldn't call you for no reason."
Ileana was hesitant to reply, she didn't really know how to respond to her mother as this call really wasn't planned. "MaMa, I was studying and you're not supposed to call me for another day. Did you miss me already?" She let out a light chuckle. Ileana could already imagine her mothers face smiling at her but also annoyed for not answering her call.
"Aiwa," Her mother replied softly in Arabic and Ileana took a seat near her, waiting for her mothers' upcoming words. "Your father wanted me to send you a message, he would have called you but he's busy right now."
"Hmm." Ileana hummed.
"You need to come home for the weekend in two weeks." Her mother declared and Ileana's groaned in frustration. As much as she loved going home to spend time with her family, the timing was just not great. Ileana couldn't afford to spend a weekend at home. "Ileana, don't you give me that. Your fathers' orders. The driver will come to pick you up in two weeks, so be prepared."
"What's the occasion? Is Khalaty Aaminah coming to visit us?" Ileana mentioned her aunt who lived in Iraq but would visit them every year and thought this was the reason why her parents wanted her home.
"Well, you know with all the events coming up your father wanted to have a small dinner with the family. Nothing too formal." She explained and Ileana's jaw dropped. This was the last thing she wanted. To sit at a table with no other than her arch-nemesis, the person she wanted to strangle but for obvious reason couldn't.
"But I don't want to, I have stuff to do and I can't just leave the school." Ileana let out, "I don't want to sit with the Whittemore's and bore myself to death with their talks."
Her mum chuckled as she knew that was completely true. Business at the dinner table was a nightmare, it was almost as worse as Ileana's hatred towards Draven. "But you like their daughter Niamh, and Draven attends The Manor with you. It will be perfectly fine."
"But..."
As the word left Ileana's mouth, her mother interrupted, not wanting to hear any of her excuses, "No buts Ileana. This is important for both families, and you will be here. And do you not want to see me? Or do you prefer the bland food they give at the academy?"
"Oh now that you mention it, you should make Maqluba and I want those date cookies you make." Ileana didn't want to uninvite herself solemnly because of her father, she knew how important business was to him. How important it was for the family. However, the mention of her mothers cooking convinced her already. She adored her mum's cooking and would honestly do anything for her divine cuisine. It brought back sweet memories of when they used to live in Iraq.
The conversation didn't last very long as her mother was needed at her clinic and had to end the call.
Ileana sulked. Yes, she had agreed to go, even though she didn't have a choice. She couldn't argue with her mother. Dinner with the Whittemore's, she dreaded them every time. Although she had many of them in the past, each one progressively got worse. Draven started to attend them and for the rest of the evenings, Ileana would stare at him from across the room in resentment, rather than eat her food in peace.
Draven would simply sit and indulge in his plate of food. He would occasionally look at her to smirk or make a snide remark, while she suffered. He had to act like he was invested in the conversations at the table, but he truly just wanted to dispute with Ileana. He wanted to embarrass her a little and get her rattled up. Draven wanted to flaunt his grades or the opportunities that were landing on his doorstep. Opportunities she wished she had.
Ileana stared into space, thinking of all the things that could occur in the two days of staying at home. Two days felt like a long time. The weekend without her friends to support her while she tolerated her unwanted guest.
"You're distracting me," Leyla spoke as she started chewing the pencil in her mouth. "Can you please do something instead of sitting like a statue? All I can see from the back of my head is you, frowning like you have a mid-life crisis."
Ileana scrunched her brows and pouted, "No. This is worse than a mid-life crisis."
"Acha and your solution is to act like a child whose mum said no to ice cream for breakfast. Sometimes, Lena, you need to grow up and not be stupid. Because when you do, you'll make bad decisions and one day you'll regret them." Leyla got up from her seat, tucking her chair under her desk. Ileana rolled her eyes at her friend's lecture, which would never end. "For example, when you took me out in the dark to find nothing. That was outrageous. You weren't thinking and honestly, I don't understand..."
Ileana stopped her friend from uttering another word, "I would love it if you just got to the point, why does it take you half an hour to explain one thing?"
Leyla nodded her head, "What I am trying to say is, don't act like this whole situation is a big issue. It shouldn't have to be. It's only a few hours of baring Draven and then you can just get on with the rest of the weekend. You'll be back at The Manor and can get on with school."
"I am not making a fuss about this." Ileana argued back, "Ugh, and it doesn't help he comes here too. Maybe I should just lie to my mum and say I'm ill."
Leyla's eyes widened in shock, "Astaghfirullah Ileana. You will not lie to your mother, I will not let you. And this is your mum we are talking about, if she found out you were ill, she would come here personally to collect you and take you home."
"I just don't want to see him. I don't want to breathe the same air as him. I don't want Draven in my home, he's an asshole. I don't want him anywhere near me." Ileana cried in frustration. "Wait, why don't you come with me? Please Ley, and my mum would love to see you."
"What about Auri? I can't leave her alone." Leyla questioned, concerned about their friend. "And you need to do this on your own. Now come on, let's go get food. I'm starving and I heard they're giving mac and cheese in the cafeteria today."
Ileana stood up and Leyla dragged her by arm out the door forcefully, "I don't even know why you like that so much. It's not even nice."
"Shush, you do not get to speak about food so disrespectfully." Leyla scolded her and she just shrugged her shoulders.
The cafeteria was open throughout the whole day during the weekends, students were allowed to use it whenever they wanted to. They didn't have to pay for meals or snacks at SFM. Given that parents paid thousands to send their children to this school, the expenses were paid with it so they just grabbed what they wanted.
Ileana's ringtone pinged, she looked to see who had texted her. "Auri is on her way and said to get her a vegetarian pasty and a vegan honey yoghurt." Aurelia was at the stables looking after her horses. It was all she ever did in her free time.
"And she can't come to get it herself," Leyla answered, while she adjusted her scarf pin and threw the chiffon material over her shoulder.
As the girls made their way through the school into the binding where the cafeteria was, they noticed a few people followed by the Headmistress with clipboards. St Farlingtons wasn't home to many guests, it was quite rare for someone outside the school to visit. They were very strict about people who came in and out of the school, for safety reasons.
Ileana scanned the school premises to see what exactly it could be. She didn't know if anything was going on and Lyttleton would have informed her, as she most likely would have been needed.
She nudged Leyla, "Who are those?"
"I heard the school is holding the qualifiers for some huge competition next year and I guess they're the judges or something like that. It might be for badminton or swimming, I'm not sure. I don't really pay attention to things I don't care about." Leyla tried to explain but thought Ileana at all people would know more about this. "There are so many schools coming tonight. It's kind of a big deal. But again, don't believe everything I say."
Ileana peered into the Sports Centre to see people walking into the building, people she didn't recognise. The sports centre was built just before Ileana arrived at the school, so it was a pretty new asset to the school.
They had reached the dining hall which was only half full of students, and the girls walked to the queue. Ileana inspected the food in front of her and wasn't satisfied enough. Although she wasn't in the middle to eat anything, she knew her stomach said otherwise.
"Just eat the mac and cheese, Ileana," Leyla said as she grabbed two containers for them. "It's so good, I don't understand how you can refuse it. Maybe it'll cheer you up, food always does."
Ileana nodded in return and reached to get Aurelia's hot food and then walked to the fridge to get her a yoghurt, whilst Leyla heated the pasta. After grabbing the utensils, they sat down and waited for Aurelia.
Leyla was so excited about eating today, however, Ileana wasn't bothered. She stared at her friend as she took the lid of the pot and inhaled the aroma of the food. Leyla smiled happily at Ileana before taking a fork and stabbing the pasta. "Bismillah," She uttered before taking a bite and Ileana slowly did the same.
"I'm so sorry," The girls turned their heads to see Aurelia. "I'm late but don't blame me, it wasn't my fault. Arrow was being a bad son and not listening to me, and I had to chase him." Ileana and Leyla laughed at the mention of her running after her horse. Aurie didn't waste a further second, she sat in front of them and started to eat.
Leyla stared at her friend's face, "You look weird and very sweaty. And did you do something to your hair? It looks messy. What did Arrow do to you?"
"Yeah, I can see that too," Ileana added as she swallowed her food and pointed to Aurelia with her finger.
Aurelia suddenly started fixing her hair, flattening it down and chuckled, "No. I just told you I was running around to grab the horse. He was super hyper today and didn't want to do anything."
"You know you've been quite occupied lately, what's up with you? Aren't you spending a little too much time in the stables? What is there that is so entertaining?" Ileana interrogated, as she started poking at her food that she didn't want anymore.
Aurelia paused, looking up at her friends and thinking of the right words. Her facial expression dropped and she started licking her lips. After many seconds she decided to confess, "There's been a problem."
"Huh, what kind of problem? What's wrong?" Leyla asked sincerely and placed her hand on Aurelias.
Aurelia's eyes drooped down, "It's my mother and the school. I think they're taking the horse away. My mum wants to sell Arrow to some people up north and I can't let that happen. I just like spending time with my horse in case they do take him away from me."
"Aw Aurie baby, that's so sad," Ileana said in a soft baby voice and Aurie gagged at the use of the word baby. She hated when any of her friends called her that. "I'm sure they won't take him away from you, and you're rich, you could get five new horses if you wanted to."
"Would you like it if your parents took your ugly cats away from you? Honestly, you would cry the most out of any of us." Aurelia snatched Ileana pot of mac and cheese and started munching on it, "I'm stress eating, just ignore me."
Leyla observed her friend's actions and furrowed her brows, "Wait, aren't you vegan? You do realise there's cheese in that, from cows."
Aurelia had become a vegan ever since she had gotten pets including her precious horse. She wasn't happy about it at first but over the years, has loved it. Aurie was a great lover of animals and claimed she'd be betraying them if she ate meat. You could never catch her ever consuming animals or dairy products, even her makeup was strictly animal cruelty-free.
"Oh shit," She cursed before spitting it out back into the container and handing it back to Ileana. "You can finish it off for me."
Ileana gazed at it in disgust before pushing it aside away from the area the girls were sitting. Aurie started telling the girls how her day went and Ileana couldn't help but stare into her imagination.
Draven knew something and she couldn't do anything about it. She was going to have dinner with the Whittemore's and didn't know if she could even survive through it, with Draven sitting across from her. Ileana's exam revision was piling up on her and the workload was a lot. She also had to practice ballet in time for the next recital and find a new violin teacher.
"Lena, are you even listening?" Aurelia a voice snapped her out and she blinked as her friend clicked her fingers in front of her face.
"Yeah, I just..." Her eyes wandered around the room until they stopped at the entrance of the cafeteria. She rolled her eyes dramatically, and any stranger would know exactly why.
Draven Whittemore stepped into the dining hall with his friends. Several eyes turned in their direction, which wasn't anything new. Draven was the kind of person that stopped you in your tracks, everyone paused to look at their ever so perfect faces. They didn't even have to smile to get attention, it just came with the popularity.
The Enthroned Saints of SFM. That's what everyone called them, they loved the nickname. Loved that everyone knew about them and wanted to be a part of their gang, but could only dream of it.
Ileana gawked at him in nausea. Black never looked so good on anyone and she hated this. Everyone knew Draven and his friends were handsome, they were very attractive. When they were all seen together, it was a blessing to the eye. However, for Ileana, this was the devil in disguise.
After the last encounter she had with Draven wasn't the best, but when was it ever. Ileana rotated her head and faced the girls.
"Just don't bother about them, act as if they're not even there," Leyla muttered.
"They just had to come in here and ruin my day more than it already is." Ileana signed in bitterness, "If only I could fuck his day up."
"Ileana no, I don't think that would end well." Leyla protested. She was always the one who told Ileana off and was very straight up about it. She didn't want her to get in trouble as it would jeopardise a lot.
Ileana couldn't take her eyes off Draven as he spoke with his friends. They had taken a seat a few tables in front of Ileana's and looked to be having a very serious conversation.
"Who said I was going to do anything?" Ileana folded her arms and looked around but didn't pay attention to the boys across from her. Draven hadn't made eye contact with her yet, which gave her more reason to maybe do something.
Aurelia looked up from her phone after texting, "I say you go do what you want. Honestly, it might just put Draven in his place."
As the words left her mouth, Leyla reached forward and smacked her in the head which caused her to wail out loud. "Don't you be a bad influence on Ileana? Stop, you will not do as such. Lena, don't you dare listen to this silly child."
Ileana saw that Draven hadn't gotten up and would have to go past them if he wanted something to eat or drink. "I think I need to get some chocolate milk." Ileana grinned, "I will be right back.
"No," Leyla repeated and grabbed her hand before she made any more steps.
"Ley, let her go," Aurelia stated and Leyla didn't exactly do that. She knew Ileana wasn't only going to get a drink for herself. She was going to do more than that.
Ileana walked quickly to the fridge and a large bottle of chocolate milk. It was her favourite and the thought of wasting it hurt her soul, but she knew this was going to be worth it.
She unscrewed the cap and took a few sips, before taking her phone and looking down at the screen. Ileana swiftly strolled, not looking up to see her view and when she finally approached him, she tilted the bottle and all the condiments spilt on him. Ileana had poured the bottle on Draven Whittemore.
"What the fuck!" Draven yelled, you could almost see the steam coming out of his ears and Ileana burst out laughing as she saw his t-shirt was drenched in the liquid. She dropped the bottle on the floor and the remaining milk splattered on his white trainers.
Draven lifted his t-shirt so that it wouldn't come in contact with his skin. "Watch where you are going, Whittemore."
"Are you blind? Look what you've done." Draven eyes widened, Ileana hadn't seen him so furious.
"It was your fault. You came in my way." Ileana argued back. Seconds later, both Leyla and Aurelia stood by Ileana's side in shock.
"Oh my fucking god, this has to be the funniest thing I have ever seen." Aurelia cracked up as Leyla placed her hand over her mouth, lost for words.
Draven stepped forward with his jaw clenched, you could see the veins in his neck popping at, "You did this on purpose. I have the qualifiers in an hour, you knew this."
"I did not, I don't know what you are talking about." Ileana defended herself, lying through her teeth.
The boys rushed to Draven, as soon as they looked up and saw the chaos in front of them. The whole cafeteria was staring at the commotion.
"Amari, you just played the wrong game with the wrong person." She shrugged her shoulders unbothered but felt so proud to have humiliated him in front of many students.
Ileana stepped further towards him, trying not to get her shoes wet, "Maybe, but you're playing an even worse one."
"Guys, let's not do this now. Lyttleton will be here any minute." Zhang spoke, interrupting their heated conversation. "Draven, forget it, let's go.
Ileana glared at Zhang, "Maybe tell your brother over here, to not be a dickhead and everything will be fine."
"Oh, I'm the issue. This isn't the first time you've bumped into me. You're an attention seeker," Draven spitted out. "Does mommy and daddy not give you enough attention at home? You feel the need to beg for it at school."
"Says the one who's doing fucked up shit behind their parents back. I'm sure Reed will be pleased when he hears about you. I'll make sure to tell them how amazing their son is in two weeks?" Ileana announced and Draven was stunned. Their friends left them, as they couldn't be bothered to stand and listen to them argue. They did this often and let him carry on until they were done.
"Amari," The deep voice uttering her middle name so effortlessly, as if he's been practising it in his spare time. He tutted before speaking, "You keep telling yourself that. Because as far as I am concerned, dinner will just be about you."
Ileana shifted in her position and swallowed hard as he fake chewed his nonexistent gum. "You truly do intrigue me, Amari. All those things fascinate me. Everyone should know, right? I bet they're all dying to know what only I know."
"Some talking in riddles," He chuckled, Ileana rolled her eyes and moved her head to the side as she folded her arms.
"I need to clean this mess up, and qualify with flying colours, but you sit here and think about how awful dinner will be. Because it will indeed be extraordinary." He walked away, and when he got to the door he stripped out of his t-shirt revealing his defined, muscular back.
Ileana stood in the middle of the back of the hall on a puddle of chocolate milk.
"Woah, do you see how hot he looked?" Aurelia stepped next to her, "I'm so glad you spilt that all over him or I would have missed that sight."
"Just shut up." Ileana shook her head. This was going to be hard but she will do anything to get back at Draven, even if it means exposing him in front of his family.
⤝ AUTHORS NOTE ⤞
Hi, my beautiful people. Another boring chapter. I don't know what I'm writing anymore but we're gonna act like we all understand. I thought the whole spilling drink was funny but I have been told my humour is dry, so we are gonna also act like that didn't happen. I can't wait for the dinner chapter, ugh imagine having dinner with hot Draven. I would die.
And I gave up edited this chapter so If there's any mistakes ignore them. Anyways, I hope you liked this chapter. Again, if I have write. anything to offend anyone I apologise,
Thank you so much for reading! I love you all very much.