WARNING: This story contains content that depicts death, substance abuse, terminal illness, sexual harassment, mentions of abuse, mental health crisis such as depression and anxiety, and suicide that may be upsetting for some readers. Any depictions of mental health issues herein are not meant as a replacement for medical care. If you or someone you know in the U.S. is contemplating suicide, please encourage them to call 988 or visit 988lifeline.org. For international resources, please visit: http://www.suicide.org/hotlines/international-suicide-hotlines.html.
Reader discretion is advised.
[ Part 1 ]
Lyla James was pissed.
Miss Wyatt had gone mad—Lyla was sure of it.
A C? A fucking C? She was crazy. Biology was Lyla's best subject—ask anyone (and by anyone, Lyla meant her mom)—and she was Ernest Hemingway when it came to essays. In fact, that essay had probably been the best one Lyla had ever written in her life, and that's why she knew Miss Wyatt must have skipped her pills.
Lyla's attempt at a civil conversation had been a bust. She'd cited all the reasons the C had to be some sort of mistake (her spotless record and adherence to the rubric among her points), but Wyatt simply wouldn't budge. That was when Lyla got that crazy look in her eye and decided to walk out of the room before throwing a chair at the woman's face.
The reason for the C? Lyla's work lacked passion.
But who the fuck needed passion when you were Albert fucking Einstein reincarnated?
Lyla had gone straight to the main office then, but Principal Yancy—like the traitor she was—had sided with Wyatt. So Lyla had settled on doing the only thing she could do: rant about the unfairness of it all to Sirah.
Lyla saw the light...the light being the fact that every staff member at Trellis High was honestly out to get her. She walked into the school cafeteria with her essay clenched in her fist and a few colorful expletives on her lips. Halfway across the room, though, she realized that Sirah wasn't at their cafeteria table yet...which meant that the table was completely deserted.
Yeah, Sirah Hassan was Lyla's only friend, but what else was new? Since moving to Trellis her freshman year, Lyla had worked pretty hard at fading into the background, and it had actually proved more difficult than she'd thought. Trellis was the sort of town where newcomers were a rare and intriguing breed, and it was even worse if you were new to Trellis High. No one minded their own damn business, and her teachers had tried to do that "introduce yourself in front of the entire class" thing on her first day there.
Lyla, however, had dealt with them as she dealt with most everything in life—by staring the fuck out of it until it backed down. Of course, this tactic wasn't effective 100% of the time (Miss Wyatt, anyone?), but as Lyla slipped into a seat at her cafeteria table, she hoped that it would be good enough in this instance.
Someone was staring at her.
She'd known it since the moment she'd stepped into the cafeteria—had expected it, even. It had begun that Monday and never failed to give her the heebz. She could feel it all over her skin, emanating from that weird spot right at the back of her neck where her hairs stood on end.
Lyla hadn't really been this annoyed since her freshman year, when she'd had to dodge a million questions, avoid a million people, and stare a million bullets into a million heads before she was left alone. Since then, Lyla hadn't been stared at (except maybe by Sirah), and there wasn't a good enough reason in the universe for someone to be staring at her now.
A part of her wanted to just ignore it—hey, just because she didn't have a problem confronting people didn't mean she liked doing it—but another part of her knew this game had gone on for too long. Lyla had thought she'd made her position in the Trellis High social ladder quite clear: avoid at all costs. In fact, the day the student body had crowned her queen of intimidation nation, Lyla had thought she'd well and truly won.
But it seemed the boy in the white dress shirt had not gotten the memo.
He was full-on, no-fucks-given staring at her.
Lyla narrowed her eyes at him. He was seated all the way across the cafeteria, so she could only just make him out. His blinding white button-down was easy enough to spot (had his mother blessed that shit with heaven's bleach?), but his face was a little harder to pinpoint. Lyla only knew that she didn't know him—but then again, did she really know anyone at Trellis—and that his mother must have dressed him.
He was wearing khaki slacks.
Of course, Lyla could appreciate a spiffy ensemble when she saw one, but for Trellis High...the outfit was more than a little weird. It was unheard of. She wondered how the guy even had friends. Yet, he did—and more than enough, it seemed. Students from other tables had pulled up their chairs to sit at his, and still, he remained an iceberg in a sea of commotion, his gaze trained solely upon her.
Lyla flipped him off.
And he laughed. He actually laughed. It was like they were in a movie, how he threw his head back and just laughed.
When he sobered up and stared at her once again, Lyla began to imagine sporking him in the eyes. It was possible, she was sure. If she just angled the plastic utensil the right way and aimed for his pupils...
He was grinning at her.
Wtf.
He waved, his hand fluttering faintly in the air.
Creep. Your smile is crooked; did you know that?
"Are you and Haiden Lucas having a staring competition or something?"
Lyla blinked, severing the cord that bound her to him, and turned to face the short brunette at her side. "Haiden?" she sneered. "Haiden's having a little problem with his eyes."
"What?" Sirah laughed. "You're not honestly mad, are you? Haiden's one of the nicest guys in our—oh, sweet baby Jesus, I think he's coming over here."
"Coming over...?" It was happening alright. Haiden Lucas sprung to his feet, ridiculous crooked smile and all. He straightened his shirt and tucked his hands in his pockets before proceeding to cross the lunchroom, his path a dead-straight shot to her lunch table. "Sirah," Lyla began warily.
"Oh, God, Lyla, don't fucking look at him." Sirah sat down, thunking her physics workbook in front of her and mindlessly flipping through the pages. "Do something, Lyla. Anything. Just don't fucking look at him. Act cool, for goodness sake!"
Abort, abort.
Later on, when Lyla revisited this moment (and she would, countless times), she would wonder what in the hell had come over her. She would ask herself when her mother had raised such a spineless wuss. Like, really, what the hell happened to the cheeky, bold woman she and Sirah knew and loved?
Because as Haiden Lucas drifted ever nearer and Lyla found herself trapped in his wide, amber eyes and crooked smile, she had only one thought.
I think the fuck not.
And then she was flying out the door.
"Lyla?!" Sirah called after in disbelief, but Lyla was going, going, gone.
***
As first encounters often are, Lyla's and Haiden's was truthfully a ghastly disaster—that was if you could even call their interaction an encounter.
On the second occasion that Lyla James laid eyes on the boy in the white dress shirt, not only was he not wearing a white dress shirt, but the encounter—real, this time—took place in a classroom. It was a setting Lyla could not easily escape, especially considering that the teacher was none other than the infamous Miss Wyatt.
It was the start of the second semester at Trellis, and Lyla had managed to put aside her grudge towards the ancient woman in order to feign "passion", for she would be damned if she let her inability to feel enthusiasm towards science ruin her perfect record.
"Lucas and James—the female, Quentin." Wyatt raised her brow at the restless male before turning her attention back to the lab stations. "Station five, Lucas."
Lyla recognized neither the name nor the face of her newfound partner. He was sporting a baby-blue dress shirt, and the only thing that concerned her was that he looked a bit too easy-going for her tastes; he was bound to be trouble. With a faint smirk on his lips, he glanced sidelong at her as she took her seat at their table.
"Is track season over for you?"
Lyla blinked. "Excuse me?"
"You don't remember," he said, chuckling. "Should I be offended, because I really thought we had a moment back there? In the cafeteria?"
And then Lyla's new lab partner was suddenly all too familiar—if not for the dress shirt, then for the same crooked smile she had detested before, as much as she still did now. Lyla scowled; she would not let him get to her. "Don't you know it's rather rude to stare at people?"
"I would apologize, but I actually didn't do anything wrong." If it was even possible, Haiden's grin grew wider.
His smile is crooked.
"Have you ever heard of a thing called common courtesy?" Lyla muttered, and her eyes flickered from Haiden's to his pleated khakis. She didn't like how she already knew his eyes were a deep shade of amber. And she definitely didn't like how she noticed that he had the tiniest silver fleck within his right iris, like stardust floating in a galaxy.
"Oh, but you make a boy want to throw all sense to the wind." He sighed.
His smile is crooked.
Scowling, Lyla stared hard at the analog clock behind Haiden, counting the minutes until class would be over.
"Are you ignoring me?" Haiden asked abruptly, and Lyla could hardly keep herself from biting out a sharp yes!
He tilted his head in her direction, attempting to place himself in her line of sight. When he realized that she was deliberately avoiding his gaze, he gasped dramatically. "You are ignoring me. That's not very nice, you know."
Lyla whipped her head in his direction. He was as bat-shit crazy as Miss Wyatt. "You do know who I am, right?"
"Intimidation nation. All hail the queen," he murmured, though not derisively. "Lyla James: loner extraordinaire." Haiden's gaze turned thoughtful. "Sirah Hassan's your closest—and only—friend, as far as I can tell. You're smart, to the point where you'd be number one in our class if not for Alexander Tate—"
"For your information, Alex wouldn't even be number one if Wyatt wasn't out to get—" Lyla froze, for Haiden's expression had turned smug.
She clenched her jaw shut.
"As I was saying"—he grinned at her—"you'd be number one if not for Alexander Tate, but it hardly matters whether you're smart. Or funny. Or a secret drug lord, because you scare the crap out of everyone at this school."
"Oh, yeah," Lyla muttered, "then why are you even talking to me right now?"
"Because you scare the crap out of everyone except me."
And she did not know what to say to that. Haiden's amber eyes caught her grey ones, and she was again drawn to the silver fleck within his right iris. It seemed to pulsate, dancing in a sea of deep-spun gold, pulling her in.
"Lyla?" Haiden whispered her name gently, and she was startled out of her reverie.
Get a grip, James! She'd been staring somewhat mesmerized into his eyes, and she was more than ashamed. This was not some high school fairytale, and she was not one of those girls. Sirah had been right; Haiden was charming—she was completely conscious of that fact, just as she was conscious of the fact that he was using his charisma as a weapon.
He was grinning at her, currently. Grinning with that stupid crooked smile of his, and so she made sure he saw her deliberately scoot her stool away from him. He saw it—she was sure he had—but he only laughed, the sound ringing in her ears.
However, when she was a few minutes into her quest to mentally wipe Haiden Lucas from the face of the earth, he began to weasel his way back into her head. It was his left hand, each fingertip following the other as he drummed out a slow rhythm on the smooth surface of their lab table.
Tap, tap, tap, tap.
1, 2, 3, 4.
1, 2, 3, 4.
1, 2, 3, 4.
She zoned in on his hand, her face flushing with heat as irritation rose within her. Haiden was no stranger to her annoyance, and he flattened his palm and silenced the sound only to watch her eyes drift to his face.
"We should probably pay attention to the lesson, Ly." He arched a dark brow when she twitched at the nickname. "Wyatt's speaking, and we both know you've got your work cut out for you."
Oh, where was the spork when you needed one?