As she walked around campus with a newfound confidence, Miren wondered if any of her classes would be able to meet the unbelievable, exhilarating high that was first hour.
So far it didn't seem like a possibility.
Calc was calc; she had bookwork on solving trigonometric integrals. And the instructor—Miren was actually delighted to see that he was male—a middle aged, quiet man, seemed polite enough to not draw unwarranted attention to her.
"Welcome to Rinzen, Mr. Ellison," he had said. He didn't call her up to introduce herself or anything. And Miren was fine with that. She was too busy basking in the glow of pissing the hell out of Ms. Cowdry.
As Miren ventured outside, she began to enjoy the fact that the school had such a detached campus. The perimeter of the school was enclosed by black gates, but almost each subject of class had its own type of building, permitting Miren to go outside and soak up the fresh fall air.
She was sure that it made things unpleasant during the wintertime, but since it was only mid September, the air was brisk and cool, the sun supplying her with moderate warmth. It was that type of neutral weather where you could wear practically anything and not fall victim to the staggering effects of Mother Nature.
With the school map in hand, Miren walked toward Jasper Theater for philharmonic orchestra. When she opened them, she was exposed to a space that resembled her old orchestra room at Rosemunde. Built like a small theater, about thirty emerald green viewing chairs were aligned in three rows. A large stage lifted about three feet from the ground. On it was a group of students chatting and strumming their instruments.
She walked toward an empty seat, following along with the students. She continued strumming her viola about five minutes before starring out into space. Something didn't feel right. Where's the teacher?
As she began to think about the instructor's absence, she could hear shoes shuffling from behind the stage. The instructor probably had a small office there. But emerging from the dark depths of the backstage wasn't a teacher, but rather a student with a violin in hand.
Jeno? She squinted her eyes at him when his gaze nonchalantly met her's. In a short notice, he was standing center stage.
"Mr. Gales is unavailable at the moment," he said. "I will be administering the warm up."
He then held his violin for proper play. "Instruments up."
The students obeyed, and on Jeno's cue, began to tune their instruments accordingly. After a little while, Jeno brought down his instrument. "That's enough."
As if on cue, Mr. Gales, a white-haired older man, met up with Jeno. "Thank you for your help!" he said, patting the young male's shoulder, "You can sit down now."
Jeno nodded, taking a seat in the front of the first circular row. Looking up from the back row, Miren rolled her eyes when she saw where he was sitting. He was first-chair violin.
Of course, Miren thought, shaking her head, the tormentors get everything, don't they?
"Moving on," The instructor began, shattering Miren's thoughts, "I'm sorry I kept all of you waiting. I had a doctor's appointment this morning. I have this deep, oozing rash on my arm—"
"Too much information," Jeno interrupted, almost jokingly.
Miren's eyes widened. She didn't know it was possible for Jeno to show any other emotion aside disdain toward her. Some of the boys began chuckling. Mr. Gales began to shush them, waving his short arms in the air.
"Alright, Mr. Rutherford," he humored back, before turning to his stand containing a music book. "We've wasted enough time already. Bring out your music, and begin playing," he flipped a few pages before settling on a song, "Con Te Partiro."
Miren starred blankly at her stand that contained no music. Before they could go any further, she shot a hand in the air.
"I don't have a book," she said, once again forcing a manly essence in her voice. "Sorry."
The older teacher studied her for a moment before almost jumping up. "Oh! Yes, we have a new student, don't we?" he said, bringing out an extra copy of sheet music from his stand. "Mr. Ellison, I believe?" he addressed, as she nodded. "Would you like to come up here and introduce yourself?"
"Uh, no," she said very directly, earning a few snickers from the guys around her.
"You sure? Last chance!"
"I'm good."
"Okay, Mr. Ellison," the teacher sighed lightly, probably a little disappointed. "Now I don't expect you to be perfectly in tune with everyone since you haven't practiced this piece, but give it your all! The Riz Academy doesn't like quitters," He warned her, though his green eyes were warm.
Miren nodded. Who said she was quitting? This was her new beginning, after all.
"Begin!" The teacher called out of nowhere as students, in proper position to play, began to orchestrate sweet sounds from their instruments. And that was the worst part—the fact that it seemed so effortless for all of them. Except her.
She was struggling. And just because Mr. Gales said she would didn't make it any better. As she fought to keep along with the expressive song, she delivered some very wrong notes that she could only pray went unheard.
When they finished, her cheeks were on fire. Then she saw Jeno. Facing her direction.
Snickering.
Her face spoiled into an angry pout. Who the hell does he think he is?
**
"Who the hell does he think he is?" Miren said as she took a very aggressive bite from her salad. Her eyes darted across the room, focusing on the table that he was siting at.
"Who?" Wallace questioned, taking a bite of his sandwich. His eyes scouted across the cafeteria. "What did he do?" Wallace didn't look worried, but he certainly didn't like the idea of not knowing. And now that Chara had put him in charge of monitoring Miren, this drive was even more intense.
Miren swallowed. "Jeno," she spat. "He's pretty much made it his job to make me look bad."
Wallace brought a finger to his lips. "One, you're already doing that to yourself. Two, you want to say that louder for the whole school to hear you?"
"Yeah," replied a dirty blonde at their table. "No one likes a public outburst without a fight. And something tells me you're not a fighter."
"Henry's right. You don't want to bring any unwanted attention to yourself," Wallace said. It was a public outburst that got her here after all.
Miren shook her head, though her eyes didn't trail from the target of her trouble. "Too late."
"What are we, a bunch of gossiping girls?" said another boy, Chester, his eyes narrowing as he wrinkled his nose. "Why are we talking about Jeno?"
"That's exactly what I want to know," Wallace said earnestly, with Henry nodding behind him.
Miren's head lowered as she stared into her salad. She was forgetting that boys weren't usually that vocal about their problems. And now that she thought about it, she didn't know if she had a problem. Besides the obvious.
"I don't know really. I guess it's just that he's..." Miren thought about it, returning her gaze to her source of vexation. "...Indirectly responsible for most of the troubles I've encountered today. I mean, the first day is hard enough all ready—"
"What did he do?" Henry interrupted. Tapping her fingers against the table, Miren tried to muster up a response. Turning her gaze to the boy, she began with a sigh.
"Well, I was late to Ms. Cowdry's and I forgot my laptop—"
"Why?" Henry intervened again. Miren groaned. Henry's buzzy personality couldn't be denied—she could see his eyes light up with interest. In fact, it was nice to see someone here who seemed to care about her problems, but she was getting annoyed.
"I don't know." She tried to exhale the tension on her tone. "I guess it's his presence. He wants nothing to do with me, and he let's me know that without even saying anything." Miren persuaded, nonchalantly playing with the straw of her iced tea. She hated being shunned, but she hated feeling like she had done something wrong more. "So come this morning, I was eager to leave and I left in a rush."
The guys nodded. "Don't worry, Miles," Chester assured her. "Jeno doesn't warm up to others that well, but he's cool. He's great to all of us, so I don't see why he wouldn't treat you to same," said the junior, taking a hearty bite from his burger. "Unless you're a straight up freak or something. But you seem relatively normal to me."
Wallace laughed a bit at that, shooting Miren the all-knowing eye.
"Unless you're a straight up freak or something."
Yup, that was her. Shrugging her shoulders and trying not to feel insulted, Miren responded, "Maybe. But something tells me that it's not going to be as easy as it was for most of you." Her glance fell on Wallace. "Being his roommate and all."
And it was true. If she were actually a boy, maybe she would have read Jeno's behavior as some sort of male indifference. But she was still a girl, and he was coming off as a jerk.
But she didn't want to see him as a jerk. She just got here. She didn't want to feel attacked by anyone. Especially not by someone that everyone seemed to hold in a high regard.
Miren's eyes skimmed over his table some feet over. All eight seats were filled, and even more students hovered around it. Parker was there too, and although he appeared to be the life of the table, Jeno also seemed to be an active participant in whatever they were discussion. Even if he didn't look particularly happy.
She could remember him being associated with Parker, but it might have been just a fleeting memory from freshman year. However, she couldn't remember whether that association was good or bad. But choosing to accept or reject attention were two different things; and he refused to accept it then. Just because he was acknowledging it now didn't mean anything.
But with his appearance more striking than ever, and his ember eyes that seemed to burn with a different type of fire...It couldn't be denied.
Jeno was popular.
And for that reason, Miren couldn't let him despise her. He had power. And his power could lead to her demise. Again.
"Fine," Miren sighed. "What makes Jeno so cool? I wouldn't mind knowing, since he probably won't be telling me any time soon."
Chester lifted his shoulders, scratching his brown hair. "First off, he's a senior so that's automatic," he started, as Henry nodded. "And I'm pretty sure he's first in his class too. Um...He's President of Student Administration, Varsity Tennis and Track Captain, and he's in some other clubs."
"He's in Science Olympiad, Debate, and quiz-bowl with me," Wallace brought up.
"First chair violin..." Chester added, as Miren nodded. "There are a lot of other things, but aside from that, he's pretty bad ass."
"The baddest," Henry said.
"Good to know." Miren smiled at that. With a long list of achievements, Jeno did appear less menacing and more scholarly. Maybe she could learn to live with him.
"Speaking of badass," Wallace said, as his hazel eyes focused on Miren's, "we heard you put Ms. Cowdry in her place."
Miren grinned. "Um, yeah. She put me on the spot to discuss the U.S Suffrage Movement before we had actually learned it. Good thing we had covered it in my last school."
Henry laughed energetically. "Yeah, I had her last year for Honors World History. Although she's great to look at, she's an—"
"Utter monster?" Miren guessed as Henry laughed with a nod.
"Either way," Chester began, "Everyone's heard of your showdown with her. I think someone even made a Vine out of it." He laughed. "So congratulations, no one thinks you're a total loser."
Miren scoffed, though a smiled appeared on her face. That's a first.
Taking another bite from her salad, Miren jumped when she heard the bell ring.
"Lunch is over all ready?" she asked over the ringing.
Wallace nodded, discarding the remains of his lunch as Henry and Chester rose from their chairs. She sighed.
"Boys eat fast." Wallace shrugged, tossing Miren's container into the trash. Turning to her, he shook his head.
"They also don't eat salad."