#1 draft. Published 25/07/2016
Beatrice's POV
Needless to say: I am pissed.
This morning I woke up feeling good, as good as it is possible for me to feel at 6:30am. But while I was enjoying a delightful breakfast of bagels and banana I got an unexpected call from my Father.
In a conversation that I quickly ended, my Father, other wise known as Mike Wakefield, told me that he would be moving to Spain with his new gold-digger girlfriend, Cindy. He also called me Beatrice, so he obviously thinks it's a very serious matter. I abruptly hung up, not feeling in the mood to hear his bullshit excuses, I doubt he really cared, he probably just felt obligated and wanted to say goodbye for good.
So I dumped my bagel in the bin, no longer in the mood for nutritious/delicious food. I then slung my backpack over my shoulder and stalked out the door without saying goodbye to my Mother, otherwise known as Sarah Wakefield.
So, at this precise moment I am slumping towards school, the last place I want to be right now, with a distorted scowl planted onto my face. The rain is slightly trickling down and is forming droplets on my hair and eyelashes and making my shoes a bit soggy, I would normally love this but obviously not very helpful for my mood right now.
Once I enter the school my surroundings also don't do wonders to make me feel better. The paint is chipping on all the walls and dented lockers and every single person that I walk past manages to irritate me just by looking at me.
It may surprise anyone who encounters me now to learn that I'm normally quite a happy person and have quite a positive outlook on life, but everyone has their off days.
When I walk up to my locker my two best friends are already waiting for me.
Rebecca: a tall, blonde, elegant, funny, sweet, popular girl who has been loyal to me since I offered her a cookie at lunch when we were 7. Right now, the fact that she was so perfect made me bitter.
Then my other best friend, Ollie: a partially nerdy but fairly attractive guy with olive skin and black curls and a big build. One of the things that initially attracted me to Ollie was that we had a shared love of music and literature. Me and Rebecca gravitated towards him as soon as we met him at age 13. 4 years later and I couldn't imagine my lives without them.
"Oh shit, she looks like she's about to backhand someone," Ollie says to Becca without tearing his eyes from me and chuckling.
"What happened Bea?" Becca soothes, while cocking her head and letting beautifully curled pieces of hair fall to the side.
"Nothing, my Dad's just intolerable sometimes," I grind out, desperate to avoid the subject but while also trying to stop myself from spewing endless abuse about him. Rebecca opens her mouth, about to reply but is cut short when the bell rings for first period. History, fücking wonderful.
"Come on, grumpy-pants", Ollie coaxes while draping his arm over my shoulders and guiding me towards our history room, at least I have this lesson with him, it almost makes it bearable.
However, as we walk through the hoards of teenagers in the too-small corridor someone's hard shoulder catches mine and knocks me onto the floor. I drop all my books and make a sort of ughhhhh sound.
While gathering my stuff a deep voice sounds from above me,
"You should watch where you're going," Warren Mason purrs as I look up at him and he towers over me, and before I have a moment to understand who I'm talking to or what I'm saying I blurt out,
"I don't know whether you have the mental capacity to understand this but it does actually take two objects to cause a collision," I almost clap a hand over my mouth in shock but continue to stare at him venomously. A look of shock flashed over his godlike face but then he just smirks and walks away.
Warren Mason is treated as royalty in our school, for reasons that remain unclear to me, and he looks down on everyone with arrogance that you couldn't even imagine. Despite his impossibly alluring features: tawny skin, neat short brown hair, hazel eyes and muscular build: I have never been attracted to Warren. If anything his personality means that I am physically repulsed by him. So what I said in the corridor today, if I'm honest, felt pretty goddamn good.
After getting up clumsily and receiving a warning glance from Ollie I continue to walk to history feeling surprisingly better about my day.
Warren's POV
I was just talking to Jamie, my best buddy, about the oncoming football game, discussing strategy, with Amy clinging onto my arm like a limpet, when I felt my shoulder knock into something and a small brunette girl that I don't recognise crumpled to the floor, dropping her books. She looks rather innocent and childlike with her legs splayed out and droplets clinging to her long hair. But all the same it was her fault, she walked into me, so I say,
"You should watch where you're going,"
There's no doubt in my mind that she'll either apologise or say nothing at all but instead she looks up at me with rage gleaming in her eyes and says,
"I don't know whether you have the mental capacity to understand this but it does actually take two objects to cause a collision," and for a second I don't really know how to act in this situation. But I'm late, and don't really have time for her so I just smirk and walk away.
But during my period of Further Maths I can't help but think back to the girl who stood up to me with the droplets in her hair.
******
After Maths I head towards AP Chemistry with a friend from the hockey team. My lessons are a fairly heavy load as my parents want me to get into Yale, I don't know what I want really. All I know is that I don't want to disappoint them.
Once I'm in my science room I immediately notice the rain-drop girl sitting at the back of the room laughing with Rebecca Lower. Of course I recognise Rebecca because everyone knows her, but how could I have never even heard of this girl who I have AP Chemistry with?
I go and sit down and twiddle my pen masterfully between my fingers, waiting for a task for me to complete.
"Alright guys, today we're doing a practical," Mrs Mathews begins, she earns some half-hearted cheers from that, "you're going to be pairing up for this," a few people in the room begin making eye contact at their friends across the room, not me though, none of my friends have the intellect to be in AP Chemistry.
After explaining what we have to do people begin to shuffle towards each other but she shouts over people's chatter, "No no no no no. I will be pairing you up," on instinct people moan.
Anyone would be lucky to be paired with me because I can get any task done without fault in half the given time, so I just sit, uninterested in who I partner with.
However my interest soon perks up when a certain small, brunette girl plops down on the stall next to me. I turn my head to her and grin snarkily. She simply moans and puts her head in her hands.
"Hello sassy-pants," I goad, "do you want to tell me your name because... I've never seen or heard of you?" I say in a sweet voice, but making fully obvious that I intended it to sting.
"My name is Beatrice," she mumbles,
"Your friends call you Beatrice?" I continue to jab, and at this point, she turns to actually face me with a heavy sigh and a kind of screw it look in her eyes.
This is the first moment when I actually realise that Beatrice's eyes are a startlingly beautiful shade of bluey-grey and they have a darker shade of blue surrounding the iris. But I'm soon awoken from this reverie when she bites back,
"My friends call me Bea, but that has no relevance to you because you are not and never will be my friend," I continue to smirk but her quick mouth and pretty eyes are making me falter slightly.
"Okay Bea, do you want me to do the experiment while you just sit there trying to look pretty?" But instead she grabs the Bunsen burner and begins the experiment, keeping it all out of reach,
"Why do you think your so much better that everyone else?" She says under her breath, she doesn't expect me to reply but I do all the same.
"Well Bea: firstly, look at me," she doesn't look, "secondly, do you really think that anyone in this room is better than me?" She still doesn't reply, "I mean look, do you really think science sammy over there is better than me," I say pointing at Sammy in front of us (he's a typical nerd with 0 self esteem and social skills), she puts down her equipment and turns to me once more with a look of determination in her cloudy eyes.
"Well, Warren: I don't know whether you've noticed but science sammy is a genius. He could go on to create a cure for cancer in the future which may cure your family or even you. By your standards being 'the best' means being good looking, getting all of the sexual attention you want and being able to get away with being cruel to people just because you're arrogant. But by my standards being 'the best' means that you make the most people happy and make more people's day a little bit brighter. So by my standards you are most definitely not the best." For a moment I am utterly speechless. She then finishes the experiment with nimble fingers and surprising ease. She smiles at me sweetly and goes to sit next to sammy and begins chatting to him.
And this little rain-drop girl who I had never seen or heard of before has left me completely dumbfounded for the first time in my life.
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Hey guys! This is my first chapter of this story and would love to hear what you think! Thank you! Xx
-E