Louis's Pov
Sam and I just reached the parking lot when we saw Ashton jumping up and down with excitement rolling through him.
"What's up? You look like a starved monkey who just found a banana in a deserted dessert." Haru said giving him a weird look.
Ashton gave him a bored look. "Where the hell do you find stupid crap like this to speak?" he asked rolling his eyes. Haru was about to come up with an answer when Mabel slapped her hand over his mouth.
"You shut up." She said looking at Haru and turned to Andrew. "You speak." She said with authority.
"Guess what?" he said excitedly but even before anyone could voice out our guesses he twirled around dramatically before bowing down in an eighteen century style. "Ashton - the great - Jenkins got into the state team. Yahoo!" he said punching his fists into the air. We all gathered around him and tackled him into a hug while yelling out congratulations. But the celebration was cut short when we heard a sound of a motorcycle coming in full speed. It was Simba and Cam. She did not look fazed by the speed they were moving in.
"Well. I will see you after school then." She said tugging at her bag.
"Are you sure you will be fine?" he asked concerned. She patted his shoulder with a small smile on her face.
"I swear I will be fine Ron. I will try being friendly too. So don't worry about me. You will be late." She said lightly trying to convince him.
"Oh! I don't give a fuck-"he saw her cringing at his use of words and squinted his eye "a crap- shit!" he said hitting his handle before speaking again. "I don't care if I am late. All I care is about you. So be a good girl today and I really don't want to see you with bleeding fists or any other injuries again. Please." He requested her holding her bandaged hand.
"Come on, I am not some crazy runaway from some psychiatric ward. It just happened. Okay? It's not like I would go all Salman Khan on the walls. So get lost." She said poking at his chest with her finger. He held onto her hand and quickly pulled her into a hug still sitting on his bike.
He glanced behind her and noticed people looking at their exchange. Though there were many people looking at them, it's only our group who were actually able to listen to their conversation. He pulled her back and gave her a wide smile and she looked at him confusion.
"You know I am actually helping you to make friends with my charming presence." He said with a smirk and she gave him a bored look. "Seriously. Look around you, all these girls are drooling over me, actually there are even some guys gawking at me, but sadly I don't swing that side." He said pouting. He was in fact true. She looked at him disgusted and clicked her tongue in disapproval.
"If you don't leave right now, I might have to kick your narcissistic butt out of the school campus. Shoo... go away." She said swatting him repeatedly on his arm. He pulled his hand away from her and frowned at her.
"You do know that your punches are stronger than Mike Tyson right? Woman! Don't be so inconsiderate to other's pain." He said exaggerating his pain. She rolled her eyes and pulled the key out of his hands, inserted it into the key slot, hit the gears, held onto the clutch and twisted his wrist around the accelerator to get the bike going. He took the rest of the process and blew her a kiss to which she pushed him on his back and stuck her tongue out.
"Off you go idiot." She said giving him a final push and stood there until he disappeared from our view.
She turned back and somehow our gazes got locked for at least three seconds before it slipped past me towards Casey. She smiled at her and waved her hand as an acknowledgement. I looked at her in shock and turned towards Casey to find her as shocked as the rest of us. She finally recovered from the shock and waved back at Shaden and we just stood there watching her get mixed in the crowd.
"Well that was totally normal." Jordan said in a low voice.
"Yeah, looks like she is in a good mood." Haru commented.
"No shit!" I said under my breathe.
"And she also looks refreshed. I mean she doesn't have those Panda eyes anymore." Jordan said and we gave him a look for the stupid name he gave her.
"Let's get inside people. It's almost time for the last bell." Ashton said heading towards the school.
The first thing I noticed as I entered the class is Shaden speaking to one of the guys from the class. I think it is he who approached her. She was explaining him something from our physics textbook and for a moment I wondered how a 15 year old girl will be able to manage the syllabus which is meant for an 18 year old kid. But that thought was long forgotten when I realized that the guy was actually trying to flirt with her instead of listening to her.
"Jake, you might find this amusing, but let me tell you the truth. It's annoying. You flirting with me, is making me extremely uncomfortable." she said in a cool voice.
"They say that there is a thin line between discomfort and enjoyment Darling." he said with a wink and she just rolled her eyes at him.
"No one says that. And the correct saying is 'There is a thin line between sanity and insanity'." she said, with her arms across her chest.
"Are you sure it's not 'Between love and hate'?" he asked.
"Then it's a good thing I feel neither of them for you."
"Oh, so I have a window to work my way through?" he asked with a wink and she just laughed loudly at this. He smiled brightly at her response.
"You are impossible." she said with a small smile.
"Impossibly charming? Yes, I know."
"Naah, but now you are just getting hilarious." she replied and he shook his head with an amused smile and walked back to his place.
Something about their interaction left a bitter taste in my mouth. Jake is not a good person. He's an asshole and a womanizer. Yes, I sleep with my own share of girls, but I at least inform them what they are getting into before anything even happens. But Jake isn't like that. He breaks hearts left and right without remorse. It's almost like he takes pleasure in seeing girls cry and in breaking up couples. Yes, he is also a poacher.
"That's an interesting conversation. Girl, you knew that he was checking you out through and through right?" Jess asked as she took her place
"Yes of course. I mean who can help not checking this out?" she said pointing at herself to which all of the guys whistled at her and the other girls just scoffed at her. For someone who looked heartbroken and fragile, she sure is very confident.
"Wow! You really have a lot of confidence in yourself huh?" Haru asked with a smirk.
"When you keep getting hell load of compliments and appreciations, this is how you will turn out to be." She said with a shrug. Soon McAuliffe entered the class and everyone got back to their work.
"Yes Jordan? You wanna say something?" she asked in the middle of the class. I turned towards them to find Jordan looking at her in confusion. "You were staring at me since the class started. So if you have something so speak, spit it out." she said turning completely towards him giving me a view of her small head.
I think since her day one here, it's the first time she neatly combed her hair. She had a messy bun clipped on top of her head. Though her hair was neatly combed, her bun wasn't that proper. It was loose and strands of hair which escaped the bun were clumsily tucked behind her ear. Overall, it looked like it wasn't she who made her hair and the person who helped her must be a total amateur in this field.
"Well. You just look very different today. I mean you are not snapping at anyone or frowning at people. I mean, by now you would already snapped at me telling me to mind my own business but you are actually listening. And it's totally freaking me out." he spoke out fast as if there is a ghost asking him to spill his guts.
She gave a small smile seeing him all flustered and placed her hand in front of her mouth to stop herself from laughing louder. "I am really sorry about the other day. I was going through some stuff these last few days, so I was kind of acting like a stuck up idiot." She apologized.
"Kind of?" I asked with a raised eyebrow. She turned towards me so fast that I am surprised she did not have a whiplash. But I wasn't that surprised when her hair slowly started falling out of her loose bun and slowly framing her thin firm face.
My eyes widened on their own accord as I saw her hair falling over half of her face and then slowly as it kept stumbling down past her shoulders, hips and finally reaching a hand span above her ankles nearly touching the ground. "Wow!" I heard Jordan breathe out from behind her. I saw her swallowing hardly, probably thinking about the other day on the terrace. I took advantage of her discomfort and leaned forward with a smirk planted on my face. "Yes Simba, we were speaking about how you were being a bitch the other day." I said coolly leaning in closer to her face. She frowned at me before placing her palms on my chest and pushing me away from her.
"I can't say that I was being a bitch, but I sure was behaving very rudely. So I am sorry." She said biting onto her lower lip making me shift my attention to her tender light brown lips. She is one of a kind. Everything about her is soo different. Soo exciting. She cleared her throat to divert my attention from the lower part of her face. "Can I speak to you for a second after this class?" she asked playing with the bandage on her hand. I looked at her intently before nodding my head into a yes.
I then turned to face the board but I was still concentrating on just her. I know that's creepy, but I just can't help myself. She was struggling to make her hair with her left hand and then tried using her right hand but hissed in pain when she tried to bend it. She finally gave up and took a scarf from her bag and tied it loosely around her head and then tucked her hair into the scarf. That looked so uncomfortable. But so is letting down her long hair in this hot compact classroom.
As I was packing my bag for the next class I found Shaden standing near my bench and staring at me. I smirked at her, "What? Can't take your eyes off me?" I asked to which she rolled her eyes.
"No you dumb bean, remember I asked you if we could speak after the class?" she asked as if she was speaking to a child.
"Yes, I do." I said gruffly and walked out of the class with her following closely behind me. I suddenly stopped and almost expected her to bump into me like they show in movies and books, but I should have seen this coming. She is too careful and calculative for things like that to happen. She looked around her and looked at me with raised eyebrows.
"You wanna speak here?" she asked motioning towards the crowded corridor. I slowly took her hand in mine started pulling her through the crowd. Her hand was very small compared to mine. They weren't exactly smooth as I expected them to be. I unconsciously started rubbing her knuckles with my thumb and noticed rough ridges, cuts and long gone bruises. It only sent me to a conclusion that, it wasn't the only time she used her fists in the cafeteria. I finally led her to the terrace.
"The terrace?" she asked confused.
"Well, this looks like our thing. Speaking on the terrace." I said and immediately saw her face turning into a frown. But even before I could point the expression it was gone. She looked at our still joined hands and I slowly released them from my grip. She pulled her hands towards her chest and then hugged herself as if she is suddenly feeling cold.
"About that, can you not tell anyone what you saw here? It's quite embarrassing to know that someone has seen me crying." She said wincing at the memory.
"It's not a bad thing to cry, you know?" I offered but I guess that wasn't enough.
"Maybe. Maybe not. I don't mind crying, I just don't like it when people see me crying." She said with a shrug.
"You don't like people thinking that you are weak." I stated to which she laughed bitterly.
"Oh, but I am. I am very weak. I don't know, since I was very young, I always had this tendency to over exaggerate my feelings. I just think I am overly emotional. Like the previous week, I was just moody because I had to shift all the way from India to Carlston. You see, there is a lot of culture variation and it just led to me being upset about moving here and I made a huge deal out of it by being mean and trying to be badass and mysterious and all. I think I have histrionic personality disorder or something." She explained flailing her hands around for emphasis.
If I didn't eavesdrop on her conversation or the Cam guy's conversation with the Chairman I would have believed her. I already know that she is explaining herself only so that I wouldn't bother her with asking if she is fine and any other questions regarding her change in behavior. I knew this was important for her so I acted along.
"Why are you telling me all this?" I asked her suspiciously and I saw her fidget with her hands visibly, which I decided is part of the show.
"Because I wanted to start afresh and I didn't want your opinion to be biased because of my behavior. I am not telling that I wanted be friends all of a sudden, but I would be glad if we are civil and have no bad opinion on each other." She said nervously chewing on her bottom lip making me involuntarily lose my focus.
She is just 15 you idiot. Stop being a pervert.
And I am just 17. So what? We are two years apart, big difference. And it's not like I was innocent when I was 15. I lost my virginity when I was 14 for speaking out aloud.
Yeah! That's you and this is her. Do you really think she is one of those girls whose life revolves around guys and other stupid high school shit?
No. But she is also a girl. Every girl goes through this phase. Right?
My inner dialogue came to a stop when I saw her waving her hands over my face. Right, we were actually speaking about something. "Umm... yes?" I asked confused.
"I was asking you not to tell anybody about those two encounters." She said looking at me expectantly.
"Yeah, I won't tell anyone about it. I promise. And also let's start anew. I am Louis Enrique Emerson. I said offering her my hand with the biggest smiles I've got. She smiled back and shook my hand with her bandaged hand.
"Shaden Obeid. And I feel like I've heard that name somewhere. Enrique Emerson." She said in a deep thought.
"You read books?" I asked instead. I am not a fan of others knowing about my fame. People just know my pen name anyway.
"Books aren't for me unless they are related to air science or physics. But I was surrounded with people who loved reading books. I occasionally, very rarely read books." She said with a shrug.
"So what are the kind of books you occasionally read?" I asked opening the terrace door and stepping back into the school. I held the door open for her and let her walk in.
"Umm... let's see. I love reading sci-fi, thrillers and paranormal. I know that's the genre people rarely like. I love old literature like Alexander Dumas. Not a fan of Shakespeare. I can tolerate Dan Brown, Stephen King. Jeffery archer is fine. That's it I guess." She said now walking beside me.
As we were walking down the corridor I found Elijah waving at me. Or should I say at us. "We aren't having physics, and then we have a spare and then two hour break for lunch. Do you wanna come with us to the football ground?" He asked mostly looking at Shaden.
"You guys don't even play football. Why are you going to the football ground?" I asked.
"The football players are going out of the campus, so the ground is free. And we always play Baseball and we need something new to spice things up." Jordan replied. "So, you coming?" he asked Shaden. She was about to deny when Casey came to a sudden stop hanging onto Elijah.
"Hey, what are you doing he- oh! Hi, Shaden. We have a lot of free time today. Wanna join us?" she asked expectantly. By now the other guys slowly joined her.
"No, I mean its fine. I will just hang around here." She said politely.
"Oh come on! You said you would try playing with us the other day. I promise you, you will have lots of fun. Come on." Casey asked moving closer to us and holding unto her hand. Shaden chewed onto her lower lip again and she had an agitated look in her eyes which slowly turned into a determined one.
"Sure, I will come. I mean, it's just a game right? How bad will that be?" she said trying to convince herself more than us.
"You play Football?" Brendan asked surprised.
"No. Do you?" she asked him. She just shrugged.
"I can kick the ball." He replied and she smiled at that.
"Then we will be good."
"But you might want to do something with your hair." Casey suggested to which Shaden smiled sheepishly.
"I never realized how hard it is to make my hair with just one hand." She said motioning towards her bandaged hand making Casey widen her eyes in realization.
"I can help you with that. Come on, let's go." she said dragging Shaden through the corridor, towards the football ground.
I didn't really want to play the game, but I still tagged along with them because I was utterly bored and also I wanted to watch Shaden playing with them.
"I can't believe it's the same girl who warned people not to speak to her on her first day." Brendan said with a small smile.
Soon we all reached the ground and Casey walked Shaden to a bench and made her sit on top of it. She pulled Shaden's hair out of her scarf and gasped immediately. "You have got a really beautiful hair. It's the longest hair I have ever seen." She said combing the said hair with her fingers.
"Woah! You can audition for Disney's Repanzul movie." Ashton said looking at her hair in admiration.
"I'll take that as a compliment. But it is really hard to maintain, especially because it's both long and extremely curly and most times than not, it irritates me to no end." She said with a frown.
"Then why did you grow it so long. You could have cut it short right?" Bell asked truly confused.
"My brother loves long hair. But I don't think I can deal with it anymore. I think I am actually gonna get it cut." She said as sadness and anger flashed through her eyes and disappeared before anyone could even notice. Then she suddenly smiled brightly and turned towards Bell. "I am sorry, but I didn't learn your name." she said expectantly.
"Oh! I am Mabel. And if you ever decide to join the volley ball team, I will welcome you with open arms." She said with a wink.
"That's cool." She said turning towards the others expecting them to introduce themselves but all of their concentration was on Casey admiring her hair. Bell groaned and snapped everyone out of their stupor by clapping her hands loudly.
"I'll do the introductions since they are stupid enough to contribute words." She said to which half the guys glared at her but the rest was still dumbly staring at her hair. It didn't come as a big surprise. Her long hair was shining darker because of the Sun's reflection making it looking like Medusa's hair, but the beautiful and purer version. Now that I think about it, my comparison makes her hair look bad. It looks more like a beautiful waterfall. But in pure black. As black as a sin. I snapped out of my thoughts when I heard Bell obnoxiously loud voice introducing everyone.
"This is Ashton, the stupidest guy in the school." She said to which Ashton glared at her but shifted his attention to Shaden and gave her a small smile. "This is Haru, he is Japanese and he probably can speak your language along with 15 others." She said dismissively waving towards the said person.
"Eternal treasure?" she asked Haru, who wore a surprised grin on his face while the rest of us looked at her confused.
"That is one of the meaning, but my name generally refers to Spring, signifying my easy going nature." He said and added something in Japanese. She laughed at that and his grin just grew wider. "You are the first person who understood the meaning of my name after leaving Japan." She just smiled at him.
Mabel continued the introduction. "As you already know, this is Jordan, the annoying of the Colby brothers and this is his twin Brendan, the dignified one." She said and did not give any chance for either of them to respond before moving on to the next person. "This is Jessica, Oh! She is sleeping already. And she is Bren's girlfriend. A cheerleader." She said looking over at Jess. Then she looked at Elijah. "And this is the great Elijah. If you are one of those Olympic maniacs, you would know him. He does pole vaulting and he proudly represents our country." She said patting Eli's shoulder.
If I wasn't carefully observing her I might have missed her widening her eyes. It did not look like 'Wow! He is from Olympics' kind of eyes. It was more like 'Shit! He is from Olympics' kind of look. Like she was afraid that he might know something which he isn't supposed to know. But she quickly composed herself and smiled at everyone. Then her eyes finally landed on Sam who also was looking at her in a calculative manner. She raised her chin as if challenging him to judge her and I let out a small smile at their wordless exchange.
"Hi, I am Sam." He said with a small smile. She looked at him without any expression on her face and then finally spoke after a second or so.
"Just Sam?" she asked uncertainly.
"Just Sam." He said with a frown. I could sense the atmosphere suddenly grow gloomy so I butt into their exchange.
"And the last but not the least, one and only-"she cut me mid performance.
"Yeah yeah, I know. Enrique Emerson." She said dryly and Sam looked at me with a raised eyebrow.
"Hey! Isn't that a songwriter's name?" Jess asked loudly finally waking up from her short nap. I ignored her and looked at Shaden expectantly.
"The first name is?" I asked her as if I was asking a child. She hit my hand away and rolled her eyes with a smile.
"Louis." She said giving me a bored look and I patted her proudly on her shoulder.
"Yo Casey! I thought you wanted to help her with her hair not drool over it." Haru said and made a Hummf sound when she kicked him on his shins. "I hate that girl's energy." He said aloud cradling his shin. Casey finally relented to his words and asked her if she should make a bun to which Shaden nodded her head into a yes. When Casey walked in front of her and inspected it, she shook her head to the left and right and then up and down to check if its tight enough and then gave her a thumps up while smiling at her widely.
When they all started playing I realized that Shaden didn't actually know the rules but she kept playing based on other's instructions. But it wasn't just me who realized this, the others were observing too. So the guys in the opposing team, which is Sam, Jordan, Haru, Elijah and Ashton, kept giving her wrong instructions trying to mess with her to which she playfully glared at them.
They kept playing for more than one and half hour with the girls and Brendan one team and the rest in the other team. I think so far, Elijah was the only guy who didn't actually try to make fun of her or tease her and even speak to her. He just kept staring at her and from Shaden's expression I could see that she knew it too, but she was more determined to avoid him at every chance available.
When the score was 3-2 in favor of the guys minus Brendan, Casey kicked the ball towards Shaden who made a clean goal. The girls jumped up in excitement and hugged her tightly, making her hair fall down from the bun.
"Wow! That was so great." Casey looked at Brendan standing afar with a huge smile. "What? Aren't we in the same team?" she asked pulling him into the hug. She still didn't realize that her long hair came loose and landed on her butt. Probably because of the Adrenalin rush.
"You said you just know how to kick the ball around" Ashton accused her.
"Yeah, and I stand by my word. That is all I know." She said pushing the strands of hair falling on her face all the way behind. The way she weaves her fingers through her hair is not like the usual 'tucking behind the ear'. She more like runs her fingers through her hair as if she is a man with short hair.
"That did not look like kicking the ball around." Haru mumbled.
"Umm... I just watched him doing that and I was trying to imitate him. That goal was a fluke. My whole objective was to copy him." She said with a shrug while pointing at Sam and tried to tie her hair into a bun and scrunched her nose probably because of the pain. I don't know if she avoided calling his name or just forgot his name, but that's how it is. "Anyway, I am feeling really hungry. I need to go." she said and smiled at everyone and walked into the school with her hair flowing behind her.
"I am beginning to find her more and more familiar." Elijah said quietly and even before anyone could respond there was another person voicing out their opinion.
"I am beginning to like her more and more." Ashton said with a small smile
"Too bad, I am pretty sure the feeling would be reciprocated. Poor Ash, no one can love him." Jordan teased and Ashton just glared at him.
"Are you jealous that I am capable of love and you are not?" Ashton asked and Jordan just scoffed at this. It's not news that Ashton is looking for his one true love and in the process, pushing away girl who comes his way by making excuses. And neither is it news that monogamy is not Jordan's thing.
"Guys, let's just go. I can't hear this debate again. Monogamy vs. polygamy is really not my favorite debate." Jess groaned. Everyone agreed with her while the contenders of the debate just mumbled something and walked away from the ground.
As everyone was dispersing, I think it's only me who couldn't stop thinking about Shaden's sudden fear of Elijah and Elijah's statement after she left
I am beginning finding her more and more familiar.
And that suddenly reminded me something Ruby said about a week ago regarding a missing Olympian.
Could there be any relation? Maybe not. Maybe I am just overthinking. I mean, there are slim to none chances for that to be true. Yupp, I am definitely overthinking.