Highmore Manor

When we got back to our room, after we had eaten our dinner down in the cafeteria with Alex, Ryan and Jesse, we found the door wide open. Callie groaned and went to hit her head on the wall again but I grabbed her shoulder and pulled her away before she could.

"You'll give yourself brain damage," I muttered with a smirk.

"Those girls give me brain damage," she growled unhappily under her breath. "It's not like a little more would hurt." I shook my head at her with a quick smile and went to the door.

I could hear giggling and someone typing on a computer. I went to walk into the room and then realized Callie wasn't behind me.

Actually she wasn't anywhere near me.

She was walking away from me down the corridor. I dashed after her and dragged her back to the doorway.

"I can't believe you're afraid of two stupid girls," I said in an unbelieving tone.

"You don't know these girls. They hate me!" Callie exclaimed.

"A lot of people seem to hate you, Cals," I said with a small laugh.

"Ha, yeah when you're at a school full of stuck up, rich snobs it's kind of hard not to be hated," Callie said with a scared glance at the room.

"We're going in," I declared grabbing her wrist and pulling her into the room.

There were two blondes in the room on the two beds opposite the ones we had chosen. One was lying on her stomach typing on a pink laptop and the other was sitting up against a mountain of pink cushions talking on a pink cell phone. They both looked up when we walked in.

"Uh, honey, I have to go. There's a lost person in our room," the one on the phone said before closing her cell phone.

"What do you want?" she snapped coldly.

"To leave," Callie groaned and went to leave the room. I grabbed her arm again and pulled her back in.

"This is our room too," I said. Both their eyes flicked over to me.

"And who are you?" the one on the laptop asked raising a delicate eyebrow.

"Hayley," I said dragging Callie over to our beds. Our bags had been brought up and were lying on top of our beds.

"Well, Hayley," the one who had been on the phone said, emphasizing the 'Hayley' in a mean sort of way. "There must be some mistake, Camilla has to fit into this room somewhere," she continued getting up slowly from the bed.

"Well too bad, she's not going to fit is she?" I said shoving my suitcases off my bed. The two blondes gasped over-dramatically and glared at me. Callie just stood beside me looking dumb.

I started unpacking my stuff and putting it in the dresser beside my bed. The blonde who was on the phone came over and slammed my suitcase shut just as I was about to put my hands in it. I looked up at her. She was a lot taller then me, but then again I am really short, only 5'2".

"Look, shorty, Camilla is more important than you so she gets to choose which room she's in, ok?" she said in a fake pleasent voice.

"Look…ummm," I started running out of juice when I realized I didn't know her name. She had to be Brittany or Phoebe.

"Brittany," she said. I nodded and carried on.

"Look Brittany, you don't really have a choice in who's in your room so you'd better just live with it. And I'm sick of all the nicknames, the name's Hayley, ok?" I said and yanked the suitcase lid open again. She glared down at me.

"I am going to fix this," she said coolly.

"Whatever," I said turning away from her. I felt her eyes glaring into the side of my head as I continued ignoring her. She sighed in a frustrated, girly way and walked away from me.

"Come on, Pheebz, we're leaving," Brittany said to the other blonde girl who was still lying on her bed. Phoebe stood up and I nearly fell over from shock.

Phoebe had to be at least 6 foot tall. She gave me a deathly glare before she followed Brittany out of the room. I sighed and sat down on my bed once they were gone.

I heard Callie collapse onto her bed with a groan.

"Can you please stop standing up to people who are mean to you?" she groaned.

"I thought that's what you were supposed to do," I said with a laugh.

"You were lucky with Ryan when you stood up to him, he was just impressed by you and it probably made him like you. But Brittany doesn't like it when people stand up to her, she's never going to let you live this down," Callie said sitting up.

"Well, that's up to her, if she's not going to treat me nice then I might not be exactly nice either," I said with a smirk.

"You are going to get yourself killed," Callie said.

"Oh yes, in Revenge of Blondes, right?" I said looking at her cynically.

"Oh definitely, Steven Spielberg should make a movie about us," Callie laughed and I laughed with her.

I was so glad I had made a least one friend here.

♥♥♥♥♥♥

I woke up the next morning stiff from our walking the previous day and tired, and just a little confused.

For about five seconds I had no idea where I was. I looked around the dark room, still half asleep and then registered Callie sleeping in the bed beside me and the two blonde girls sleeping in the two beds opposite ours.

I was at Highmore Manor.

I sighed and flopped back down on my pillow, glancing briefly at my alarm clock. The numbers 3:00 am glared at me with bright red eyes. I groaned silently to myself and rolled over, trying to get back to sleep. After 10 minutes of tying to sleep I gave up and climbed out of bed and tiptoed to the bathroom.

I stared at myself in the mirror. My wavy brown hair was a mess, bits sticking up everywhere all over my head.

Stupid bed hair.

My eyeliner was slightly smudged, I never bother taking it off before I go to sleep because I put so little on that it doesn't matter, but it looked ok.

I grabbed my hairbrush out of my little compartment box hanging beside the sink; there were four hanging in a vertical row on the wall, one for each of us. After dragging my brush through my hair I went back into the room and threw on a white zip up jacket over my grey singlet and purple pajama bottoms.

I sneaked out of the room and padded down the corridor towards the cafeteria hoping to find something to do or no one in the kitchen so I could grab an apple. When I got to the cafeteria I was surprised to see a little light coming out from under the door. I opened the door slowly and walked in.

To my surprise Jesse was sitting at one of the tables with a lantern beside him looking down at a piece of paper. I headed over and stood beside the table.

"Do you always come here at 3 in the morning?" I asked softly.

"I would ask the same about you, but this is your first night here," he said not looking up, his voice quieter then the first time I had met him but still just as velvety and deep.

"I couldn't sleep," I said looking down at the table.

"Happens to the best of us," he said, still staring at the paper.

"True. Can I sit?" I asked. He nodded and I slid myself down opposite him. We sat in silence for a minute or two.

"So, you've been at this school a while right?" I asked, trying to fill the quiet. He looked up at me and his eyes met mine, they were a soft grey.

"Yeah, since I was 12," he replied.

"You must be pretty smart to be at a school like this," I said.

"No, actually I'm unbelievably thick and my parents decided to shove me in this school so I would get a hard time from all the other smart kids," he said sarcastically, his eyes boring into mine.

"Right," I said drawing out the 'i' in right. I looked away from him and into the candlelight. We sat in silence again.

"So…" I started.

"Ok, stop asking questions," Jesse snapped suddenly. My gaze flicked back to his. "Look, is there a reason why you're here?" he asked.

"Yes, I told you I couldn't sleep," I said.

"But why do you have to talk to me?" he asked.

"Because you're the only one in the room. Unless of course you want me to go talk to the fridge," I said, starting to wonder where this conversation was going.

"Yeah, that would be just lovely," he said testily. I stared at him. He was being exactly like Callie had told me he would be.

"Look you're the one who said I could sit down with you," I said suddenly getting angry.

"Well you're the one who came over here in the first place," he said back at me his eyes doing the same thing as they had done on the courts, they went dark green again.

"Oh well, I'm sorry I woke up in the middle of the night, came to the cafeteria and saw someone I thought was friendly enough. If I'd known you would be so rude I would have avoided coming in. You know, Callie warned me you'd be like this," I snapped standing up and thumping my hands down on the table.

"Oh so now you're gossiping about people you hardly know with that little skank," he said standing up as well. I gaped at his choice of words.

"Skank?" I whispered.

"You heard me," he said quietly. I looked away from him and then back into his eyes.

"I was just curious to find out who you were. It's my first day and I was kind of hoping to make friends. But obviously that's too hard for you; I guess you're just another stuck up snob just like Brittany Evans. If you want to come across as a jerk to everyone then fine by me, I just thought maybe Callie was wrong. But turns out it was me who was wrong," I said angrily watching his face change with every word.

"How dare you say I'm anything like Brittany Evans," he hissed leaning closer to me so our faces were only centimeters away from each other.

"Then stop acting like her," I said back. He glared at me, then turned and climbed over the seat.

"Just stay away from me," he said coldly, he grabbed his piece of paper and stalked away from me.

"Jesse," I called after him just as he slammed the door shut. I sank back down into my seat and dropped my head into my hands.

Great work, Hayls, three enemies in 24 hours.

♥♥♥♥♥♥

Breakfast was like living in Antarctica, I was sitting opposite Jesse and I could feel the hate radiating off him. He glared at his food for a bit, then glared at me for a bit and then went back to his food. I asked him to pass me the jam and he seriously looked like he wanted to throw it at my head but he slid it across the table and went back to glaring at his food. Alex noticed the tension and stood up suddenly.

"Right, Ryan, Jesse and I are going swimming," he declared picking up his tray. Jesse stared at him in surprise but then got up without a word and went to follow Ryan and Alex.

"We'll see you guys later," I said with a small smile, Alex nodded, ruffled Callie's hair and walked away from us with the other two. Callie and I sat in silence.

She had been surprised when I had woken up, for the second time that morning, with perfectly neat hair. She was used to the scarecrow look I suppose. I just told her I had tried a new product, she seemed to accept it but I caught her staring at me once I turned away.

I was thinking about how I would have to wake up every morning at 3 and brush my hair if I wanted the product excuse to work when Callie interrupted my thoughts.

"What's going on with you and Jesse? His death glares were really inconspicuous," she said sarcastically turning to look at me.

"Let's just say I didn't actually try a new product last night," I said staring down at my bowl of cereal.

"What does that…oh you got up last night didn't you?" she said in realization.

"Yup, I couldn't sleep so I went down to the cafeteria and Jesse was there," I said looking up at her finally.

"And what happened?" she asked. I explained everything that happened and she sat there staring at me.

"What did I tell you?" Callie exclaimed.

"I know I should have listened to you but I thought maybe you were wrong, obviously not," I said. Callie sighed.

"Oh well, now you know what it's going to be like. And soon you won't have to put up with him, we start school tomorrow and he's a year older so we won't run into him too much," she said looking back down at her cereal.

"Yeah," I agreed quietly. I wanted to do something so bad to make things right with Jesse but I just didn't know how.

♥♥♥♥♥♥

After breakfast Callie and I grabbed out swimming togs and headed down to the indoor pool. Jesse and Ryan were in the water and Alex was running along the diving board as we walked in, plus there were a few other people scattered around the pool and on the seating along the sides. Callie and I got changed and then dived into the pool. Callie swam over to Alex and they leaned against the side and talked, leaving me by myself in the shallow end. Ryan swam over to me and sat beside me in the water.

"How are you enjoying your time at Highmore so far?" he asked.

"Well I share a room with two people who now hate me, plus they decorated their whole side of the room in pink and I'm not saying I don't like pink but they put a little bit too much. And now your best friend also hates me," I said cheerfully giving him a smile.

"Just ignore Jesse, he's always like this. He never makes friends with anyone and he's always yelling at people," Ryan said while rolling his eyes.

"Well that's very reassuring," I laughed, he grinned at me and then looked down almost sheepishly.

"Hey, Hayley, I'm sorry about how I treated you yesterday," he said scratching the back of his head.

"It's ok, Ryan," I said as kindly as I could.

"Nah, I'm serious. You don't deserve it and you're probably getting enough of snobby rich kids from your roommates," he said.

"And I'm serious too, I really don't mind. You've been so nice to me ever since and all the other rich snobs I've met, apart from Jesse, Brittany and Phoebe, have been nice," I said patting him on the arm.

"Well that's good. Now you've got to come and play tag with us, or I could throw you onto Jesse "accidently" just so we can see his reaction," Ryan said standing up, grabbing my hand and pulling me up too.

"Fine, but no throwing me on anyone," I said with a laugh.

"Fine be that way, I'll just throw you into the water," he said scooping me up bridal style and chucking me into the deeper part of the pool.

When I resurfaced I caught Jesse glaring at Ryan, his expression a mixture of anger and jealousy.