These Secrets Will Kill Us!

*six years earlier*

Grimsby, Like the name suggested, was a boring place to grow up in. For tourist’s, it was a beautiful little village by the seaside, with mild weather and beautiful countryside. But for those of us under 20 who lived there, it was boring. Nothing new every happened. If you were to live there for a week only, you would know pretty much how the rest of you life was about to go.

I looked at myself in the mirror. I messed about with my hair a bit, tried on a few different jackets then gave up, tied my hair into a pony tail, a set off to school. My first day. I now lived on Franklin street, which was about a twenty minute walk so I decided to go by foot, new year, new me, unlike my brother who had always driven. He was still asleep as I left. He’d graduated.

My old school hadn’t looked like much of a school. It was only the size of a large house. The only thing that really gave it away was the noise. The chatter of 500 or so teenager’s, milling around and discussing their summer holiday’s sounded louder than it should in such a quiet town.
This on the other hand was utterly and completely different. Although not huge, compared to what I was use to, it seemed like it was! Stocksbridge High School.

It was still only 8am, so I had another quarter of an hour before the bell. I knew as soon as I entered the school, people would see me and wonder who I was. People who would come up to me, and want to talk, about who I was, where I was from. Curiosity, it was natural. These people would be people, who I didn’t particularly want to converse with. So, I sat on the wall, outside the school, away from the entrance.
I was nervous, like hell. The worst part in moving now, was that all the kids, although new to the school as it was my first year of high school, had already been there a term, so would already of made friends.

There were a million things that annoyed me about my old school; It’s dress code motto ‘don’t show your Underwear, midriff or bust’, it’s policy of ‘buying back absences’ with Saturdays school, or even the stupid length’s of the lessons (they ran mostly at 55 minutes although it varied between periods). Those were but a few. All these things, they were gone now. They were never to be a problem to me again. Of corse now, lessons were on average 2 hours, because now I was at high school. But no dress code!

As I finally entered the school grounds, I looked around., I don’t know what for, maybe I was hoping deep down that this school was gonna me like my old one? No such luck. It was different in every way possible.
Immediately I could see that I didn’t fit in. I didn’t look like the other kids. Most children here, were tanned, if not just from the mild weather. I on the other hand, was deathly pale. My long blonde hair got me some attention, but not the sort I wanted. I think it scared away the more interesting individuals. I was incredibly small and petit for my age and could easily pass for a child who had wondered over from the primary school the other side of the field., to my disgust, I was often confused for one.

“Oh my god! You must be the new girl! Wow, when I came in yesterday before term to help the teachers file work and get the rooms ready, they were all talking about you!” The girl in front of me isn’t the sort of person I would usually hang around with, but she seemed like a safe bet, so I played along.

“H-hey” I fake a smile. A few other people join us and they all start talking excitedly about their summers. I feel less guilty at not listening as they all talk at the same time, so I really had no chance of hearing, even if I had been trying. I slowly followed the crowd into the school building and along to the lockers. The banging of them rings in my ears, and I feel a headache forming.
I dial the combination I’d been emailed and open my new locker. It smell’s musty, I half expect moths to fly out. Im glad they didn’t, I hate them. I unload my books onto the shelves on top of all the flyer’s that kids had already been in and posted into there. They’d probably stay there till I left. I had no intention of looking at them.
I didn’t know what books to keep with me, as we would be given our timetables in mentor, so I didn’t keep any. I then flung my near empty back pack back onto my shoulder’s, just as the bell went for class.

“Ah yes, 7A, can I have your attention?” the teacher bellowed. “How silly of me! I almost forgot! We have a new student today!”

Of corse I’m called up to the front of the class and shown off like the new interactive whiteboards were at our school last year. I bet Stocksbridge has had them for years now…
Everyone stared at me, all wide eyed as a shyly introduced myself.

“Hey, I’m Ronnie Falls, I just moved here from the coast”

After a short interrogation from the teacher, I’m allowed to re-take my seat at the only empty desk in the room. The lesson continues at a very slow pace. We’re all given copies of books and instructed to initial them Geez, thought that starting college, we would be treated more as adults… guess not.

About half way through the lesson the doors bangs open and I look up. Slouching in the doorway, a beaten Gola bag over his should and a phone in his hand stands a boy. Average height, average weight, bored expression. I was just about to look back down at the desk when my eyes met his. For a second, I couldn’t breath. His eyes. Wow.

“Tom what are you doing in here already?” the teacher sighs.

“Been kicked out ‘avent I.” he says in a lazy, common slur.

“Yes I know that, the chances of you getting into a higher level class are a million to one. I was referring to that fact that you had been kicked out of your class already even though it is the first lesson of the first day of term and only ten minutes into the lesson”.

“Yeh well, ‘teach’ hates me. Y’know how it is.”

“No, not really.”

The teacher looks at the boy who glares back whilst I sit and watch them both. I guess the teacher feels the presence of my eyes and glances back to me as does the boy, for some reason making my heart race.

“Tom, perhaps you could make yourself useful and show my new student here about the school? I don’t think she’s needed for anything else this morning.“ Mr. Bradley said, flashing me a fake smile. ”Would you like that Ronnie?”

I just nodded, lost for word’s. The boy grunts un happily, making an almost growling sound in his chest, which I tried to ignore. My heart continued beating at it’s new racing speed.

“Tom, be a dear, look after her today?” the teacher continues. I’m so humiliated. I am not a baby!

I get up carefully and follow the boy out of the classroom. I couldn’t help my eyes from wandering to him. I could see the side of his face, out the corner of my eye. All his features were perfectly carved into his marble face. Wow, someone almost as pale as me!
His nose wasn’t crooked in anyway, his lip’s, full and peachy red, and in perfect proportion. And his eyes, they were too beautiful to be natural. The were a very pale blue. It looked almost as though he was wearing white contact’s over normal blue eyes. He had straight dark brown hair, which was neatly cut but choppily layered. His bangs were swept to the side and longish. His hair also stretched down the back of his neck but wasn’t that long down the side. I guess I couldn’t really describe it, it was an odd cut, but it suited him well.

He didn’t speak. I simply followed him silently down a corridor. In fact, he kept in up pretty much all day.

First period was English, I took my usual seat at the back. I was in an advanced class for English, so none of my ‘stalker friends’ could bother me. Probably why I continued to do so well at it. As the other students joined me in class, I did my best to look like an un-appealing desk mate. It worked, no one sat with me.
I received my reading list, the usual. No one interesting. It seemed we would be starting the year with Salinger’s classic ‘Catcher in the Rye’. Ha, like I hadn’t read that before. Within ten minutes of the lesson, my head was on the desk. It was very boring.

I only had one lesson with Tom that day, which was art, in which I sat next to him, again in silence. He disappeared at break’s, and refused to sit by me at lunch, saying he’d prefer to leave school to eat. By the end of the day, I’d learnt no more than his name and lessons.

I walked slowly down Shayhouse lane, running my finger along a white picket fence thoughtfully. I couldn’t get the boy’s face out of my head. It wasn’t like any other face I’d seen. I wasn’t sure why. I doubted he was generally seen as overly attracted, nothing wrong, but nothing right? I’m not sure. But to me, he looked interesting.