Lavamarble

2. ENCOUNTER

From that day on, Sunita made it her mission to learn all she could about Lucas Middleton. Unfortunately for her, though, he might as well have not existed when it came to her usual sleuthing techniques.

"He might as well not exist!" Sunita cried with frustration, clutching her phone and tapping it frantically. "What kind of person doesn't have any social media?"

"A sensible one?" I tried. It was lunchtime and I had already spent the morning almost entirely with Sunita as we had double art class on Mondays. She hadn't stopped talking about him the entire time, not when all I wanted to do was paint my geisha for our first fine art project, and not even now when I wanted to eat my cottage pie in peace.

"I forgot, you're so much better than us mere mortals for using it," Sunita rolled her eyes, she put down her phone and picked up her fork.

"You know that's not the case," I muttered. Sunita didn't – or pretended not- to hear me as she poked at her fish.

"Why are you so mad about it anyway?" I asked.

"Because how else am I supposed to find out everything about him?" Sunita said in despair, putting down her fork. I knew that she hadn't used a hint of irony, though she probably should have.

"Try talking to him."

"No way," Sunita spoke more quietly. "You saw how it went last time."

I sympathized with her then. It wasn't like Sunita to back down when she liked someone, but the incident that morning really was embarrassing. I hated Laura Wardle more than ever. "You'll get another chance."

I had spoken at the right time apparently, as Lucas Middleton was making his way over to our table. Sunita didn't quite see him as she was staring at her food, so when he spoke it seemed like she had jumped out of her skin.

"Excuse me," he said. "Mind if I sit here?"

Sunita recovered quickly, "Yes! I mean, of course...not?"

Lucas smiled warmly, "Thank you." He sat across from me, next to Sunita.

Her face immediately lit up, "I'm sorry about earlier, everyone crowded you."

Lucas shrugged, "It's to be expected. I am the new guy, after all."

"Yeah, but that doesn't usually happen here. We had a few new people last year," I said, resulting in Sunita shooting me a dirty look. 'What?' I mouthed.

"It just means you're special, you know?" Sunita tried. This didn't please Lucas; he gave a frown. "Not in a weird way."

He still didn't seem pleased but he at least nodded.

"What do you think to the school?" asked Sunita.

Lucas thought for a moment, "It's very beautiful. More beautiful in person. I've seen pictures on the Internet."

"Our school is one of the best in the country," I said proudly. Then felt a lump of guilt form in my throat.

"I'm sure that's why Mr. Middleton came here, isn't that right?" saved by Sunita's need to correct everyone.

"Sure," Lucas said nonchalantly. He was still looking at me as if waiting for me to speak. I went back to eating my pie before it went cold.

Sunita continued to talk about the school itself. She talked about the main hall and how he must have noticed the portraits of previous Headmasters hung up around the second floor and on the smaller walls between classrooms that weren't filled with wooden lockers. Lucas simply said he had seen them. She also talked about the up-coming end-of-year Snow Ball, which was marked the end of our school days at Winchester College. Of course, Sunita was already dropping hints about the biggest dance of our student lives already. She had to have the most perfect date. Even looking at them sitting together at lunch, I could picture them together dressed in immaculate formalwear descending some rose-laden staircase hand-in-hand; her brown skin against his paperwhite. Light and darkness to make something shimmering. I felt another uncomfortable lump form in my throat.