The Ice Prince

Chapter 1

"Ice Prince!" she gasped and stalked off, like so many others had, before her. The name almost hurt as much as it had the first time, but I shrugged it off coldly. I had a reputation to keep, after all.

The name-calling had begun two years ago, when I told them I don't date. I had tried to be kind to the first girl who told me what she felt about me. I had been clear that she was very beautiful, but we were probably not meant for each other. "I'm sorry, ... , but I don't date." has been a line I've had to repeat often, plugging in the names of the girls who will quickly go on the list of individuals that call me 'Ice Prince'.

Leia, Florence, Priya, Mary-Lou, Reba, Qing, Jaimie, Giulia, Noelle, Sandy, and the list went on...

Was it so hard to understand that I didn't want to date? Couldn't they go ask out any other boy? I was fine with us being friends. I had nothing against girls.

I've always found them to be sensitive and felt they make for good company. But I didn't know why they kept seeing themselves as my future-girlfriends, when I tried my best to convince them that I didn't.

There were kinder girls, some of whom already had boyfriends or weren't exactly into the whole dating thing. Like Liehane, who often told off the other girls "He doesn't want to date. What's wrong with that?" Or Debby and Steffie, who were more like sisters to me. Then there was Nikki, who was a good friend. But then she was kind to everyone. To Beatrice Grace Parker, who insisted on being called by her full name, and even to Monica who was kind of snobbish and didn't really need the kindness. But Monica was in the cheer-squad, and that bunch of girls was more trouble than anyone could have estimated from there beautiful faces and plastered-on perma-smiles.

Or probably, it was just that nobody liked to be told that they couldn't have something. I wasn't playing hard to get, I was just unavailable. But apparently, not many people understood this.

It all began when I was 15 and a half, and I moved into the new school.

At the old one, I used to be invisible. Nobody had ever taken any notice of me, except to call some random names like 'nerd' or 'Straight-A'. 'Straight-A' was a bit of a joke, because my name is Ashton Armand Prince (notice the initials? Yep, straight A's) and I did end up getting straight A's in school. I had a close group of friends. But one of my closest friends, Greg, realised he was bisexual, I was okay with that, and I'd told him I was straight, so that there were no complications later on. It was him who'd come up with the nickname 'Straight-A' and the nickname had stuck to me like a post-it-on-the-back, till I changed schools.

I moved into Polson Academy, and had shifted back to the old house where I had spent the first few years of my life.

Here, everything was different. I'd changed because Polson Academy, my new school, was considered to be one of the best. I'd been happy enough in my old school, but I had had a shock. Plus, I knew I could shift into the old house which never was sold. I was offered a scholarship at Polson, and decided to embrace this chance at a new life.

My secrets would be safe if I shifted into a new place, I thought, where people didn't know me. Little had I known that I would stick out here like a skyscraper in a desert. A new boy was an object of interest anywhere, but I'd thought their interest would fade away after a while. I was wrong. Because the head cheerleader suddenly realised that she had a crush on me.

When I told her I didn't date...

All hell broke loose.

This chapter is dedicated to @katerina__xx who has made the awesome cover for my story... Please check out her cover book for some fantastic covers she's done. I'm so proud to be her friend (: (: (: She's also got an amazing fan-fiction named 'Escape' which is based on the well-loved Gale-Katniss pair from the Hunger Games... I hope you check out her profile, because she is a brilliant designer and author