XO (BWWM)

Chapter One

 “I linked Jerome on Saturday.” Shay said with excited brown eyes. She was so pretty, Shay. No wonder she had a new link every week or so.

   “I thought you didn’t like him?” I asked with a curious grin planted on my face. Shay laughed as she smoothed down her gelled baby hairs by her ears.

   “Yeah I know but he was like proper like begging me and he wouldn’t leave me alone so I was like fuck it and I just linked him in town innit.” She said shrugging. I shook my head at her then laughed.

   “Mhm, yeah.” I said with a hint of sarcasm in my voice. Jerome was a boy Shay had been talking to for months. She had been insisting that she didn’t like him from the day they began talking but I knew that she did. Jerome was nothing short from handsome and Shay knew that as well as I did.

   “It’s true! I’m not gonna check him or anything, I know what he wants.” She said laughing. I laughed with her but as usual I felt that little twang on jealousy inside of me which made me feel bad. Shay was one of my closest friends and the prettiest at that, she had the face, figure, personality and basically everything ever needed to make anybody attractive. Compared to me she was an absolute beauty queen. She wasn’t overly tall and skinny, with thick glasses and frizzy hair which refused to ever look neat. She was what the boys wanted and I was not. At fifteen she had already been in quite a few serious relationships, I on the other hand had not had any.

   The jealousy that I felt was not malicious; I didn’t envy her or wish anything bad on her. I just felt sorry for myself and wished that I could have that she did. I loved Shay too much to be jealous in any other type of way.

   “Then why are you still talking to him?” I asked.

   “I dunno…he just pops me up and I reply innit? It’s like we’re friends you know?” She said. I nodded and asked her more questions about Jerome and what they talked about. I knew Shay loved talking about him and I really didn’t mind, it was nice to hear her. She always got so excited and happy when she mentioned him except of course when he had angered her and they had argued. For the rest of form we stayed talking about Jerome and everything else. When the bell rang we both reluctantly got up and parted to go to our different lessons. For me it was a straight two hours of History, which I was surprisingly okay with. Most if not all people would hate two hours of History on a Monday morning but I personally loved it. I guess I was what you would call a bit of a geek. Lessons like History really got me thinking and wondering. It was the type of lesson that opened up my brain ready for a day of school work.

   “Bop!” Cale said as he bounced his hand off the top of my large afro puff.

   “Urg! How many times do I have to tell you to not touch my hair?!” I exclaimed returning the smile that lay on his face.

   “It’s just so soft! I can’t help it.” He said reaching to touch my hair once again. This time I dodged him and ran my hand through his soft curly bush. Cale laughed then once again tried to touch my hair; something he knew I didn’t like.

   “You dickhead!” I cried trying to get away from him. He chuckled lightly making his dark brown eyes glow.

   “Sorry, sorry.” He said putting his hands up to signal surrender. “What lesson have you got?”

   “History.”

   “Double?!”

   “Yeah, what about you?”

   “R.E.” He said with a little nod. “But I’ll see ya around yeah?” He continued as I neared my class. I nodded then walked into my History class. Cale was one of my friends at school. Despite us messing about from time to time we weren’t really close. He was just someone that I talked to sometimes and could have a laugh with.

     As usual our teacher –Mr Carter- was sitting at his desk trying to print off some worksheets and get the lesson PowerPoint up. A few people were already sat down in their seats waiting but the majority of the class was still on the corridors, procrastinating. I made my way to my seat until I noticed something unusual. There on the empty seat of my table of three sat a boy I hadn’t seen before whom in the midst of our classroom stuck out like a sore thumb. He was a tall boy with curly dark brown, nearly black hair. His eyes were green and his features were chiselled and sharp. Unlike most boys at my school his black uniform was neat with his tie perfectly knotted at the gap in between his collars. I stared at him while I walked over to my seat, he looked nothing like the boys in my school and oddly enough I was attracted to it. I quickly tried to think of something to say that wouldn’t make me look weird or ridiculous but then stopped. If I thought of what to say I’d mess up and I really didn’t want to mess up, this boy was very attractive.

   As I pulled out my chair to sit he looked up at me and I smiled slightly as I sat down.

   “You new here?” I asked taking off my bag and placing it on the floor. He was a comfortable distance away from me but I could already smell him. And he smelt good. I don’t know why I was able to smell him I just could, I know it’s weird but it was something that I always picked up about people. I guess my nose was just a bit hyper active.

   “Yeah.” He said returning my smile with a slight one of his own. “I’m just starting today.”

   I nodded at him and began to take out my things from my bag. I noticed his different accent and smooth deep voice that left my ears tingling long after his words reached them.

   “What school were you at before?” I asked casually.

   “Oh, I didn’t live in Wilmington; I went to a school in Hassock so I don’t suppose you know it.” He replied with a kind smile. I looked at him surprised.

   “I might do; I used to live down there.” I said returning his smile. Wow, the conversation was actually going well usually by now there would be an awkward pause when talking to strangers especially with attractive boys. I guess I should’ve known today was going to be a good day when I managed to do my hair perfectly first time round.

   “Really? Well I went to St Edmunds up in Stoke.” He said looking a bit more comfortable. I nodded my head. I had heard of that school, everyone who lived in Hassock did. It was one of the few mixed-sex grammar schools there and it had a reputation of only accepting the best of the best. Not only was he attractive but he was probably smart too, Gosh.

   “St Edmunds? Why would you leave that school to come here?” I asked obviously impressed. He grinned at me then sighed slightly.

   “Well it wasn’t really my choice; they kicked me out not that I really care though the school is not as good as everyone makes it out to be.” He explained. I sighed inwardly; attractive, smart but badly behaved. I should’ve known he was too good to be true.

   “You got excluded?” I asked raising my eyebrows. “Why?”

    The boy shook his head with a small smile on his face that didn’t really express any happiness. It was one of those weird smiles; the type of ones you see of the faces of people who resent something deeply but try to make it seem light and unimportant.

   “Let’s just say I made some bad choices.” He said looking up at me again with his amazing green eyes. I nodded, deciding not to ask him anymore questions.

   “My name is Dane by the way.” He said with a real smile returning to his face. I smiled back at him.

   “Well it’s nice to meet you Dane, I’m Alexandria but everyone just calls me Alex.” I said

  “I prefer Alexandria; it’s too much of a beautiful name to be shortened into a bland nickname.” He said with a grin. I shyly giggled…was he flirting with me? No, obviously not. Why would he want to flirt with me? He was probably only being nice, new kids are always nice to everyone on their first day, after all they are the outsiders that nobody knows or trusts.

   “Right class, I think we can finally begin!” Mr Carter cried after he finally managed to get the PowerPoint presentation up. I was glad that he had said that because I had no idea on how to reply to Dane after that. Mr Carter had just saved me from an awkward moment I did not want to have. As usual we continued with our coursework and Mr Carter sat next to Dane and discussed what we were doing and asked him what he had done in his old school. Strangely enough he was doing more or less the same GCSE course we were doing and of course was quite knowledgeable on it which made me even more attracted to him. Yes I know I was disappointed that he had gotten kicked out but there was something about him that made me want to get to know him, to talk to him, to make me feel attracted to him. He was still a stranger to me and the mystery around him was eating away at me. I knew already that I would not have a relationship with him or even get anywhere near that stage, he was way too attractive for that. Plus, there were other prettier girls at school who I knew would be all over him, he’d want them not me.

   “I hate castles.” Dane said halfway through the lesson. We had been talking a little bit through the lesson. Every now and then he’d say something and I’d reply.

   “You’re good at it though.” I replied looking at the page of notes he had completed then glancing over to my own work. History was one of my strongest subjects but I really didn’t understand castles much.

   “Yeah but its proper boring, nothing interesting.” He said looking at his book with a look of dissatisfaction on his face.

   “I agree, I liked it better when we were doing modern history.”

   “Oh yeah did you guys do all that 9/11 stuff and Hitler?”

   “Yeah, that sort of stuff. It was interesting to learn about them, especially like 9/11 because there are so many conspiracy theories behind it.”

   “I think the Americans did it.” He said frankly. I looked at him properly then grinned.

   “Why?” I asked. “Not that I disagree, I think they had something to do with it too.”

   “Well, just look at everything that happened that day like how the hell do they explain explosions happening at the bottom of the tower? There’s like so many things that don’t add up, like there’s obviously a chance that it was a genuine terrorist attack but I think it’s highly unlikely.”

   “So you agree with the conspiracies?”  I asked curiously.

   “Don’t you?” He asked with a look of uncertainty on his face.

   “Kind of, yeah, I don’t know it’s weird. There are so many theories sometimes I don’t know what to think like I was recently reading up on JFK and that was really interesting but so many people say so many things it’s like what?” I said.

   “Oh his case is seriously interesting.” Dane said nodding. I was so glad I was talking to someone who actually knew what I was talking about. It was hard to talk to anyone at school about serious stuff because most people either didn’t know what I was on about or just took everything as one big joke. My conversation with Dane carried on all throughout the rest History and I loved every single minute of it. Granted I didn’t get much work done after but I still enjoyed it quite a bit. Dane was a very thought-provoking boy and it made me excited. Very excited...too excited.