Word count: 3444
Bronwyn liked to pretend like she wasn’t in the top of her classes. She liked to act like she needed help in Calculus AB even though she had a perfect score on the last test and it was an IB-level class. It was amusing to her to act that way – not completely helpless, but utterly fallible, like she was an average athletic student who didn’t spend half of her free time waiting for the sunset with a textbook or a novel in her face. In fact, the only reason she joined basketball, cross-country, and drama club was so that she had something to do with her time besides study, read, and surf the internet. She wanted to take advantage of as much as she could in high school and feel as normal as someone in her situation could feel.
She woke up the next morning and showered with her phone plugged into the wall by the sink and playing her favorite songs. As she washed her curly mane, she sang to the music and combed out every lock of hair. She loved her hair because it was lively, wild, and beautiful. Even though it was a challenge to maintain sometimes, she kept it natural because she figured it was a challenge worth tackling. When it was dry, it was a few inches past her shoulders, but in the shower, it clung to her back.
By the time she was done in the bathroom, her hair was still damp and coated in leave-in conditioner and her lips were covered in dark red lipstick. She stepped out wearing a gray sweater over a white collared shirt and a black pleated skirt. Of course, underneath the skirt was a pair of black tights because Bronwyn’s uncle would never let her walk out with bare legs. She didn’t fault him for it. He only wanted to protect her.
The thought of it almost made her titter. Protect her.
While he was cooking up breakfast, she tied her shoes and looked down at her outfit. She dressed herself up like a perfect little schoolgirl without even realizing it. The boys she stood with before first period sure would get a kick out of that, but if they tried anything, she wouldn’t just let them do whatever they’d want.
Her uncle strode out of the kitchen with plates and beckoned her to the dining table from the sofa, laying the plates down. Her family had always been affluent, but they were modest with their wealth and never bragged about it. In fact, the house Bronwyn lived in with her uncle was a simple and cozy dwelling that her grandparents had paid the mortgage on 25 years prior before deciding to move to New York to be near Broadway for all the shows.
“You look chipper this morning,” she commented as she sat in her chair. There were four chairs even though only two people ever sat at the table. Bronwyn smiled knowingly and picked up a piece of toast. “Did you get a call from your date from last week?”
Her uncle grinned back, his dark brown eyes sparkling. Recently, he had begun to see a gorgeous blond, and ever since he started dating, there was just a little extra happiness in the Norcross household. Uncle ate some scrambled eggs before answering, “Yes, Richard called. He said he wants to go out again on Saturday, and I told him that I’d ask you if had anywhere to go then. Do you?”
“Well, I actually have to stay over at a classmate’s house,” his niece fibbed effortlessly. “We’ve got to work on a project, and she’d prefer us to finish it immediately. The only time she’s free is this weekend.”
He nodded in understanding. “Pack a bag after school and you can walk home with her on Friday. Just take your phone with you, and be sure to answer my calls. Okay?”
“Yes, sir.”
Her gentle teasing had just the tiniest implication that he was being overprotective, but she knew that he couldn’t be too sure she was safe. She’d stayed over at other girls’ houses before for school assignments and, on rare occasions, even parties. Truthfully, she was very grateful he allowed her that much freedom, even if it was necessary for her schoolwork and to maintain normality.
Breakfast passed with minor conversation: Grades, cases, and what they’d have for dinner. Bronwyn had straight “A”s, Uncle diagnosed a recent patient with brain cancer and stressed over how she reacted, and they were going to order pizza. All the while, Bronwyn was wondering how long she and Arion would take in the Unearthly Underground. Additionally, she wondered what he was planning on telling his parents.
His lie was not so far off from hers, she later discovered before class. She found him in the hallway and decided to talk to him rather than the crowd she usually stuck around.
“I just said I was staying at Hawkeye’s place,” he explained, kneeling down to put a couple of notebooks in his locker. “We’re supposed to be playing video games, and I cleared it with him.”
“Good.” Bronwyn looked down the hallway anxiously, hoping not to be recognized by anyone who would have questioned why she started hanging around Arion. For some reason, the other athletes she normally spent time with disliked him and his friends and thought them to be weird.
“On one condition, however. He and my other friends all want to meet the new person I’ve been blowing them off for all of a sudden. Is that okay?”
Before she could respond, someone called, “Kaede!” Arion looked up attentively, narrowing his eyes while closing his locker. Suddenly, he grinned widely and stood up, slinging his bag over his shoulder. A short brunette girl in a pink sweater approached him and hugged him. When she pulled back, she said something in a language Bronwyn could only assume to be Japanese.
Arion’s smile curled into more of a smirk when he crossed his arms and leaned against the lockers. “Good, but your pronunciations are still laced with that slight accent.”
A few more students followed the girl: A lanky young man with wavy hair dyed cherry red and a lady who closely resembled the man but with shoulder-length purple braids.
“And I thought you said you weren’t going to respond to your Japanese middle name?” the girl with violet hair asked.
Arion shrugged helplessly. “She actually pronounced that perfectly for once. Plus, Kat is relentless. If I let her call me by that name and I help her with Japanese, she’ll help me with Spanish.”
“Katarina Suarez at your service, Senor Raines-Maki,” the brunette giggled with a bow. Then she noticed Bronwyn awkwardly leaning back against the lockers with a faraway look. Kat gestured to her, asking, “So, this is your new best friend?” Bronwyn looked back to the gang with wide eyes. “Wow, can I just say that I love your hair and eyes? Your eyes are gorgeous, and your curls look so fluffy!”
Bronwyn blushed, but smiled. “Thank you so much! I was just about to say that I love your sweater. It’s a wonderful shade of pink – almost bright but soft as well.”
Kat sighed, “Not many girls nowadays appreciate the color pink. They’re just rejecting anything they deem to be overly feminine in a stupid act of what they think is feminism. A color is a color, man.”
It was less than two minutes that Bronwyn had met Kat and deemed her to be one of the most adorable, most pleasant, and most intelligent girls in the school. If she were ever allowed to actually have friends, she’d choose this girl first.
She’d seen Kat before in classes, and the others as well. She identified the boy as the aforementioned Hawkeye, so nicknamed because his mother was a big fan of The Last of the Mohicans, and the girl was his fraternal twin sister, Sally. However, she only knew them by name; Bronwyn had about as much contact with them as she’d had with Arion before yesterday.
“Anyway, Winnie and I have to get to our first period,” Arion explained, ushering her away from his friends. “We’ll see you all at lunch, though.”
Bronwyn nearly froze at the feeling of his hand on the small of her back but kept walking. “What’s with you?” she muttered. “Winnie?!”
He responded lowly, “Isn’t that what everyone else calls you?”
Groaning, Bronwyn rolled her eyes. Her nickname wasn’t her choice. Maybe other girls could stand the name, but she preferred to leave it to fictional teddy bears.
“And you’d prefer to group yourself in with everyone else?” The female tutted. “I thought you were different, Arion Kaede Raines-Maki.”
Arion sighed as he opened the door at the end of the hallway. He figured he might as well explain. “Kaede is my middle name, and it’s what my mom calls me. She’s Japanese, and my dad’s family is English, so that’s why the name Arion Raines.”
“People question your name?”
“Well, yeah. I sound like a fairytale character with just the first name and my father’s surname.”
Bronwyn shrugged as she pulled open a door to a stairwell and gestured for Arion to enter. “I think it suits you. An ancient-sounding, mystical name for a magical guy.”
He smiled as he climbed the stairs, but he made sure not to let Bronwyn see it. When they reached their classroom on the second floor, they found the desks in the class arranged in pairs. They both greeted the teacher sitting at her desk. Glancing at Bronwyn, Arion sat down at the closest pair of desks and tutted when she moved to sit at the pair behind him.
“Oh,” she murmured, “You wanted to sit with me?”
“I thought that’s what we were going to do, but if you don’t want to, that’s fine.”
She set her bag down on the desk next to him. “No, it’s not that. I just didn’t think you wanted me to. I mean, who’d want me for a partner?”
Arion took out his notebook and opened the textbook laid out on the desk. He looked over the board in front of them with a faint smile. “Considering your high grades, do you mean besides anyone with common sense? Maybe – oh, I don’t know – the person who’s already a partner of yours of sorts.”
His “partner” didn’t respond as more students entered the room, but she did meet his eyes with the corners of her lips tugged up. She thought it was nice of him to say that, thought he was just being nice.
The period passed productively, and the pair of them finished the work with a little extra time. Bronwyn chose to read a book on her phone while Arion drew something in his sketchbook.
It was filled with pages of creatures his art teacher thought to be imagined, but they were actually all too real. However, today, he felt like drawing a girl. He outlined a face with a pair of bright, round eyes, and by the time he sketched the smiling, plump lips of the girl, he began to realize who he was drawing. Gazing at her and seeing her resting her chin on the desk as she was engrossed in her book, he continued drawing. It wasn’t anything meaningful, really. He had just already drawn all the exquisite creatures of the Unearthly Underground and was looking for another muse. He decided to cover the book at least partly so that she wouldn’t see the drawing as he began to frame the face with corkscrew curls.
Eventually, though, she sat up, and he turned the page back to a previous sketch of a unicorn as if to touch it up even though there was nothing he could really do to improve upon it.
“So how are you planning on getting us to our weekend destination?” she asked, turning to him. “And what’s it like? Is it like that place from that one magic book – what’s it called, Carrie Trotter or something?”
He shook his head, laughing as he closed the sketchbook. “First of all, it’s not called that, and no, it doesn’t look like that book’s version of the magical side of the world. It’s funny that you don’t even know the name of the book when you’re dressed just like one of the characters who goes to the school. You just need a colored tie.”
Blushing, Bronwyn looked down at her clothes and hugged herself, mumbling, “I just thought it looked nice.”
“Whoever said it didn’t?” If it was possible for her cheeks to get warmer, they did. Arion quite liked seeing her blush and looked forward to her doing it more often. It reminded him that she wasn’t as dangerous as she seemed on the night of the full moon. “Anyway. Friday after school, I have to take you to the basement of my house. My parents won’t notice my being home since they get home from work late.”
“Sounds good,” she groaned as she stretched her arms across the desk. “But what’s in the basement?”
“It’s a surprise.”
Her eyes sparkled, and she poked his elbow. “What kind of surprise?”
Chuckling, Arion gave her a smug smirk and responded, “The kind that stays a secret until I want you to see it.”
“I will bug you for the rest of the period until you tell me.”
Even as she spoke, the bell rang. Arion quirked an eyebrow at her as he slid his sketchbook off the desk and into his backpack. “See you at lunch.”
“Gosh, do I wish we had the same second period,” Bronwyn mumbled, standing and picking up her backpack.
He tossed her a small salute before holding open the door for her. The next class she had was study hall, and she had that class with Kat.
“Hey!” the girl warmly greeted Bronwyn as she arrived to the classroom. Kat tapped the back of the chair in front of her, implying for Bronwyn to take the seat.
She did, smiling back at her new acquaintance.
Kat turned on her phone and scrolled through her messages, but looked up at Bronwyn. “So how did you and Arion become friends?”
Frowning, Bronwyn shook her head, “Oh, we’re not friends, but you could say that he and I have an agreement of sorts.”
Raising an eyebrow, Kat pressed the button on the side of her phone to turn the screen off and leaned in. “What kind of agreement? Because I’ve heard of way too many kinds of ‘agreements’ from the other juniors, and I’m really hoping that you two aren’t doing what I think you’re doing.”
“We’re tutoring each other.” Sometimes, Bronwyn could amaze even herself with how easily she could lie. It wasn’t a full lie, but still.
Suspicious, Kat narrowed her eyebrows. It was obvious that she had really grown to care about Arion over the years they’d known each other. Tenderly, she asked, “Are you sure that’s it? Because I saw the way he pulled you away, and the way he looked at you before he did it.”
Bronwyn nearly burst out into laughter at the implication that her connection to Arion was anything more than amicable. In fact, it was supposed to be strictly academic, but it seemed as if he insisted on befriending her. It was inevitable that they would eventually become companions since he was the only one she could trust with her secret and they were apparently going to spend lots of time together.
“Arion and I have only really begun talking, and I don’t think you could call us friends yet. I mean, maybe I wouldn’t even know since I never really had friends—”
“What?” Kat’s eyes went wide, and she took Bronwyn’s hands in hers. “Well, I’m going to change that. If you and Arion aren’t friends yet, then I volunteer myself to be your first friend! You seem nice, and the whole high school experience isn’t fulfilling if you’re all alone the entire time.”
“Oh, but I’ve never really been alone. I usually spend time with Jackson and the other guys he hangs out with.”
“Do you eat lunch with them? Do you all have inside jokes or secrets? Would they pick you to be their partner for projects because they genuinely want to be around you? Do you enjoy the time you spend with them?”
Bronwyn opened her mouth to respond, but closed it again. The only person who shared any – actually, all – of those qualities was Arion.
“Well, no.”
“Then you’re really not friends with them. They’re just people that you stand near.”
Well, I can’t argue with that, Bronwyn figured with a shrug.
“And,” Kat continued, “now you’re going to have at least four friends – Sally, Hawkeye, Arion, and I.” She said the statement conclusively, as if it were the end-all to the entire conversation, and a new topic could be introduced. And when Kat thought of the new topic, her eyes were filled with mischief. “But you know, you still never clarified how you feel about Arion.”
Ah. Bronwyn was trying not to think about that particular topic herself. After all, last night, when she had looked at him a bit too long, he seemed to be completely in his element. It was like the forest was where he belonged, and it was so glorious, someone ought to have painted how absolutely perfect he looked there. It made him seem handsome, almost angelically so. In fact, since that moment, she’d been having trouble looking at him unless he was saying something, but even that could be difficult. Especially when he said things like that she looked nice. Or he at least implied that he thought she didn’t look not nice.
Which brought her to the banter shared between them. She didn’t know if it could properly be called banter, though, or if it was flirting. What was flirting like? In the books she read, love interests often either said tender words or harsh insults – either soulmates from the start or enemies who learned the better qualities of each other – but she and Arion didn’t have any of that – at least, not most of the time. Though there was earlier this morning, and last night…
“See something you like?”
Obviously, Bronwyn’s cheeks flooded with heat, and she became a flustered mess – which was the same reaction she had to both of those instances. She couldn’t help it, though. Since she subtly established herself among her previous acquaintances as completely unavailable, they had never said anything like that or implied any kind of attraction to her. In short, she was completely unprepared for someone to flirt with her and didn’t know how to react. If he would keep it up, she could only hope that she’d get used to it enough that she’d be able to respond.
Finally, she carefully responded, “Well, he’s very interesting, kind, and friendly. Plus, he’s kinda cute.” She toned down her opinion of his looks down to only those two words only because the entire rant about how absolutely perfect he looked probably wasn’t something normal teenage girls said aloud. “I don’t really know what I feel for him yet, I suppose. I’ve only really just gotten the chance to talk to him.”
Kat pursed her lips. “Well, as soon as you know, you should make it very clear to him. I think he likes you.”
“He can’t possibly like me.”
“Well, you definitely haven’t seen the way he looks at you.” Smiling, Kat rested her chin on the heel of her hand while she opened a notebook. “It’s like he’s looking at someone he adores, and he can’t decide whether to to be selfish and keep her for himself or show her off to the rest of the world.”
Again, Bronwyn grew bashful. It wasn’t possible that what Kat had said was what Arion was actually feeling. Maybe she was just confused. If Arion ever looked at her in any particular way, he had to see her as a new magical creature that had knowledge to offer.
Bronwyn shrugged. “Even if he feels that way and if I feel that way, we’ve got school to worry about. Our grades have to take precedence, and I don’t even know if I can balance a relationship with school and all my clubs.”
Kat looked like she wanted to say something but didn’t. Bronwyn wanted to tell her this but didn’t. Both of them began to work and didn’t say anything else for the period.
Next chapter coming soon.
Scraps of Notebook Paper 