In the morning, on her way to meet Gwen, Lilly counted the number of steps it took not realizing she was heading straight to a tree, ending up bumping her head over the surface of the uneven tree.
"Ouch!" she exclaimed, moving a couple of steps back to look at the tree. She was such an idiot sometimes. Something pricked and felt wet on her forehead. Bringing her hand up to touch her forehead she saw it was her blood, "Oh no," not having the habit of carrying a kerchief with herself, she readied herself to wipe the blood with her hand sleeve.
"That is very unhygienic," someone commented behind her. Turning around she found a man looking at her. His blonde hair which was spiked in the front. He pulled the handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her, "Take it. I won't ask you to return it," he smiled.
"Ah-thanks," she replied, dabbing the white cloth over her forehead. Pulling away from the kerchief, she noticed the red spots on it.
"You should see where you are walking. You never know when people or things will harm you," he commented.
"What?" Lilly asked warily, bothered by his words. Another man joined him shortly, leaning over to whisper something in his ear.
"I will take my leave then miss. Careful on your way," he warned her with a small smirk, turning around to walk away.
"Lilly!" It was Gwen who was running towards her, "Oh my god, what happened to your forehead? Did you fall down?"
"It's nothing. Do you by any chance have a band-aid with you?"
"I always do. Wait for a second," Gwen opened her bag, rummaging through her books and other unrelated school items. Ever since Lilly had known her best friend, she always carried a band-aid along with her. It was like a good luck charm to Gwen. "Who were those guys? Did they threaten you?" she heard Gwen question her as she opened the band-aid wrapper.
"No, just some passing strangers. They were kind enough to give me a kerchief."
"Let me help," Gwen took the band-aid and plastered it on Lilly's forehead, "All good."
Sitting in the next class, waiting for the teacher to come in, the classroom was filled with a lot of noise. Some talking, some too tired to do anything and some who threw paper rockets like little children. From one of her fellow classmate, she heard that their usual English teacher was on leave today. She wanted a free period to rejuvenate her dead brain cells that had died during her previous class but God was too cruel as someone entered the classroom making the class go still. While the man scanned the classroom, everyone held their breath seeing his physique. They had never had a buff, muscular looking man to teach them, not a person who had a scar on his face which ran from the side of his temple to his cheek. He gave the impression that he had come out of the army not too recently.
"Afternoon class," he said once he came to stand right in front of the class, "I'll be teaching you English until Mrs. Tanner recovers from the accident she met two days back."
At a normal time, the class would have been happy to have a change of teacher but with the way he said it, it made it look like a movie where the murderer was covering up his track and all the students looked at him quietly and suspiciously. The man did look suspicious with the deep scar on his face but that didn't imply he had anything to do with their teacher's accident. Or maybe it did.
"Let me introduce myself and then you can repeat the process, with your name and what you like. My name is Gerard Harper," he introduced himself, "I don't think there's anything in particular about me you would benefit with so we will leave it at that. I would like you to keep your cell away while I teach. So..." he said looking at them, his hollow dark eyes looking at them as though it would suck the life out of them if they tried crossing him.
Even though Mr. Harper had asked the students to introduce themselves, he looked utterly bored and uninterested. Lilly's hand inched towards her phone which was in her bag.
"Ms. Willow, out of the class," Mr. Harper spoke to the girl sitting in front of Lilly, his back still facing the board.
"Huh?" she responded.
"I warned you not to use phones in my class, you will be serving detention after school," he said continuing to write on the board. It was strange how he remembered the student's name in one introduction when there were around forty students in a single class. The strangest is that he hadn't turned around to look at the class for ten minutes.
"But Mr. HarperI-" she started.
"Detention. I will see you after class," he said, leaving no room for any arguments and in a fleeting moment, she felt his gaze flicker over at her as a warning. Did he know she was about to use her phone? Gulping, she inched away from her hand from her bag.
Gwen had missed Mr. Harper's class as she had to fill her form for figure skating competition. After waiting for her outside the sports department, together with Gwen, she went to the ice rink so that Gwen could practice while she completed the homework Mr. Harper gave them. As she was about to finish two pages, her phone rang and she smiled looking at the caller name.
"Hey," she breathed into the phone.
"Hey, cupcake, what are you up to? I heard you were going to the rink today," Ace said through the phone.
"I am already at the rink," she folded the page she had stopped at and closed the book, "The competition isn't far and she needs to have enough practice before she heads to the competition. I am working on my homework though. We have a really scary teacher."
"What are you reading? Do you want me to scare him," he teased her making her laugh.
"Nah, that won't be needed. Where are you now," she asked, seeing Gwen moving on her skates effortlessly. She also heard a commotion taking place on his end which made her curious.
"Just hanging out with my friends, away from the city," he answered her, "Cupcake, I'll talk to you later, message me once you reach home," and the phone ended like that.
In between, Gwen needed some water and unfortunately, the counter at the rink had run out of it as it was summer. Deciding to go out and see if they sold any, she stepped out with her bag. Finding a shop at a distance, she waited for the shopkeeper to return the change as she thought about Gwen's talent in figure skating. She was happy for Gwen, that her dreams were finally going to come true. As rude and bossy her best friend appeared, deep down she was still a child.
On her way back, she caught sight of the boy she had met earlier today who was with her English teacher, Mr. Harper. From where she stood she could see they were discussing something serious.
"What do you mean?!" She heard Mr. Harper demand at the spiked guy.
"We are telling you, we couldn't find him. And even if we do there's no telling he's gonna be there. Right Henry?" the blonde asked the other boy.
"What Levi said is true, and you know it too Gerard. The guy is brilliant. He needs a break. We need a break," Henry said, "We are all on a break."
"Shut the fuck up before I report your ass to the governor. I don't care how you get him. My job doesn't consist of handling a bunch of kid. Find him for your own good," Mr. Harper said irritated. Lilly didn't know why, but it felt that they were talking about Cole. Before she could decide to leave, Lilly felt her nose itch to release a loud sneeze.
"You," Mr. Harper suddenly turned to look at her, eyes narrowed in suspicion.
"Me?"
"Yes, you. What are you doing there?" he asked her.
"I was just passing by," Lilly answered, lifting the water bottles in her hand. Mr. Harper gave her a look before barking few orders at the guys named Levi and Henry, turning his back and walking away. Henry followed him, Mr. Harper, immediately but Levi took his time to walk and when he did at the moment, passing by her, she heard him whisper to her,
"Greetings to Ace and Cole," he said his eyes forward with a smile to follow her teacher.