Miss Arden {wlw-professorxstudent}

Chapter 1

KALINA'S POV:
"Turn that off, Kali, it has been ringing for over ten minutes", my little brother came barging in my room. I could almost imagine the uncharacteristically harsh set of his features and only let out a snort.

In response, I heard his little stumping across my rug as he hit my alarm clock and simultaneously delivered a light whack to the back of my head.

"Arin!", with my face still pressed into my covers I reached for my pillow and threw it at his retreating form. He only giggled mischievously and told me to get my lazy ass into the bathroom.

"You stink!", he shouted from down the hall.

"You are a teenage boy, Arin, don't you talk to me about stinking!", but I was already terribly awake then. No use hating him for robbing my peaceful slumber from me and it seemed like he hadn't even heard as I could hear him downstairs in the kitchen with our mum.

This made me smile. Mum hadn't really adjusted to life without dad around but my little brother made it a lot easier for her.

It was not like I had lost my father, oh no, but he had had to move farther west and now lived over three hours away.

So, to start of my first day of my last year at college, I looked around my messy room for my favourite shirt and slowly manoeuvred my tired legs over the edge of my bed as I found and pulled it over my head. A pang of nostalgia ripped through my chest. It was Keelin's shirt.

Even though I knew that, I still put it on every single day. It saddens my mum and, hell, it saddens me but I cannot get rid of it. Her smell still lingered on the fabric and it felt like hugging her had felt.

Keelin Fang, my best friend, well, until she died almost three months go. At the beginning of summer. I had always hated summer, now I hated summer even more.

She had been murdered on a night out. We had gone to this party without our parents' permission and over the course of the evening I had lost sight of her but had assumed she would be fine. Only to find out that same night that someone had killed her in a park almost a whole 2 kilometres away. I kept thinking I should have been alarmed and should have gone searching for her the moment I realised she was gone but she was dead now. And the more I thought about it the more it felt like I could have prevented it.

Before the tears that had gathered in my eyes could fall, I pushed them back and went into the bathroom Arin and I shared. It was nothing grand, nothing luxurious. Just like our house. It was a simple two story townhouse on the outermost streets of Kingswood, London.

While I brushed my teeth, my mum had been making breakfast and shouted for me to come downstairs to eat.

"I'm almost finished, mum! I just need a minute!", I rushed to get my teeth and face thoroughly washed and my hair somewhat fixed and hurried down the 28 steps to the kitchen, after changing into fresh clothes. I had counted those steps with Keelin on my eighth birthday. She had been the only one invited and the only one I had needed.

I rattled my thoughts and came back to the delicious smell of my mum's poached eggs. I salivated as I walked to the kitchen table.

"It smells crazy good, mum", I commented while my brother already stuffed his last egg down his throat and burped. My mum whacked the back of his head and I snorted at the irony. I just had to look at his dumbfounded face and knew he too realized that had been karma.

As quickly as I had sat down it was already time to finish up again and get going to school.

Mum rushed us out of the house and into my car and it looked like we would definitely pay for enjoying those eggs so much. We were running late. Like so late. And to our luck every streetlight we came across had us waiting hours before we could continue on.