Vanilla Chaos

Chapter 1: English Rain

I was lost in my thoughts, admiring the rain. England was famous for the gloomy rain, but every now and again, if I was alone, I could find it calming. The rain reminded me of home, of evenings staying up past my bed time with my mother as a little girl, before she made the decision to send me to a boarding school. I missed our big family house more and more each day, but I also was glad to be there in an odd way. I had made friends with interesting people from interesting places. Well only one person to be truthful, and the person in question was the one to knock on my door and snap me out of my daydreaming. "Let me in, stupide!" a thick French accent accompanied the loud banging on my door.

I moved away from the window I was staring out of and quietly walked to where my blue eyed best friend was waiting for me. I opened the door, "Bonjour, Nelly." I mocked his high voice, playfully. He rolled those sapphire orbs which hid behind his thick glasses and sighed before casually strolling past me. "Thanks for closing the door!" I remarked. He looked back and smirked his signature smirk, "T'was my pleasure, madam." I closed off the entrance to my chamber and locked it. I looked back to see Nelly already comfortably sprawled out on my bed, with his red sneakers kicked off and on my black carpet. "Oi, Frenchie, that's my bed." I grumbled.

His pretty eyes were half-lidded and his messy brown hair was sprawled out on the pillow below his head. He mumbled softy, "Not anymore." We had been visiting eachother's rooms since we were around seven, and we handn't been caught once. I very rarely opted to make the journey to the boys' dormitories, downstairs, but it was not out of the ordinary for Nelly to be up here. Some of the girls in the neighbouring rooms had even accused us of doing 'stuff' when he didn't venture back downstairs like he usually did, but instead he fell asleep on the floor. Nelly was one of those people who could sleep anywhere, unlike me. He was happy with a pillow, blanket and carpet. But we were just friends, we'd never even kissed on the lips (when we were younger he used to kiss my cheeks whenever he said hello, because he used to do that to his friends back in Paris, but I soon taught him about British culture.)

I knew his weak spot, I sat down next to the bed. Just as I had planned, he turned to face me. I gently stroked his face, he happily closed his eyes and smiled. I swiftly moved my hand from his rosy cheek to his black glasses and dragged them off of him. He yelped and tried to snatch them back, but I was just too fast for him. "Heidi please! You know I cannot see without them!"

"If you get off of my bed I might consider giving you them back."

"Non! It's comfy!"

I sighed and lied down next to him, "Move over, Avenelle Jèrôme."

I knew he hated it when I called him his real name, and not the nickname he went by. He glared at me, "Non, non, non! That does it!" the accent was thicker than ever when he said that and I got so caught up in a laughing fit I didn't notice him swiping the glasses from my hand. Nelly was now back to his usual self and I had no clue what he was going to do. He looked at me evily as he attacked. His pale hands mercilessly tickled my chubby sides, "Nelly! Stop it!" he continued until as I hopelessly flailed my arms and struggled to breath. He finally stopped and turned to face the other way. I wrapped my arms around his thin body from behind, "Nelly..."

He moved so that his gorgeous gems were staring straight into my green ones. He took my hands and kissed them both and then placed them down gently on the bed, "What?" I didn't know how to reply. I just wanted him to look at me, I had always had feelings for this boy. He had always been there, he was beautiful and was a ray of sunshine on the darkest, rainiest English days. He was very affectionate, but I always presumed that was because he grew up in France, with a very different culture. Nelly had very pretty girls all over him, so he would never like a girl like myself: Heidi Bonde - plump, unattractive with moss coloured eyes and bright red hair (it was naturally dirty blonde, but I dyed it because my school didn't mind extreme hair styles).

That was when I knew what to say, "I want to see Paris."

What he told me next surprised me to say the least, "You can come stay with my family in the holidays if you like, instead of just waiting here." It was sad but true, I had heard of my mother's passing last year and since then, my grandmother had to take custody of me. She agreed to continue paying for me to attend this school but refused to let me come home during the holidays. Oh the joys of rich families. So when they rolled around, I would stay at school with the very few (if any) other students in similar positions.

These where the worst times for me, Nelly went back to France see his relatives. He hadn't told me much about these people, except that they were wealthy (hence why he was attending a prestigious boarding school in England) and that they, like many others, did not approve of his graffiti. I think the only person who did was myself. It gave him something to do rather than stare at his four bedroom walls, desperately trying to avoid the people who sent him to this overrated hell-hole. Truth be told, Nelly was sarcastic, narcissistic and just generally unsocial, even in his home country (despite the fact he was always sugary sweet to me, well, most of the time).

Nelly had a gift - with a few cans of spray paint he could create something so hauntingly beautiful you would see it in your dreams. He had showed me a few pictures of his masterpieces on his phone. They were often pictures of things like skulls, floral designs or vintage pin-up girls (I squealed when one had green eyes and blood red hair) with a quote in French (he had to translate them for me). The first picture I saw was of a daisy under a bridge with the words 'Je suis Français' going around the edge. I complimented him on how pretty the flower was but giggled at the uncreaticvity of the phrase ('I am French'), which resulted in the dreaded tickling. The Rouge family believed that Nelly had given up his habit of decorating walls wherever the heck he wanted, but the truth was that he still blessed the city of love with his glorious illustrations whenever he was there.

"I'd have to ring my grandmother," I felt my cheeks flush a bright red, "But I'd love to."

Nelly was elated, he kissed my cheek with a loud 'mwah' and dragged me into a hug, "Merci! I get so bored by myself."

"But Nelly, is there a spare bedroom?" I enquired.

He laughed, "We sleep in the same room most nights, anyway, stupide!" I punched him in the arm and he winced a little and rubbed the bruise I had made, "Okay, one: Ouch. Two: Oui, I was just trolling you."

"You need to stop trolling." I sighed. It was at that particular moment I realised that we we were still hugging, my face turned as red as my hair. I reluctantly freed myself from his embrace and stood up, as he still lazily lounged on my designated bed, with one arm behind his head and the other draped over the side of the piece of furniture. His very blue jeans were crumpled and you could see the band of his Batman boxers because he hadn't bothered to pull down his baggy t-shirt which had the logo of some French metal band I'd never heard of on it. Nelly was either freaking adorable or a total hottie - there was no inbetween, "Nelly!" He looked up at me, baby blues sparkling, I continued, trying to keep my cool, "Get your little French arse off of my bed, before I kick you."

His beautiful eyes rolled towards the ceiling and then back to me, "Not again! Fine, I'm moving..." He exhaled loudly then dragged his body up off of the bed then walked up to me at snail-pace.

"Why are you so tired? What on Earth did you do, today?" I tilted my head.

"Oh, mon chere," he over-dramatically recounted like he was talking about losing his lover to the sea whilst he desperately clung on to the Titanic for dear life, "it was terrible! They made me play rugby in the freezing cold! I could have gotten pneumonia!"

Nelly was such a drama queen. I had to prevent myself from giggling as an image of a camp Avenelle Rouge squealing in his sport's kit as he passionately avoided the other boys, who were shorter than him but much more masculine. "You are such a girl."

"Shush, petit merde before I put you in a bastille."

"Avenelle, leave the room." I tried to stay as serious as possible, and bit the inside of my lip to stop myself from laughing.

"Ah, oui oui!" He then walked backwards, waving his arms in front of him saying "Wooh wooh! Woosh!", to my cupboard (where I kept spare blankets, pillows and other things of that nature) and then opened the door and climbed in. He slammed the door behind him.

I walked over and shook the door handle, like I guessed he would be, he was holding it from the other side, preventing me from entering, "That's were you're sleeping tonight, then!" I proudly yelled.