Superposition

Chapter I

Marie
The late summer sun pierces my eyes as I look out the window and the car comes to a stop.
I step out the backseat of my father's range rover and bask in the sunlight, trying to freeze time to this exact moment - delaying the inevitable. Once I move, I will have to say goodbye to my father and begin my final year at Clemonte Academy, named the most prestigious boarding school in England. If I do not move, I may get sunburnt and die of heatstroke, forcing me to delay my entrance to the school year. So, for now, I'm choosing not to move.

'Get a move on, Marie!' My father calls as he gets my luggage out of the boot, 'nearly sixty grand a year I pay, and there's no one here to take your luggage, ridiculous,' he mutters under his breath and I chuckle, moving to help him with my bags. I pick up the smallest bag I can see and pretend to struggle with it to give the illusion that I'm helping. 'Ah! Finally, some staff.'

Someone came to put all my bags in a luggage cart and take them to my dormitory. My father pulls me in for a hug before saying, 'I'd better get off. Take care of yourself, love, and I'll see you at Christmas.' I smile and wave goodbye as my father drives away. I try to ignore the hole in my heart that wishes I had two parents to hug me goodbye.

Taking a deep breath, I walk through the large, brown-bricked arch and make my way to my boarding house. The school looks the same as it did when I left it only seven weeks ago. The same brown bricks and stained glass windows that were here before Henry VIII was. The same people, apart from the first years, walking around in their burgundy uniform.

Clemonte has seven boarding houses, four for boys and three for girls (the ratio of boys to girls at this school has forever bothered me). Until about sixty years ago, only boys were allowed to attend but when they finally gave all women the right to an education they had to build an extra two boarding houses to accommodate us. For whatever reason, they didn't think to build a third and some girls got stuck in the old boys' boarding house which they just splashed some paint over to make it look like they'd renovated it (they hadn't).

I, unfortunately, was placed in the old boarding house which barely has central heating - not that it's a bother in the heat we were currently facing, but it would be a bother soon enough. I open the rusty metal door of my boarding house and make my way up the stairs and into my second home. The only perk of staying in the oldest boarding house on site is that because it's so tiny, you get your own bedroom. For others, that may not be a perk but for me, a chronic introvert, it was a dream come true when I found out my first day of first year. My dorm is tiny and slightly cramped, but I like it.

My small wooden bed, adjacent to my even smaller window, has brand newwhite sheets and my Chanel luggage was already placed next to my wardrobe. I sit down on my desk that I turned into a vanity and brush my hair before putting all my belongings away and getting dressed in my uniform. I put on my grey skirt, embroidered with the burgundy Clemonte logo, and white blouse. The girls don't have to wear ties, but the boys have to wear black ones with, of course, the Clemonte logo on it. I slip on my black socks and school shoes before taking a quick look at the framed picture of my mother on my bedside table. Then, I take a deep breath and descend into my final year of school.

Huddled at the hallway window, is gaggle of girls squealing about something (or someone?). 'What's going on?' I ask, intrigued.

'There's a new boy in our year,' Elizabeth, who I consider to be my best friend, tells me.

Me and Elizabeth have been friends ever since first year - neither of us were very good at making friends and we sort of bonded over that when we were put together at dinner (everyone has designated seats in first year, it's supposed to encourage us to make friends). Back then, she had wild, curly blonde hair, braces and her uniform was much too big for her. She told me her mum bought her uniform in a bigger size so she wouldn't have to buy more the following year. Beth doesn't come from much money, and is here on an academic scholarship - I'm the only one who knows that.

We were inseparable the whole of first and second year, we were all each other had. Come third year, Beth got brand new straighteners over the summer and got her braces off. She'd learned how to put on makeup and she was finally accepted by the 'cool' girls, which was all she ever wanted. She was finally noticed and boys started to look at her in ways they'd never looked at me.

Then mum got ill. Or rather, I found out she was ill. It had been kept from me long before that. Of course, Beth was the first person I told and she never left my side, right up to the very end, even with her new found popularity and beauty that had not rubbed off on me yet. That Christmas, she invited me to stay with her family for the week and we put those bright pink streaks in my hair and we did our nails and she taught me how to do eyeliner and put makeup on. It was the best week of my life and I will always love her for that.

By the end of fourth year (mum was gone by this time), I'd finally become 'pretty' but I never got in with the 'cool girls' like Beth did, I didn't really want to. Beth always had something to prove, she was constantly showing everyone how she was 'one of us', compensating for her lack of money. As I was and still am one of the wealthiest people that attends this school, I've never really had anything to prove and didn't have the same hunger for popularity Beth did. I had Beth and she was all I needed, she still is.

'A new boy? Who?' I ask, trying to get a look at him through the window.

'No one knows him, he's kind of a mystery,' Beth replies, pointing at him through the window.

I stare down at him, strutting across the green. Even from this far away, I can tell how tall he is. He pushes his shaggy dark brown hair up, revealing his chocolate brown eyes which juxtapose his pale skin. As he looks up and waves at us, his gold signet ring gleams in the sunlight.

'He was waving at me!' Beth squeals, giddy.

'No, he was waving at me!' Annabel snaps, smugly.

My stomach curdles with anxiety as a horrible feeling runs through my bones. A horrible feeling that this boy is in fact not a mystery. I could recognise that smile from a mile away (and that pathetic signet ring). But it can't be him. He wouldn't come here. Would he?

Lewis

I look up, flipping back my hair and notice a herd of girls, not very subtlety, staring at me through a window. A pretty herd of girls, nonetheless. There's about four of them - two blonde, one ginger, one with brown hair. But, behind them, all I can see is bright pink streaks of hair and bright, but shy, green eyes, seemingly fascinated by me.

Then it comes to me. Those green eyes, I would recognise those eyes anywhere. That's Marie. I smile and wave at her.