The Ghost of You

Chapter 1 - Saahar's POV

"He is so dreamy" said Hadley, getting lost in her delusions.

"It's like he was written by women" added Lola. 

I turned to see what my friends were going crazy over. Not to my surprise, it was the same guy they never stopped talking about to the point it felt like they only came to school for him.

 Cairo Castillo.

 The most popular, yet most quiet person in our school. He only transferred to our school from Spain six months ago, yet he was all anyone could ever talk about.

With his piercing blue eyes. His curly black hair. His thick black eyebrows elevated by his sharp jawline. His amazing sense of fashion despite the fact everyone had to wear the same uniform. His light cream skin that showed hints of scars from the Spanish sun he was used to.

 Well, that's how everyone else described him. I couldn't care less about him. He annoyed me.

"You guys are so blinded" I scoffed.

"By his beauty" said Hadley, "I swear I have the strongest prescription for glasses, but, honestly, I feel like I need to pay for more just to get a better look at him".

"It's not even his looks" added Lola, "It's the accent".

"He doesn't have an accent" argued Hadley.

"Some words he says you can tell he's Spanish" Lola explained, putting down her fork. 

It was lunchtime but instead of eating, my friends cared more about "The Spanish Stallion" than eating. At least that's what they called him, I would never call him that.

"Like when he says 'here' in the register. It sounds like he's saying 'hair'" continued Lola, "It's so hot".

"And the other day, I had a meeting with the head of the year, and Cai was leaving the office at the same time I was about to go in, he totally held the door for me" giggled Hadley.

"Doesn't Mr Jones always keep his door open with the door stop" I teased.

"Saahar!" they both yelled.

"Can you just not, please?" groaned Hadley, "Just cause you don't see his beauty".

"He's an ass" I complained. They both rolled their eyes and move and moved further down the table to continue their discussions without me.

Cairo was an ass. I hated him. There was no one I hated more than him in school. Before he came, I was Mr Colin's, our maths teacher, best student. A-Level Maths was already hard, but knowing you're the best student in the class made it a little bit more manageable. I never had any competition so homework was fun to do. 

But, that all changed when Cairo joined. I wouldn't say he's smarter than me, there's no accurate way to measure that. But, he's definitely at my level. Every test we had he either beat me or only lost out on beating me by one mark which made Mr Colin start to favour him. Plus, since all the girls wanted to impress him, they suddenly started to care about their education and try harder in their homework and tests so I had more competition.

Most of all, I was no longer the only one asking questions in class. He asks questions about everything, even things I would never think of which made me feel dumb. No one has ever made me feel dumb in Maths. Furthermore, he knew I was his competition so he'd even try to provoke me with the questions he'd ask. One time, he even asked Mr Colin to repeat what he was saying - and I quote - "just in case Saahar didn't understand it". He was an ass.

It wasn't just the fact he was smart that annoyed me. He wasn't a nice person either. The day he embarrassed me in front of the whole Maths class because my period had leaked was something I could never forget. He was cruel. He was the devil. I hated how much my friends were in love with the devil.