Suspension

Chapter 1

                                                                                    

There was so much noise

Then, it was all gone.

It just so happened to be that in the most boring lesson, the most interesting thing happened. At first it wasn't so interesting though; and it might be safer to start with that.

I checked the time. We still had half an hour left. Of course time would go deathly slow in Maths. But I wasn't really bothered by that today. Algebra was up on the board- something about simultaneous equations. I didn't know. I never paid attention but the teacher never seemed to notice and that was fine by me.

But that day I was paying attention to the new kid. He was from some British town but he didn't really strike me as British when I first saw him. I had volunteered to get out of Science earlier by showing the new kid around. The teacher introduced me as Victalia, which was completely heart-wrenching, embarrassing and just wrong.

She introduced the fairly tanned and good looking boy as Reece. He gave me a shy wave before pulling his beanie down further against his dark hair and returned his deep brown eyes to the ground. The teacher handed me his timetable, thanked me and then left me to show him the ropes.

"So Reece..." I said as I walked him to English to show him his classroom. I stopped there because I had no idea what to say to him. I glanced at him. He wasn't super muscly and he wasn't the slimmest of folks. I could tell that he didn't have abs like some of the guys that roamed this God forsaken place. But I smiled to myself, because I liked that he wasn't the same as the others.

"So, Victalia...." He replied. I raised my eyebrows and my mouth fell open. He was a sarcastic kind-of fellow was he? I could roll with that. I shook my head and laughed.

"My name is Lia...So just call me Lia..." I said and he half-smiled.

"Why did that teacher call you Victalia?" He asked me. I flinched. I knew that was coming.

"My....Sister's name was Victoria. She was two years younger than me." I sighed, knowing that he'd ask. Before he could open his mouth, I shook my head. "She died a little over two and a half years ago."

"I'm sorry..." Reece whispered. I nodded in thanks. "Lia...."

I looked up at him. We had known each other for less than five minutes and yet I could see deep concern resting underneath the part of his eyes that was making me melt. I looked away.