The Bad Girl, The Bullet & The New Beginning (on-going)

4 ~ Loners Don't Need Company

           

"So, you're telling me the best part of this school is the dumpsters?" Lila questioned, raising an eyebrow at the pathetic scene in front of her. After the build-up Vic had given her about where he and the other guys hung out at school she'd been expecting a little more than a couple of industrial-looking dumpsters in what felt like an alleyway round the back of the school.

                "Oh come on, don't be like that," he laughed, holding a hand to his heart in mock hurt. "I know it might not be what you're used to but us Larson kids have gotta make do with what we've got."

                Lila was reaching for her trusty pack of cigarettes that she'd slipped into the pocket of her red Larson blazer when Vic offered his own pack to her first. She paused, eyeing him suspiciously before eventually accepting. He tossed her his lighter, which she caught in one hand and used before returning it to its owner.

                "I guess I can't complain about the setting too much if it means an escape from all that," she remarked, nodding her head towards the door that led back into the stuffy atmosphere of the school.

                "Yeah, Larson High is pretty intense," Vic shrugged. "You seemed to be coping pretty well back there though," he commented with a grin, obviously referring to her put-down to Miss Halliday.

                "Trust me, there's plenty more where that came from," Lila said mischievously. "I'm not gonna be pitied by some stuck-up bleach blonde in a high school teaching job."

                "You really are fearless, aren't you," Vic said after a pause, and Lila became aware of his gaze fixed on her. She purposely didn't meet it, instead staring out at the view of the impeccably groomed sports fields out in the distance as she puffed out a mouthful of smoke that danced away in the breeze.

                When she eventually turned to face him, his gaze was diverted in the same direction as hers had been and she found she was able to scrutinise his appearance properly for the first time. He was only a couple of inches taller than her, definitely falling short of six foot, meaning her eyeline nearly matched his, making it easy for her to pick out the flecked hazel pattern in them. She hadn't noticed the night before that he had a chiselled jawline that had a tense look about it, as if he was constantly gritting his teeth. When he wasn't flashing his smiles and playing to the crowd, his brow had a tendency to furrow just as it was now while his eyes flitted restlessly across the landscape.

                Before she could answer, there was a noise behind them, footsteps on tiles, and Vic spun round with a panicked look.

                "Shit," he cursed, looking frantically for somewhere to hide. Lila watched him, too amused by his sudden urgency to actually try to figure out what was going on. Before either of them could act in time, the door behind them swung open to reveal the figure of a small elderly woman.

                "I thought I heard voices out here," she tutted, narrowing her eyes at the two students and looking even more horrified when she saw the cigarettes in their hands. "Detention, both of you," she declared, gesturing for them to follow her inside.

                They both stubbed out their cigarettes, Vic sulkily stamped his into the concrete, looking like a kid who's had their favourite toy confiscated, while Lila was finding amusement in the situation. Getting detention at her old school was practically a daily occurrence and it didn't come as any kind of disappointment that her new school wasn't a fan of her behaviour either.

                Lila spent the rest of the day with a blue detention slip peeking out of her blazer pocket like a badge of honour. She knew as soon as she walked into second period that the news had spread like wildfire: the new girl had been caught smoking on her first day and had got a detention in her first hour. There also seemed to be a certain amount of admiration from the student body at the fact that it was Vic Jarvis that she had been caught alongside. Lila didn't realise he was something of a local celebrity in the school – she assumed this was because every girl was in love with him, to varying degrees – since she hadn't thought much of him herself. He was too clean, too rehearsed for her. He tried too hard. But there was no reasoning with a bunch of boy-deprived teenage girls.