85 Vauxhall Cross » Clifford a.u

Chapter 1

This was weird. Weirder than I'd ever experienced. This surely wasn't right. I said to myself twisting and turning in the mirror. I had never really worn 'normal' clothes before today. I was always in uniform, even on the rare days that we had off we would still all wear uniform.

As I stood in the long, thin mirror attached to the wall into Carly's room. My hair straightened, face painted with make-up, with not even the slightest hint of black in my outfit; I felt out of place. Like a lion that's been painted white and told to live among the polar bears

I look at my exposed legs, due to the skirt I had been told I must wear - in my opinion, was far too short. Tugging on the end of my cardigan I took a deep breath in before speaking. "Carly, are you sure this is what normal girl's wear?" You see I'd only been hear half a day and yet I was already heading off too my first day at school.

I would love to tell you I'd had three hours of sleep due to the looming terror of starting a new school the following day, but that would have been a lie. In fact I had slept incredibly well, probably because of the long journey the day before. I had faced far more daunting things than a new school, so on the nervous scale I was about a three out of ten at this moment in time.

I had only encountered my uncle Mark; he wasn't really my uncle more a god father if anything, even though I'm not religious. Uncle Mark was my dad's best friend who I had known well since birth, his family offered to give me a place to stay while I was over here. I'd also only seen his wife and their two children. Carly, who was a year younger than me and Michael, who was my age. So I didn't really have the faintest clue of what the acceptable dress code was in an American high school. The only gage I had was from watching dozens of movies and shows about American high school, but I don't know quite how accurate they were. I was pretty sure people no longer wore yellow checked shirts with matching blazers and hats. But then again I could be wrong.

"Lea, you look amazing. This is what we wear, you can even check with Mike. He's down in the kitchen. I'm positive you'll fit right in." I smiled at Carly; she's been incredibly patient with me teaching me things I'd need to know in order to blend in. Things like: don't' punch people - apparently it's not an adequate greeting here, don't talk about guns or fight tactics. Things, that to me, were perfectly normally and a regular occurrence.

I was quite close with Carly, not as close as I was with Michael. I'm not sure if it was the fact we were the same age or the countless hours we spent together at children, or even that our life experience had been more similar that anyone else I knew. Either way I confined myself in Michael. I trusted him.

I was far from comfortable as I made my way through the grant house to the kitchen.

"Mike is this what people wear." I said striding into the kitchen, the sound from the boots I wore echoing with each step. Only to find a tall, kind of dark and handsome stranger standing next to him.

"Wow, Lea, you look great." Mike said giving me a thumbs up. His hair today was blue, matching his varsity jacket. Every day was a surprise with Mike's hair; you never knew what colour you'd encounter in the morning. My favourite colour on him was either his black faze when he was 16 or his brown one a couple of months after that. I found darker colours brought out his eyes and made his face look more defined.

"So, this is the British cousin, but not family person you've been telling me about. I'm Calum by the way." He said, stretching out a large hand to shake my little one. He was gorgeous, not in the mundane kind of way but in the chiselled-Greek-god kind of way. Much like Michael was. If this is what boys here looked like I'm defiantly glad I came.

"Lovely to meet you," at that moment I was extremely glad I wasn't an easy blusher as if I were my checks would have been tomato red. Calum had a strange charm, the type that you could hear in his voice, see in his smile and feel by his touch.

"The pleasure is all mine." Calum winked. Half my me was shocked and baffled the other half, the teenage girl half was screaming and smiling.

"I can't believe I just witnessed that," Michael laughed to himself shaking his head. "I'm embarrassed for you Cal. Now that Cal's finished hitting on you, are you ready for your first day at school?" he raised an eyebrow making it seam intense. I gave him a, slight-more-nervous-than-I-was-five-minutes-ago, teethe grin before making my way towards the door.