Anomaly

Side eye

You would think at aged 17/18 people would get over stereotypes and cliches, but apparently not my school. I still get the side-eye off every group head, and the Medusa of my year likes to always remind me.

"Still alone I see Maine." Telulah snickered

"Still a bitch I see Telulah." I rolled my eyes at her

"Once a bitch always a bitch." She smiled

"That's my line," I growled under my breath

"Oops," She said sarcastically

"Quiet down everyone." our teacher called, someone came and sat next to me, that won't last long. "It's nice to see everyone again after the break, I hope everyone had a nice time. But now it is time to settle down and start thinking about what you are going to do after the end of this year." She said making me shut off,

"Could her voice drag anymore?" The lad next to me asked, I couldn't tell if he was new or not from the side view, a lot of the lads had grown up in the last six weeks.

"She is even more tedious than before the holidays." I yawned "Did you have her for class last year?" I asked not really bothered but it was better than listening to her babbling on about our futures and stuff I don't want to think about yet.

"Yeah, she is a right pain in the arse. And you don't want to get on her bad side, she holds a grudge too." He smiled "I'm Max by the way."

"That's it, I couldn't think what it was, I'm Maine." I nodded

"I definitely know who you are." He chuckled

"Miss Brightly. Mr Newton anything you would like to share with the class." The teacher butted in

"I was just saying welcome back, and I hope everyone had a good summer break." I smiled sweetly

"Well thank you, Maine, but if you could save it until after class that would be great." She commented

"Sorry, will remember that for tomorrow." I nodded

I tried as hard as possible to focus on what she was going on about but failed, she gave out our timetables and the list of the school rules, as soon as the bell went for the first period I was out of there.

First was double Drama with Miss Williams, I took my time to get there, taking in the buzz of a new school year, the year 7s looking lost with their maps out. I walked in just as the bell went, I could see the girls had flocked around Vampire all trying to call dibs, I nodded at him when we caught eye contact.

"Excuse me lady's but my friend has arrived." I heard him say as I took the one but last seat in the semi-circle Vampire taking the last one. "You took your time, you could have saved me earlier." He said sitting down.

"I'm telling you now that they aren't going to play nice now that they know you're associated with me." I sighed gesturing at the girls and guys who were all staring at us.

"I don't care, I'm used to it." He shrugged as the teacher asked everyone to take a seat.

"We have quite a mix of new and old faces here so this morning we are going to do an introductory lesson, introduce ourselves and play a few games." She started "Well as you all know I'm Miss Williams, we will start at the end and make our way around the circle. So if you start where you were before and something about yourself." She said sitting down.

A new student with curly brown hair that covered most of his face was first.

"I'm Simeon. I was at Browning boarding school before here and I play Hockey." He said obviously bored with the task

"Hi I'm Penelope, I was here last year, and I play the ukulele." She smiled, she had bright blue eyes and braces.

Next was Tom, he is on the football team and was actually really nice, "I'm Tom, short for Thomas, I was here last year too and I have 3 dogs." He nodded

It carried on till I was next, I looked at Vampire before looking back at the class "I'm Maine, I was here last year and I don't fit in." I said leaning back in my chair, I look over at Vampire and see him looking confused

"Hi I'm Jack, I was at a school none of you would know, and I love music." He said to which I looked at him confused

"Fantastic, we are all introduced and now we are going to do a few improvised scenes. So get into pairs and I'll put the subject on the board and I'll pick a pair to do a scene." Miss Williams said rather enthusiastically

"You're with me before I get pounced on by those girls again." He shuddered, making me chuckle

"Okay, so the first subject is First love. Does anyone want to volunteer or do I need to pick." She said putting it on the board

"We'll do it," I said standing

"Will we?" He said following me to the front of the class

"You start and I'll follow on," I said standing across from him

"Okay." I watched him take a breath and get into character and I tried to do the same but had no idea who I was going to be.

----

"What makes you think I love you back." He said monotone

"Who said I loved you?" I bit back

"Do you mean that the glances and the way you look at me don't mean anything. Because they sure do to me." He laughed

"It's called acting, idiot. That's what we were doing, weren't we? Acting like we liked or loved each other to make us look like the power couple or whatever." I raised my voice, loving the challenge of not knowing what the other was going to say next

"So all of it was fake?" His tone dropped and his eyes looked betrayed "Every moment, every kiss, every smile. It was all fake?" His voice barely above a whisper

"Well... I don't know, you tell me. Was it all fake to you?" I made my voice break, almost on the point of crying "Because everything has changed since we started. I could barely stand you at the start, walking next to you made my skin crawl. But now I suppose you're alright." My voice soft by the end, I put my head down looking at my shoes. I could see him stepping closer, right in front of me. His fingers touched my chin pulling my head up to look at him

"I suppose You're alright too." He said leaning in as if he was about to kiss me but broke into a smile, marking the end of our scene.

We looked back at the class who all clapped us, the girls glaring at me still and we bowed to mark the end.

"Well done guys, a great way to start us off. Very believable. Take a seat." Miss said from the back

"Right next subject is Time. Who wants it?"

The rest of the class eventually did one, some really good, some not so good but that's mainly because they don't like Improvising but are still good actors.

"I was hoping you would have a name that was actually kinda vampish." I sighed watching the others perform

"That's not my first name, you would love my real name." He smirked making his eyes twinkle in the low light of the room

"What is it then?" I asked impatiently

"Elijah Luther Jack Raven." He sighed

"Are you sure you're parents aren't Vampires?" I asked kinda freaked out but really excited at the same time that his real name actually fit the nickname I had given him.

"I'm still on the fence about it." He shrugged

"How come you don't use your first name?" I asked

"Well, mainly because people might be able to find out where I was from before and I would rather leave that where it was." He said sliding down in his seat.

"Fair enough." I nodded going back to watching the scenes

"But to be honest Maine seems like a Pevensie name to me, so we seemed to have got the right names from the start." He smiled at me

"I suppose we did." I smiled, thinking that I am actually happy that we met.