[Xyla's POV]
I pull on a pair of black super skinny jeans and a black tank top, then I slip on my black Vans. I pull a black hoodie on over my tank top, and I grab my gloves before heading downstairs.
"Are you ready?" my mom asks when I enter the kitchen.
I shrug. "It's just school."
"It's your first day of school!"
"I've had a lot of first days of school."
"Yes, but after this year you'll only have one year left until you're free!"
"Yeah." I tug my gloves onto my hands. "I'm going to walk to school with Nyx."
"You kids have the weirdest names."
"You gave me mine," I say as I step outside. I shut the door and start the short walk to Nyx's house. As I get closer to her house I can see her shut her door.
"Hey!" she says when she sees me.
"Hey," I say. She takes a left out of her driveway, then stops so I can catch up to her. I jog a few steps so I'm beside her.
She pulls on her translucent gloves, and we start walking.
Our gloves are really weird. They're translucent, but you can still sort of see them. They mold to your skin, and the only way you can tell if someone is wearing them is if the sun is out and you can see the glare of them or something. Sometimes I wonder if some people even wear their gloves.
"Are you ready for school?" Nyx asks.
I shrug. "I guess."
We arrive at the entrance to the school a few minutes later, and we go our separate ways to our classes.
"Who are you?" the teacher asks when I enter her room.
"Xyla Thorn."
She nods. "Sit over there." She points to a desk in the back row of desks, and I walk over to the desk she pointed to.
I sit down, and a few minutes later a guy I've never seen before walks in.
"Who are you?" the teacher asks.
"Luke Hemmings."
She nods. "Sit over there." She points at the desk to the right of me, and the guy slowly makes his way over to me.
"Hey," he says. He has a lip ring on the left side of his bottom lip. "I'm Luke."
I write my name down on a piece of paper and hand it to him.
"No one can ever pronounce my name right," I say.
He looks at the paper for a moment before writing something underneath it. He hands me back the paper, and I see he wrote 'Zilah'.
"Is that how it's pronounced?" he asks.
"Yeah," I say. "Wow. No one has ever pronounced it right before."
He shrugs. "In names, 'X' is almost always a variation of 'Z' if the names starts with an 'X', and the rest of the name is pretty easy to pronounce."
The bell rings, signaling for class to start.
"Okay, class," the teacher says. "As you all know, when you enter your last year of Last School, you get Matched with someone for marriage. Now, the rules have changed. You will be receiving your Match this year."
Holy shit.
