Ria. That was all they called her. That was all she remembered. All she knew of her past was that an old matron found a little brown skinned girl at the orphanage gate. Who left her there? No one knows....... but it is a mystery Ria is determined to...
Ria was not paying attention in class and kept thinking about the threat note that came in the package the other day. She did not want to find her family at the expense of the Harber's safety so she had to stop looking into that file no matter how close she or Lynn and Mr. Harber thought they were getting to solve it.
"Ria..." Ms. Flora called from the board, snapping Ria out of her deep thoughts, "Ria, I'm sure you could repeat what I just said about infinite limits?" Ria looked up in surprise to find everyone looking back at her for an answer.
"Uh..." she mumbled, trying to remember what she could. Ms. Flora was certainly not in a good mood that afternoon and no time for inattentive students. "Um.."
"Ms. Flora, when does the equation come to infinity?" Hayne asked aloud while hoping to divert the attention from Ria. Mrs. Flora looked at Hayne and then back at Ria. She gave a frown at them both.
"That, is an interesting one Mr. Harber. The thing is..." Ms. Flora said turning back to the white board to write out a calculation and forgetting about what she had just asked Ria. Ria looked across to Korene who gave her a questioning look that asked if she was ok. Ria just gave a small smile before turning her head to the board.
Alesia turned back to the front with an annoyed look and she was suspicious of Hayne's quick reaction to spare Ria from Ms. Flora's scolds.
•••
"Hey, what happened to you back there?" Korene asked Ria as they headed to their lockers after class. "You were like staring into space for like, a whole five minutes. That's not normal."
"Oh...uhm-I just.... I just have a lot going on in my mind lately," she answered retrieving her books from the locker.
"Like what?"
"Just stuff," she replied trying to ignore the question. "What do you have after this?"
"Computer science," Korene said. "There's a group assignment due and Dawn Healey's just blowing up over the project cover page. She's quite particular about font sizes, styles and all."
"I guess she's much of a perfectionist,"
"To the utmost extent!"
"Hey, you okay?" Ria was surprised when Hayne came up to them to asked her that.
".....er-yea?" she said being annoyed. "Why does everyone keep thinking there's something wrong with me?!"
"Well, it's just that I never seen you so distracted in Algebra before," he added.
"Yea I know, right?" Korene nodded in agreement.
"I'm fine, ok. I'm totally fine guys," she told them both. Hayne was not believing a word of it, he knew the threats had been affecting her and how much she wanted to find her family. "I gotta get to Economics." He then left them at the locker and walked away to her next class.
"You know something I don't?" Korene asked Hayne.
"Yea.... I know rugby, sky diving, the secrets to staying this charming," he replied with a smirk.
Korene gave a sigh while she rolled her eyes and walked away to her next class.
••••••
Marlia Sebana was in her studio hemming up the dress on one of the mannequins and taking measurements here and there with the tape over her neck. She took a step back to take a better look at her new addition to the Winter collection and was impressed with what she had done. AJ entered the room to find his mother busy at work.
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