Ruthanne Georgeson High

💎 •Ring in the Garden• 02

| dedicated to KweenKlara |

•••

She shouldn't have raised her head.

But, she did and was now stare-locked into steel hazel eyes.

What?! He was talking to her-no-scratch that. He was right in front of her, of all seats in the garden?

Why is he here? Why her?

She longed to put a pedal on her spiralling thoughts, so high up she couldn't keep up, in her inflated chest.

Curved, light brow dragged up some inches above Ren's eye, questioning her.

"Arhm . . . no. It's not."

He pulled out a chair, on the other end and the charged atmosphere all but erupted on her. No one could see it, feel it. No one except her. Dotty glints of invisible sparks, sizzling and crawling up her arms and legs, coming from the goddesses around.

She would be beheaded and long decayed, she was sure, had they had their way, judging from their hot stares.

What, bitches?

She could only retort that in her mind, of course, as tremors gripped her and made her stiff she could all but do nothing than stuck her chin in, fixated her eyes on her book in an overkill concentration. A concentration so much that one went past reading to actually not retaining anything from all that has been read.

A whiff of heady perfume was strong to break the spell, apparently. Not completely, but a little to make her less rigid, bring her back to the sense world. The boy was settled in, she could tell and he smelled ultraexpensive.

They read in silence.

Sharp.

Metallic cool - that only the birds' flight overhead was the activity going on for a long time.

Then she risked a glance up to him.

His face, light as a seraph's and housing musing eyes, held a straight nose, pink lips and appeared serene like the deep, that could weather anything. Even without any effort on his part, he gave a kingly aura off and of someone capable, dependable. He looked so put together and in charge of his world, the world.

His head shot up and reddish-gray orbs singed into hers. He'd caught her staring, feeling intense curious eyes on him and Demi mousely averted her gaze, trying to shake the proding almond eyes - eyes that wanted delving beyond skin dimension.

Then, he couldn't hold back from asking: "You're a Sophia's Scholar, aren't you?"

Her face came back to him, and she blinked once as if trying to be sure he was talking to her.

Why was she always so hesitant to talk, he thought.

"Yes," she answered finally.

"How's your stay here been?" His voice lilted and dipped to conversational.

"Fine. It's been- great. . . . Just. . ."

"Just?"

"Um, finding my way around. Making friends. All that. . . ."

"I was in your shoes, too," he conceded stolidly. "Two years ago, after moving away from Ireland."

She marvelled internally at that little piece of information, and even felt something at her being told such. Or it probably wasn't a big deal, nothing there, just a general knowledge - her half-mind rationalized.

"Oh. But, well, I...I guess it couldn't have been that bad for you. With you being..." She tried hinting at his background, but couldn't bring herself to utter her line of thoughts.

He got it and changed the conversation. The golden rich boy people always thought had everything easy. Him. "So, I guess you'll be taking the test."

"Test?" That, really? Was it a thing?

"Yeah. Test. The one you were probably told about at the auditorium?" And his fingers found the slit of a pocket in his pressed trousers, fished in it and brought a ring. A very expensive silver band that halted Demi's breath and restarted it.

"So, I'll get that if I take the test-?"

"Ren!" A creamy voice carried across the opened garden from a distance. Renee. And she was visibly nothing like her collected self, her mood and mental state soon transferred to her sharp steps towards Ren and Demi.

Every other student were poised for some actions and flying words. Shooting ice, as they had their phone cameras ready for the drama to unfold. It was their drug and obsession.

Ren was breaking a rule.

One, the first, and very sacred rule at Ruthanne Georgeson High School, Ikoyi.

A Diadem, King for the record, relating with a newly enrolled student.

Sitting down. Gisting, and chatting.

"Renee." Ren's voice was cautionary, totally off from its earlier friendliness, having a small cue on the reason for Renee's anger. He doesn't get the stupid rules and standards they created, segregating whom to speak with or not.

"What the heck are you doing here?!" Renee fired her accusations, perched rigidly before them.

"Don't make a scene."

"A scene?! I shouldn't make a scene? You're seriously telling me that? What is it you're doing, here? What? A 'make-a-friend-for-Ren' cause or mission 'befriend paupers'? Which?-"

Ren was out of his seat in a blink, dragging his sister by the arm away, the jewel ring long dropped to the table, bouncing successively and the wake of the hot exchange shimmering down like dew.

Demi followed the twins staggering off with her sight, stupefied to the marrow, and torn by the concluded spin of events. Somewhere, in her brain, she was entertaining the thought that she'd warbled into a psycho home instead of an high school, and all she's been experiencing are just mental hullabaloos.

Her vision faltered and shifted to her front, seeing the ring Ren had left behind but not registering it. Swirls of the words 'r,h,s,g' cut into the iron played before her eyeballs.

"Fucking bitch."

"I can't believe the nerve of her. How dare her?"

Her mind snapped back to action, picking those words and transportating clanging signals of warning to her brain and limbs.

They were going to bully her.

Or do something worse to her.

And she wasn't going to remain there while things escalate.

She began packing up her text books and jotters and pens, stuffed them haphazardly into her eons-old bag till her hand brushed Ren's. He left his book also.

Should she take it? Or not?

What would it look like?

Theft?

But she couldn't bring herself to leave it be.

Time was skipping, and she discarded her deliberations, hefted the book-Fundamentals of Religious Studies-and in, in her bag it went. Then the ring, too, which she grabbed and placed in her suit jacket's pocket.

She was closed to knocking down her seat as she stretched up on her feet. Their eyes were all on her now. Vile and mean. She doesn't think surviving in a war would be so hard for her, judging by what she's been through since her resumption - she doesn't think so.

Her feet was zapping her out of the vicinity, and she was gone in the moment.