Hold Me Closer

Part Two

Okay, let's be realistic. This wasn't going to start with one of those scenes where they wake up slowly, forget where they are and then slowly get ready to school. Regardless of the fact that I was a little bit more on the studious side, nobody forgets that the next day is their first day of school.

Which had meant that I had spent the entire night awake, tossing and turning and was now looking at one of the worst morning faces I had ever seen in my life. My eyes were a little red-rimmed, giving me that signature heroine addict look that I'm sure all the girls were dying to have (ha!), and there were deep purplish-blue circles underneath them. My pale skin had gotten even more translucent with the lack of sun, making my green eyes look strangely out of place on my face.

"Brilliant, Olive." I said, "you've really done yourself a real favour here."

"Do you always talk to yourself?"

"Jesus!" I yelled, scared witless. A girl was standing behind me; my roommate, I presumed, seeing as I was standing in our shared bathroom.

"Nope, not Jesus, just Meg." The girl said, extending her hand.

I shook it tentatively. "Shame, Jesus would have been more help with the monster face I've woken up with this morning."

Meg laughed, throwing her head of inky black hair back. "Hmm, so a crazy roommate, but also a funny one. I can work with that."

"Hey! I'm not crazy."

"Says the girl talking to herself," Meg replied, sitting down on the toilet and assessing me,

I adverted my eyes and looked back to my reflection. "Touche."

"I'm Olive by the way," I said, as I started working some moisturiser onto my puffy face.

"Like the fruit?"

"No, like the biblical symbol of peace."

"Seriously?" Meg said, her eyes widening.

"No, not seriously!" I laughed. "Yes, like the fruit. Who do you think I am?"

"I don't know, you should hear some of the names you get in a boarding school like this. Olive, the biblical symbol of peace, would not be the weirdest one by far."

"Well Meg seems pretty normal."

"Thank you, Meg is flattered," my roommate said mock bowing. "No, I know, my full name is Megumi, its Japanese, but some pricks made some comments about it so I changed to something that was 'easier' to understand."

"Ew," I said frankly. "So this is that kind of school?"

"I mean Arundel Academy, home to the rich and famous. What did you expect?"

"Some fancy biscuits in the school kitchen?"

Meg laughed without mirth. "Seriously, Olive. You're going to have to prepare yourself for a lot of- what do your parents do? Where are your shoes from? Oh that's so...quaint."

I looked back at her to check if she was being serious, and sighed when I realised she was. Meg left me a couple of moments to get properly ready and I headed back into my room, throwing on the clothes that I had unpacked and laid out the night before. Arundel had a "uniform" in the way that students couldn't wear anything too short or with spaghetti straps, but apart from that it was free reign.

Not trying to stick out too much on my first day, I had gone with some faded blue jeans and a dark blue sweatshirt. Pretty boring, but perfect camouflage wear. If this really was going to be as elitist as I thought it might, I was going to have to do my best to fit in. My hair was straightened, so it fell below my shoulders, and I put on a small gold locket before heading out.