Requiem : Chapter 1

1. Good Luck</b>

I clumsily threw my arm over to my bedside table to quiet the incessant buzzing of my alarm clock. Once I had successfully managed to do that, I sighed heavily and slid out from beneath the covers. Then, I trudged slowly to the bathroom, stopping in front of the mirror to examine myself. My deep auburn hair, waving almost erratically down my back, had actually managed to look presentable, so I decided not to mess with it for the day. Hm. Maybe today would be a pretty good day after all. I had a feeling that something exciting would happen.
Not yet fully awake, I brushed my teeth in a sluggish daze. After tossing my toothbrush back into the ceramic mug on the corner of the sink, I stretched and walked back to my room. I threw open my closet door and contemplated over what to wear. Quickly scanning my clothes, I decided on a pair of tight black jeans and a black deep v-neck sweater with a skeleton print emblazoned on the front and a crimson undershirt. While changing, I called out to my mother down the hall “Mom! I’m leaving soon!”
“Okay, sweetie, have a good day!” she answered simply. She must have been busy with work that she had refused to do over the weekend.
I grabbed my backpack while simultaneously slipping into a pair of red flats. When I finally stepped outside, the chill air gently stirred my hair. It was only the beginning of September and already the warm rays of the sun were vanishing from the forecast. My smile was almost tentative as I opened the driver’s-side door to the silver convertible Camaro parked in front of the house: an early birthday present from my mother. A classic offspring of the late 90’s.
Cars were just barely trickling into the parking lot when I pulled up to the school. I quickly parked my car and half-ran into the building, heading for the art room. It was in what had to be the most secluded area in the entire school. The only classroom at the end of an extremely long hallway.
I pushed the door open and greeted the man standing with his back to me. “Good morning, Mr. Andes.”
He turned, flashing a brilliant smile, and took a few steps towards me, stopping to write on the board. “Alice, do you think you could get me a few books from Anna before class? She’s been hounding me to read them and-”
I held my hand up to stop him and slid my backpack off my shoulder. “Sure, no problem.”
“Thanks.”
I had never really thought of Anna Shelton as an actual teacher at my school. She was young for a teacher and I’d never had trouble talking to her like I would with any other teacher. I opened the door to her room slowly. “Hey, Anna, Mr. Andes wants those books you’ve been bothering him about.”
She poked her head around the corner of her small office, smiling. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Great! I’ve been telling him about them since we first got back from summer break and I thought he wouldnever ask.”
“Well,” I worked hard to make my face look as horrified at the thought as possible, “if you were to stalk me about something as trivial as a few books, I’d be sure to give in as well…” She pursed her lips in annoyance and I decided to change the subject. “Where’s Michael?”
Anna rolled her eyes and sighed. “Honestly? Who knows? I’ve gotten to the point where I hardly even care anymore.”
I gasped and narrowed my eyes as though completely shocked by this. “Anna! Your own brother…?”
“Yeah, whatever.” She said, waving me off. She disappeared back into her office for a few moments before walking back out with an exaggerated grunt of effort. She placed five incredibly thick volumes into my hands. “Now run along before Mr. Andes wonders where you’ve gotten to and thinks I’ve imprisoned you for your caustic behavior.”
Though it was incredibly childish, I stuck out my tongue and strode out the door smiling. I could hear her roaring laughter as I walked away.

Making a smooth exit was proving to be more difficult than I had originally thought it would be. I could hardly see around the books in front of my face and the fact that one of my shoes had managed to come untied only worsened matters. I had actually been doing pretty well at managing to not fall on my face until I turned a corner without paying any particular attention to what, or who, was around it. The books banged loudly as they hit the floor, making the heads of the few students who happened to be walking in the vicinity of the collision turn sharply.
I quickly fell to my knees to round up the books and saw another pair of hands reaching down to help. Without looking up, I began to voice my apology “I am so sorry! I wasn’t even looking to see if anyone was coming and I guess I just-”
“It’s really no problem.” Without looking up, I suddenly knew a few things about the person I had literally run into. First, he was British. His smooth, almost lustrous accent had given me more than enough evidence to prove that. Second… well, even if his extremely sexy accent hadn’t been enough to give him away, I didn’t want to jump to any conclusions, so I looked up. It was obvious I had been watching too many Harry Potter movies because it’s impossible for all young British men to be extremely good looking, I know, but, as far as the movies were concerned, this guy filled the quota and then some. He must have mistaken my staring at him as a look of apology because he quickly began speaking again. “It’s okay. Really. I mean I don’t even see how you could have possibly gotten around carrying all these books…” he trailed off, flipping his head to get his shaggy brown hair out of his face.
My brain kicked back into gear when I saw the uncomfortable look in his piercing green eyes. “Um, yeah. I guess you’re right…”
We both stooped down to pick up the books and when I reached over to take the rest of the books from him, he shook his head. “Why don’t I help you with these?” I eyed him suspiciously. The only boys in this school who were willing to help anyone were usually looking for a hook up. But he surprised me by frowning at my expression. “Just so that this incident doesn’t reoccur, okay?”
I nodded slowly and reached out a hand. “I guess so… I’m Alice Valentine. I haven’t seen you around before. Are you new?” I mentally cursed myself. Of course he was new. You’d think a girl would notice if someone like this was roaming around the same halls as her.
He smiled and shook my hand, careful not to drop the books he held. “Liam Crosier. Just moved from London actually.”
“Wow.” I whistled lightly. “It must be pretty boring here compared to London.”
We began walking as he pondered that for a moment “No, not really. It actually gets sort of boring seeing the same place over and over again every day. It’s nice to see somewhere new.”
“I think I know what you mean.” I sighed.
“Where did you need to take these?”
“The art room.” I saw his face brighten out of the corner of my eye.
“Perfect. That’s my first class.”
I was completely shocked. What were the chances that I would actually have a class with him? I raised my eyebrows at him. “Um, wow. Mine, too.” I cringed internally. Why would I be taking something to the art room if it weren’t my first class? Stupid, stupid, stupid!

The bell rang just as we stepped through the doorway of Mr. Andes’ room. I dumped my haul of the books onto his desk and Liam followed suit, even sitting in the chair next to mine as Mr. Andes turned to bring the rest of the class to order “Now, before we start for today,” he began, “I’d like you all to separate into pairs. And please try to pick someone you don’t normally partner up with.”
I glanced over at Liam and saw him nod back, a glorious smile lighting his features. Mr. Andes then continued. “We start portraits today. Don’t worry about shading or anything today. Just do a basic sketch of your partner and we’ll get to the rest next week as we learn more about depth and texture.” He paused for a moment as his instructions sunk in. “Okay. Choose your partners and get to work. I don’t want to see anyone slacking off.”
Immediately, the head of every single one of the boys in the classroom snapped around to face me questioningly. I turned away from them to face Liam, not even glancing back to see if they had scowls on their faces or not. I rolled my eyes and pulled out my sketchbook. “You’d think I was some sort of trophy to be passed around…”
“Perhaps you are…” I thought I heard him reply, but it was so quiet, I couldn’t be sure.
“So, should I start or would you rather-”
“It’s fine. I’ll get the sketch of you first.” He reached into his bag and took out an extremely thick sketchbook. It was bound in black suede, his initials carefully stitched into the cover in a deep maroon color. He quickly flipped through the book and found a clean page. He then walked over to me and lightly placed his hand on my wrist to reposition me for the pose he wanted me to sit in. His fingers were surprisingly cold against my bare skin. “May I?”
“Oh. Of course.”
He gently set my elbow on the table and asked me to rest my chin on my hand before returning to his seat. He then paused for a moment, contemplating any changes he wanted to make before he began. “Could you turn towards me a little more, please?” I complied. “There. Perfect, thank you.”
My eyes followed his hand as he picked up his pencil and took the first few strokes on the paper. He became absorbed in his work, his features intense with concentration. As I watched, Liam seemed to become a work of art himself. A living sculpture. I sighed and he glanced up, smiling. “Don’t worry. I’m nearly finished.”
I started and looked over to the clock. Had I been staring at him longer than I thought I had? Sure enough, the entire class period had just about passed us by.
Liam cleared his throat, pulling me away from whatever thought had clouded my mind. "Would you like to see it?" I nodded dumbly and took the sketchbook from him.
I gasped and trailed my fingers over the paper. Is this what I really looked liked? The girl in his sketch seemed too glamorous to be me. The corners of her lips were turned up into the slightest of smiles and her eyes burned with some impassioned emotion. And yet, her features were mine. Every last detail had been carefully drawn so that, to me at least, it was like gazing into a mirror instead of at a simple drawing. I met Liam's gaze with wide eyes.
"Do you like it?" he asked.
What a stupid question to ask! I thought. Of course I liked it! No, I more than just liked it. Iloved it. But I couldn't really say that. "It's amazing. Where did you learn to draw like this?"
"A lot of practice, I suppose."
"Well, it's paid off." The bell rang then. Everyone scrambled to gather their things and get out the door to their next class. I hesitated momentarily before working up the nerve to ask. "Do you need help finding your next class?"
He seemed startled by my abrupt question, but for some reason, his eyes seemed a little off to me. I brushed off this strange flash of intuition as a trick my nerves were playing on me. “Are you sure you can?” he asked. “Would it make you late to your next class?”
“Oh, I’ll be okay. Where’s your class at?” he handed me his schedule and I gasped. We didn’t share just one or two classes together. All of our classes were the same. Once again, my intuition flickered and, once again, I shook it off. I shouldn’t be suspicious when I saw no reason to be.
The walk to Anna’s class was almost painfully slow and silent. I could think of no fun or witty thing to say that would impress the incredibly hot boy standing next to me. Luckily for me, that same boy was the one to break the awkward silence.
“So, Alice,” Liam began, “What exactly is there to do around here?”
“Not much, really.” I admitted. Of course I would have to live in one of the only boring places in New York. Maybe my life seriously hated me. “Like I said. This place is boring. I would jump at the chance for a little adventure now and then.”
“Adventures aren’t quite as fun as you seem to think they are…” he gazed away, his eyes unfocused.
“What?”
“Oh, nothing. Is this the class?”
Had we made it to Anna’s room already? Huh, imagine that. Maybe time had flown quicker than I’d thought. “Oh. Yes, this is it.”
As soon as we entered the room, I saw Anna look up at me to begin our usual pre-class talk. But, instead of walking briskly over to me, her expression froze for the briefest of moments and a mischievous glint entered her eyes and she winked at me. It didn’t take a genius to know that she had seen the unmistakably gorgeous boy standing next to me. My face heated ever so slightly as I turned away from her diabolical eyes only to find another shocked pair. In the midst of the wonder Liam had brought, I had forgotten that I shared this class with another of my close friends, Sarah. I spoke to Liam without really looking at him, raising my voice loud enough for everyone in the class to hear. “Why don’t we sit in the back?” I saw Sarah’s face fall in mock disappointment and I smiled.
Throughout the entire class, both Anna and Sarah kept looking back at us, their expressions puckered into a joking pout and Liam’s eyebrows rose in confusion each time my grin widened because of it. Finally, after he seemed to have finally had enough of this, he leaned over to me and whispered in my ear. “Are you going to tell me what the bloody hell you’re smiling about or will I have to continue suffering at the expense of your seemingly dark humor?”
I looked into his eyes, a witty remark already forming, but the sincere curiosity in them tore the words from my mind and I sighed. “Just annoying a few friends.”
“And doing so amuses you?”
“Yes.” I turned my attention back to the front. My cell phone buzzed and I reached into my pocket to grab it. There was a text message from Anna, who sat smiling in a chair behind the desk at the front of the class:

Meet me here after school to talk.

Another message quickly followed it. This one from Sarah:

See you at lunch!

I sighed. There would be no escaping any of my friends today. I could feel it.



Third and fourth period went by just as embarrassingly. Everyone was so used to my calm, and sometimes quiet, disposition that it shocked them to see me so…flustered. That’s why, when we had finally made it through the lunch line and were looking for a place to sit in the cafeteria, I nearly died when I heard my name called.
“Hey, Al! Come sit over here! WE ARE OVER HERE!”
I turned to see my friend Katie’s ecstatic face. Sarah was sitting beside her, an expectant smirk on her face. I rolled my eyes and saw Liam laughing quietly. When I glared at him, he stopped abruptly and cleared his throat. “Shall we sit next to them?”
I sighed and began walking towards the table. “We have no other choice. I guess it can’t be helped.”
I took my seat across the table from Katie and Liam sat to my right, in front of Sarah. Katie was the first to react. She held her hand out towards Liam and smiled warmly. “Hello! I’m Katie! Well, actually, my name is Mary, but I don’t really like that name, so I just go by my middle name and-”
I saw Sarah elbow her lightly to shut her up before she said something she would regret later on. Taking the hint, she closed her mouth, flipped her hair over her shoulder, and looked down, her ears turning slightly red. Liam smiled back at her and shook her hand as though she hadn’t started a nervous little rant right in front of him. “Nice to meet you. I’m Liam.”
I could almost physically see Katie begin to melt when she heard his to-die-for accent.
Sarah reacted more naturally. She didn’t reach out to shake his hand, like both Katie and I had when we first met him, but she gave him a cute little wave and smile that made her glasses slide down her nose a few centimeters. “Hey. I’m Sarah.”
Liam unwrapped his fork as he spoke to her. “We have English together. Ms. Shelton’s class, right?”
“Yeah. You know, I noticed that you and Alice are-”
At that, I felt the need to swerve the direction of our conversation the opposite way. Fast. “So, you guys, Liam just moved here from London!”
Katie swallowed her bite of pizza quickly, her eyes widening. “Really?” She squealed. “That’s awesome!”
Sarah looked equally as impressed and even more interested. “That’s totally cool! Your popularity in this school will skyrocket when people learn that.” She shot me a sly look. “You may even rival Alice in that department…”
I turned red instantly. “Yeah, because that popularity is so what I want. Boys following me everywhere I go and clubs literally attacking me to convince me to join… it’s loads of fun.”
“Speaking of.” Sarah began just as Liam was about to inquire about the recent topic. “What are the whack job stories of the day so far? Anyone get you in the hallways like usual?”
I thought for a moment before gasping. “You know what? I haven’t been bothered at all today.”
Both Katie and Sarah looked at me dumbstruck. “What?!”
This is when Liam finally found the chance to chime in. “Maybe that’s because they see you’re showing me around and they don’t want to bother.”
“Or maybe you’re just a good luck charm.” Sarah wagged her eyebrows. I kicked her. “OUCH!”
I cleared my throat. “The point is… it’s been a nice day so far. I’ll admit it’s weird to think that no one is bothering me all the time, but, all things considered, I like it.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Liam smile. “Who knows? Maybe you are a good luck charm.” His face reddened slightly.
“As if.” He scoffed. The rest of us giggled and returned to eating.