"Errm, hi." I tried to catch the attention of the secretary, behind her desk. A lot depended on this. If she didn't look up soon, and hand over my timetable, I was at risk of turning up late for my first lesson. As it was, homeroom was out of the question.

"Yes?" she bothered to look up at me.

"I'm new here. I was told my timetable would be waiting here for me."

"Name?" Her fake nails skipped over a bunch of documents, held upright in a letter holder. I wanted to roll my eyes, and tell her to stop acting like I was a fucking incovenience. Instead, I leaned over the counter and pronounced my name slowly and deliberately. "Violet Duparke. V-I-O..."

"Found it!" she triumphantly emerged with a sheet of paper, and waved it at me as if enticing a dog. I accepted with grace, and muttered a little "Thank you." The lady went back to ignoring me again, as she booted up the computer. Nice. This time, I did roll my eyes as I walked away. This quickly turned to mounting horror, when I realised every single of my classes were Advanced Placement.

What the hell?

Is Mrs Marigold on crack?

As the woman directly responsible for getting me here, she failed to mention this interesting tidbit. Did mom have any part to play in this? Knowing her, she would've been first in line to brag about how accomplished her daughter is.

My left hand instinctively reached out to pat for my phone, before I realised yes, it was still missing.

In Christian's room.

God dammit! Fuming, my face made an ugly picture as I stormed up the hall. A boy who had been rummaging in his locker, ducked inside when he saw me coming. It was almost comical how he hunched his shoulders, as if that would stop me noticing him. He nearly jumped out of his skin, when I tapped him on the shoulder.

"What do you want?" he snarled, swivelling on me. His glasses were on the tip off falling down his nose.

Instantly, all my anger died away. This boy, so bookish in character, was facing me off like an overprotective tiger. What kind of school was St. Davids? To make even an intelligent person ready to tear my head off?

Mutely, I pointed at my first class.

"AP Physics?" the boy stared down at me, in surprise. "That's my class!"

Great, I smiled at him. Maybe he could lead the way.

"Is this some kind of prank?" he peered down the corridor, before disbelievingly turning back to me. "No girl has willingily taken up AP Physics in the course of two decades. The last one who tried, didn't even make it to second semester."

My eyebrows shot up. "That bad?"

"And then some," the boy fell in step with me, as he slammed his locker door and started walking. "Are you new? It might explain why it's on your timetable. You should go to Principal Singh and sort it out. I'm sure they can transfer you to AP Drama or something." I bristled at his comment. Even though I had been thinking along similar lines, didn't mean he had to call me out! It automatically made me want to prove him wrong.

"No, it wasn't a mistake," I found myself uttering. "I know exactly what I'm doing."

No, I really didn't.

It was worth it though, to see the impressed look crossing his face. "I'm Zeke," he introduced, holding open a door. "And welcome to Particle Physics!"

...

Sixteen heads swivelled to look at me, as I stepped through the door. Faintly, I noticed all of them were male. Zeke smiled at me, before joining a group of indian boys who were extremely pimpled. Some of the guys were staring at me like I was Angelina Jolie. A few were shooting me confused looks, as if to say AP Drama is that way. But I think one or two actually pegged this was the class I was intended for, and gave me looks of utter loathing.

Suddenly I wanted cute, nerdy Zeke back at my side.

But his dirty-blond hair was bent down to next to someone else's. They were discussing something feverently.

It was me.

I felt their gazes as I walked slowly to the front of class. This wasn't how I planned my first day at St. Davids. I had hoped to siddle in at the back, and cruise through the day without attracting any attention. But too late. I guess being the only girl in a male dominated class could do that to you.

"Hello Violet," Mr Eisenberg gretted me by name. "Grab a textbook, and seat yourself somewhere comfortable. You will soon come to realize, this is a very relaxed class to take."

Are you kidding me?

I reached out to grab a textbook, but my grip was too slippery and it slid right out of my grasp.

As I bent to retrieve it, I heard a muffled laugh.

When I stood up quickly to glare at whoever it was, the whole class collectively bent down over their desks and pretended to be engrossed in their books. Only someone looking carefully, would see the amused grins tugging on their mouths. I just didn't understand, how a group of swotty, greasy haired individuals could somehow look cooler than me.

In the end, I had to sit by myself. Nobody was willing to let a girl to join in their fun.

Even Zeke, averted his gaze and pretended he didn't know me. The bad thing about this, was my pride was dragged through the mud. The good thing was, that I had nothing to distract me from the content of the lesson. Normally I would be twiddling on my phone, or laughing with my girlfriends. But now I found myself engrossed, as the Professor described the meaning of μ.

"Meu is used in the formula F=ma, as the coefficient of friction."

I scribbled that down. Seemed like a useful thing to know.

"Violet?"

"Hmm?" I looked up, to find myself in the middle of my worst nightmare. I always hated it, when the Professor asked a question that every other student seemed to know the answer too, except me. Made me feel like a failure.

"I know this is unfair, especially since this is your first lesson with us, but I was wondering if you knew where meu is inserted in this formula?"

I gave a chuckle. Then throwing all pretense out of the window, I dragged the textbook towards me and flipped to the contents page. Shit. My hands were shaking. Zeke was going to be proven right. Girls can't handle theoretical physics. My voice was very small, when finally I looked up and squeaked, "No."

The room errupted in laughter.

...

I was so shell-shocked about my experience, that I spent the rest of the day in a quasi-state of semi-conciousness and didn't respond to outside stimuli. Did I have lunch? I can't remember. Did I see the blonde chick Christian was banging? Maybe.

When the bell rang at 3:30, I retreated to the female toilets and locked myself into a cubicle.

Vanessa came looking for me.

"VIOLET!" she hollered, as she walked in. That pulled me out of my reverie. I knew she was in younger school, but I completely forgot that she would want to go home with me. I flushed the toilet, wondering how long she had been yelling my name around the school.

"You're here!" she stated, when I emerged. "Did you make any new friends?"

"Uh, sure," I said, blindly moving towards the taps.

"Enough to forget about me?"

"That sounds right...yeah."

"VIOLET!" Second shock to the system. The water was still gushing, when I caught Vanessa's reflection behind mine on the mirror. The little girl looked ready to pull my hair out. Steam coming out of her nose and hands on her hips, she made a stern disciplinarian and not someone to be made light off. With guilt, I realized I was still not paying much attention to her. Vanessa squealed, when I swooped down and picked her up. So maybe she was too old to be babied over, but Vanessa didn't seem to mind as she snuggled in.

"Gosh, what am I like!" I berated out loud. "I have this beautiful girl by my side, and I'm acting like a lemon cake!"

"You are," Vanessa agreed, before giggling. "A big, fat one!"

"Hey," I protested, coming to a stop outside the school. The school was massive. It bordered with two tennis courts, a multi-storeyed car park and acres of land. It was here, that I wondered when Arev was going to show. When he dropped Vanessa and me off this morning, he assured he would be outside the school at 3:35 sharp.

My brow furrowed when I thought of Christian.

I hadn't seen him at school all day today. Which was weird, because he was definitely wearing his uniform when I saw him last. Considering this was his final year, I would've thought he would make more of an effort to pull up his attendence. No college was going to accept him if they found out he was a delinquent.

My frown turned into a grimace, when I saw Zeke jogging to catch up.

"Who's this?" He wanted to know, staring at Vanessa.

"She's-" I began.

"My sister," Vanessa lovingly put both her arms around my neck, and cut me off. I knew well enough that Vanessa wanted a sister, and wouldn't mind if it was someone like me. But a lie was a lie, wasn't it? Zeke began watching in interest, as I had a staring competition with Vanessa. Knowing she was in major trouble, she hid her face into my neck.

"Anyway," Zeke brushed off the moment. "How did you find your first AP Physics lesson?"

"Haha."

"No, seriously. I know the guys were a bit hysterical, but it's a really rewarding subject."

"To be honest, Zeke," I said, hitching Vanessa higher up on my hip. "I'm thinking of dropping it."

The small smile that had been playing on his lips, dropped instantly. Zeke regarded me coldly, crossing his arms and letting the sun wink off his glasses. In that moment, I panicked because there was no way I could read his eyes. His friendliness had evaporated and left me feeling about this small.

"That's unfortunate," he shrugged. "Thought you were better than that."

He left me no time to defend myself.

"You know, if I had thought you were the type of girl who quits at the first signs of adversity, then I wouldn't have bothered." He continued rubbing salt to the wound. "Just goes to show, fakers can deceive the best of us."

When Zeke walked away, he walked with hunched shoulders.

...

"I'm sorry girls," Arev panted, when the car finally came to collect us. I made sure Vanessa was strapped in first, before joining her in the back seat. I had roughly two hours to rustle up another dinner, and another two to complete my homework. At this rate, I would sucuumb to exhaustion by 8'oclock.

"Just had a few errands to run."

"It's okay, Arev," I said, closing my eyes. "No need to explain."

When we got home, I staggered into the kitchen and tried to think of a simple plan. Imagine my surprise, when mom walks in with two bags of steaming hot takeaway. "Mom?" my eyes bugged, as she set the food down. "What did you do?"

"Isn't it obvious, darling?" She grabbed a pair of chopsticks, and put it near the Chicken Chow Mein. "I ordered chinese!"

"I can see that," I said impatiently. "The question is why."

"Violet, you need to get over this ridiculous notion that human beings can survive on thin air. We need food. I simply ordered some."

"But Vanessa hates takeaway!" I argued, not realizing the traitor was grabbing a plate as we spoke. At mom's pointed stare, I glanced behind me to see Vanessa helping herself to some golden fried dumplings, soaked in soy sauce. "What?" she asked me, mouth full of food. "I never said I hated chinese."

"By the way, I tried calling you earlier," my mom said, flitting over to the fridge. "It went straight to voicemail."

"Oh, right!" I remembered. "I need to get my phone back!"

Leaving them to their food, I headed over to Christian's room and knocked on the door. Having done this yesterday, it came as no surprise when no-one bothered to answer. Gripping the door handle firmly, I edged it open a smidge and snuck a peek around the plank of wood. It took a few seconds for my eyes to adapt and when it did, I saw a shirtless Christian lying on his bed.

My mouth went dry at the sight of him.

He looked so...approachable. So relaxed, as he drew fluid strokes against his notepad. Briefly, he stared into the distance like he was remembering something good, before smiling and looking down again. His black hair was rumpled, giving him a sexy bed-head.

His pecs...my eyes drifted lower. They looked very hard. Any girl pressed up against that, would feel like the softest thing in the world.

Christian's hand froze, and petrified, I let my eyes dart back to his face. He was staring at me. Oh god. He was staring right at me! Letting out a strangled noise, I slammed the door between our faces and backed away. But wherever I went, his gaze still followed. Warm and confused, I couldn't think of a more appealing expression his face could sport.

A minute later, the door opened again.

Christian came out, this time wearing a shirt.

"What do you want!" he snapped, when he saw me. "My room isn't a drop-in center for strays, however much you want it to be!"

Even though he was wearing a shirt, I could still remember what he looked like. I turned my face to the side.

"Spit it out!" he barked.

"I want my phone back!"

"What did you say?"

"I want my phone back," some of my earlier anger returned. It gave me enough conviction to turn around and glare at him."Give it to me."

Christian leaned against the doorway, with both arms crossed against his chest. Behind him, I could see the inviting glow of his bedroom cast shadows over our conversation in the hallway. "That phone is mine now," he said simply. "Don't come looking for it again."

No! I darted forward, invading his personal space.

"It's not the phone that matters," I said desperately. "But I have irreplaceable contacts on there from my previous life. Please, if you have any heart, give the damned thing back to me."

Christian lent in close, so our faces were millimeters apart.

"You should have thought of that before you came into my room."

"And what?" I whispered back, concious he could close the distance. "Does every object that enters your room, fall under your keep?"

"Something like that, yeah" he mumbled.

I don't know what possessed me to do it. He clearly hated my guts and I didn't think too highly of him either. But as I reached out and pushed the door open behind us, it was with serious intent. Just go in and look for your phone, my brain told me. But my body had another agenda, as it strolled into Christian's room and swivelled, anomosity festering with an arched brow.

"Including people?" I challenged.

Christian masked his emotions with shutters.

"GET OUT OF MY ROOM!" he yelled.

Okay then.

...

Just a coupla author's notes.

I studies Physics until I was 17, so know a little about it. It wasn't AP Physics though! (lol, don't live in America). However there is a sub-unit in Math, called "Mechanics" where I live, and that's very "Physics" orientated. I will be putting that knowledge to good use.

Thank you to my 3 reviewers :)

Nanumi- I'll reply to you here. After your review, I spent a good hour trying to write the "perfect" description of St. Davids. Tall, willowy trees...bubbling fountains...a maple courtyard...all didn't make the cut :) But when I stopped trying to be descriptive, the writing came pretty easy, which leads me to think I hate description. This realisation didn't make me happy. People NEED description to picture stuff. Oh well!

Review if you haven't already. It really helps.