Chapter 2 (i)

In the hours that followed our orientation tour, thoughts of the convincing prankster relentlessly plagued my mind. It was that boyish grin, the ease in his movements and the way he’d been so sure of himself. It was the firmness of his chest and the mischief in his eyes that dared you to join in. They were silly little things that shouldn’t have mattered and yet, against my better judgement, I was entranced.

It happened like that sometimes. You saw someone and everything just clicked in all the right—or wrong—ways. Jayden was trouble, I was nearly certain of it but that dimpled smile had etched itself into my memory in ways I’d never willingly admit.

Listen to me, I sounded like a love-sick middle-schooler who’d never held hands with a boy. The disdain I felt for myself at having entertained such wayward thoughts was palpable, but even that wasn’t enough to silence the pounding in my chest every time his image flashed across my mind.

Jayden had the charisma of a politician. I hadn’t yet decided how dangerous that was, but I knew it was worth keeping an eye on. Boys like that could sour in an instant and they were invariably to be avoided, no matter how nice their smile was.

At lunch, I sat at an empty table in the corner of the cafeteria where I could take it all in. While I hadn’t completely gotten my image off the ground, I’d already begun to sew important little seeds between my classes. If nothing else, my peers now knew that my parents were travelling musicians and that I was looking to join the school band. I hadn’t met any of its members yet, but I was sure they were already making plans to find me and extol the virtues of joining their ranks.

It was only a matter of time.

Until then, I sat watching my new school world unfold around me. I could see it all, the jocks, the cheerleaders, the soon-to-be dropouts who stayed behind the gym to smoke, the nerds, the preppies. They were all so distinct—especially the science and math disciples; there was never any overlooking them. I tried to join their ranks once, but where I could bluff my way through math fanaticism, I was hopeless at physics and chemistry so the latter dream never took off.

There were only 15 minutes left of the period when a small group of four made their way to my table. They were in my homeroom, but I didn’t give them much thought beyond that. Not yet, not while I was still trying to figure out where they fit into the bigger picture I was looking at. They could’ve been the opportunistic sort, eager to get first dibs at the new girl in case she turned out to be super cool or super rich. Unfortunately for them, I happened to be neither—but boy had I been in a past life! It hadn’t been easy and I’d nearly been found out a half dozen times or so, but we moved before the final hammer could drop and thank God for that.

"Hey, I'm Madelyn,” one said. Her smile readily touched her eyes, leading me to think the greeting was at least genuine in nature. That said, I’d trained myself to smile like that, too, and wouldn’t be so easily swayed. “These are my friends, Lara, Hayley and Carter."

"Hey,” I replied, but my mind was otherwise occupied. There, sitting at a table near mine, was Jayden. He was engrossed in an argument that was rubbing him the wrong way. I could tell by the way his brows kept creasing and the way he kept cutting his sentences short. In the moment, he reminded me of Matt—who equally enjoyed throwing tantrums when things weren’t going his way. My nose wrinkled at the comparison, causing the others to turn in the direction I’d been transfixed.

"Yikes, looks like Jayden's pissed again," Madelyn said, now following my stare.

"Does that happen often?" I asked, curious more than anything else. My first instinct wasn’t to believe he was another arrogant son of a bitch who expected the world to bow at his feet, but I’d been wrong before and the outcome of that was still fresh in my mind. I’d found that with this sort of thing, it was infinitely better to be safe than sorry.

"Only really when it’s got something to do with school business," Madelyn replied, a lazy shrug rolling off her shoulder. “It’s just about time for them to start planning for the dance, I think.” She and the others helped themselves to the empty seats, openly less interested in the angry boy than I happened to be. "He's our student body president; likes to run a tight ship and all that. You should’ve seen him the week leading up to the fall social—election season’s the best…or worse, I suppose.”

"Ah, so he’s one of those big shots," I mused aloud, mulling the idea over in my head.  Somewhere in the back of my mind, I'd figured that out, on my own. He must have had some level of power to feel that he could say and do whatever he wanted then get away with it.

I’d had an old student body president who just about fit that bill. He was always using his ‘power’ to get girls alone and I wasn’t any exception. The last one had used the guise of collaborating with the yearbook regarding sports photos to get me alone. I should have known his intentions were skewed but I was naïve and with the yearbook president having been unavailable, I was eager to prove myself.  

I’ve… never had the same affinity for community and volunteer work since.

"Slow your role there, new girl. There's only one girl in this entire school who's dumb enough to go after Jayden and that's because she has a remote chance of getting him," Madelyn said, derailing my train of thought in the process.

That particular idea hadn’t crossed my mind until she put it there but suddenly, it was all I could think about. Was it possible? He’d smiled at me earlier and had attempted to assure me he hadn’t meant any harm. The lead drummer—did they have those?—and the student body president, it didn’t necessarily scream ‘power couple’ but I could make it work. I could be his little secret for the first while, especially with there being one real contender already in the ring. She would be the crowd favourite and I’d be the underdog. We’d be exposed by Easter—some nosy student or the other. If not, I’d expose us myself.