“Thank God it’s Friday!” I cried jumping onto my bed. I had just finished a long tiring week at my new college, St Andrews. It hadn’t seemed too bad with Gabby there, who I had known for four years.

“Nice room Pia,” nodded Gabby in approvement as she sat down beside me.

“You have been here before you know!” I smirk spread across my face.

Gabby immediately started rummaging through my bedside table because she could never sit still, or silent for that matter. She brought out an envelope containing photos and tipped them over my bed. I threw her the dirtiest look I could muster, but she ended up laughing at me. Oh well, guess it just showed I could never be mean.

“You know Tyler Jefferson?” exclaimed Gabby, bouncing up and down on my bed in excitement.

“How do you know him?” I enquired suspicious.

“He’s in my maths class,” answered Gabby as if this was the most obvious thing in the world. I leapt up off the bed, causing half of the photos to fall off. Tyler, in my college? No - it had to be someone else.

“So were you like best friends? Or maybe just a cute lovey-dovey couple?” giggled Gabby as I leaned over to look at the photo she pointing to. I must have been about seven at the time and me and Tyler were in his garden playing football. I smiled to myself at how perfect everything had been back then.

“We were friends and that was all there is to know,” I replied, as I snatched the photo out of Gabby’s hand.

“Hey, I was still looking at that!”

“We got a homework assignment to do silly! I would prefer to get it done now rather than Sunday night. Come on Gabs, get your stuff out.” I gathered all the photos on the bed and stuffed them back in my top drawer leaving the one of me and Tyler on top. After all, it was quite cute!

Me and Tyler actually go way back. I’ve known him since I was about five or six. See, Tyler’s mum looked after me, because my mum worked full-time. So I practically lived with Tyler until I was 11. We went to school together, we were in the same class and we played together. It wasn’t as if we didn’t have any other friends, we were in the same friendship group but we never really got sick of being together all the time. It’s really strange thinking about it now. I would never hang out with the any one person as much as I did with Tyler.

“So, atoms and electrons…”

My mind had started to wonder away and I left Gabby to talk to herself. Tyler and I never had any proper fights, as far as I could remember. So why had we stopped talking? Was it because we were too busy caught up in our different high school with our new friends? Could he have forgotten me so easily?

“Pia!”

“What?” I snapped back annoyed that my train of thought was interrupted.

“Calm down, why're you so crocodile like?”

“Huh?”

“You know snappy, like a crocodile’s jaws…never mind.”

I smiled at Gabby and wondered how she put up with me at times. She was amazingly cool, that was the best word to describe her. She had the funkiest taste in clothing, a bubbly personality and she was one of the cleverest people I had ever met. Today she was wearing a baggy, rainbow coloured t-shirt tied at her waist and a pair of skinny jeans.

“You have a weird sense of humour,” I commented taking out my Chemistry folder.

“I know, but you do too because you smiled at my joke!” She had a grin of triumph and I threw a pencil at her. She caught it with her fast reflexes, and propped it behind her ear. As Gabby carried on with her work I couldn’t help but think about why I didn’t tell her about Tyler. She was the closest person I had to a best friend. For some reason I felt as if my friendship with Tyler needed to be kept private. Well we hadn’t talked in over five years so there wasn’t much to tell anyway. Little did I know this would all change in a matter of days.

--

Monday morning was very miserable and the clouds looked as if they couldn’t decide whether or not it was going to rain. I woke up, grumpily, smashing my alarm clock with my fist. It buzzed to itself for a few seconds and then fell silent. I groaned and rolled over to open my drawer for my glasses. My eyes lay on the photo of Tyler and me. I had completely forgotten about Tyler since Friday. What if I see him at college today? Would he even remember me? I put these thought out of my brain and dashed into the shower. I must have been extra sleepy as when I came out, it was already 7.30. I dressed as fast as I could and practically ran out of the house.

“Bye Pia,” I heard my mum call from the kitchen. My family only consisted of me, my mum and my dad, except that he was hardly ever at home. My dad ran a large mobile phone exporting business and was forever on trips to New York and Paris. I didn’t mind much because I had never got on very well with him. It was kind of a mutual consent, I stayed out of his way and he stayed out of my mine.

I carried on at my brisk pace towards my college which was a twenty minute walk from my house. I heard my name being called and swivelled round to see a cheery faced Gabby behind me.

“Hey Pia! Ready for the Chemistry quiz lesson three?”

“No way Gabs you know I’m going to be copying off you!”

“Ha you wish. You gunna talk to Tyler today then?”

“Not really, I doubt he remembers me anyway.”

“You don’t know that! What’s the big deal anyway? It’s not like you had an argument or nothing.” I shrugged realising she was right.

“I think it’s just because it’s been soo long, I wouldn’t know how to act.” We carried on chatting until we reached college, then splitting up to go to our form rooms.

As I turned a corner of the main corridor, I felt myself crash into someone very tall and hard. I fell backwards comically with my bum flat on the floor. Cliché you’re thinking right? I thought so too. But I didn’t know how bad until I looked up.

A pair of dazzling blue eyes were looking down at me that had uncanny familiarity. He had light brown hair but it wasn’t gelled up in spikes like most guys. He had a side parting, which looked so natural and fashionable. He reached out a hand to me and as he pulled me up, I heard a sharp intake of breath.

“Priyanka?” I gulped and my eyes widened in disbelief.

“Tyler?”

“Since when did you call me Tyler?” He asked letting go of my hand and running a hand through his perfect hair.

“Ty, since when did you call me Priyanka?” I retorted but a smile spread across his face. We stood for a couple of seconds in silence and I took in Ty’s new appearance. Boy did he look different! He shifted uneasily which was so un-Ty like.

“Hey you’re taller than me now,” I commented feeling foolish as soon as I said it.

“Yeah, about time and all. You’ve changed too, how comes you’re hair so long now?”

“Short hair was boring me,” I replied. I instinctively pushed my black curls behind my shoulders.

“Suits you,” nodded Ty. The bell for form rang and we looked at each with a look that said, ‘had to be now didn’t it?’

“Well I’ll talk to you later then yea?” He said as he started walking backwards down the corridor.

“Watch out!” I cried but it was too late. He’d just bashed full on with a short, blonde haired boy carrying around ten books. I laughed so much as he apologised again and again to the boy while gathering all his books.

“I thought you were the clumsy one?” He shouted down the corridor when I turned my back walking towards my form room. I turned around and grinned again.

“Not any more!”

--

Tyler’s POV

She looked absolutely stunning. I sat in my maths class and that was all I could think about. It was hard to imagine this was the same girl who used to be a tomboy and play sports with the boys all the time. Her black curls complimented her light brown eyes. She hadn’t dressed up but still managed to look beautiful. She was wearing pale green sleeveless top and a pair of loose fitting jeans. I couldn’t help but smile to myself.

“Now as Mr Jefferson was listening to our discussion on simple Trigonometry, would he care to answer the question on the board?” I looked up sharply noticing then that the whole class was looking at me, including Mr Kemp. He was one of those teacher’s whose bad side you didn’t want to get on.

“Mr Jefferson, what is your answer?” He asked again in a stern voice. My heart sank, as I looked on the board. Sin 30? What was that?

“Umm, I think the answer is a half, Sir,” I answered in a polite voice. I could tell it was the right answer straight away as Mr Kemp pursed his lips. He was disappointed that I had got it right. He nodded slightly more to himself than the rest of the class, with his eyes still fixed on me.

“That is correct. Please open your textbooks to chapter 1, and start on exercise C please. There will be no need to talk.”

I exhaled, realising that it had been close call. Would definitely have to make an effort with this guy. Still, anyone could get distracted with someone like Pia on their mind! I opened the book and smiling to myself once again started on my work.

--

Pia’s POV

I walked towards the PE changing rooms, still thinking about Tyler. He had remembered me and now I felt a bit silly thinking about how worried I had been. The day was turning out to be quite good after all. And next I had my favourite lesson - PE! Not many girls liked sports as much as I did. That never stopped me participating or anything, I didn’t care about what others thought. I had been disappointed last week as all my PE lessons had been cancelled due to staff shortages. At least they’re back on this week, I thought to myself. I hadn’t met any of the other students in my class yet and so hoped there were some decent people.

“All PE students can you please file into the gym please. No need to get changed we’re not going to be doing any sports today.” I looked up to see a smiling face from a young ginger haired male teacher.

“Hi, I’m Mr Thompson, you are..?”

“Pia,” I replied. Mr Thompson scanned the clipboard he was holding and frowned slightly.

“Oh my full name is Priyanka but everyone just calls me Pia.”

“There, that makes more sense.” He chuckled and I could tell he was going to be a really friendly teacher. He ticked my name on the clipboard, pointed towards the gym and said:

“In you go, the rest of the students are already in there, talk to them for a bit and I’ll be in soon.” I nodded and walked up the steps. I had never seen such a huge gym. It seemed to be double the size of my old one. Unfortunately the same couldn’t be said the same about the class. There only seemed to be twelve people including me. No one I knew but that was expected. A group of boys were sitting on the benches laughing to themselves. I could see they were looking at three girls standing against the wall. They looked more out of place than anyone I had every seen. All three were wearing mini skirts, skimpy tops, flip-flops to match. I sighed to myself, the things some girls would do just to get a date.

The door opened again and I looked up expecting Mr Thomson. It was actually Tyler and when he saw me he grinned.

“Hi, you alright?”

“Yea, but what are you doing here?”

“I’ve got PE, dopey!”

“Oh right, guess you’re in my class,”

“You don’t seem too happy about it.”

“Ty…”

“Kidding!”

For a minute there, it hadn’t felt like we’d stopped talking for five years. But then Tyler shifted uncomfortably like he had before and I could tell he wanted to go and sit with the group of boys.

“You can go if you want, I don’t mind you know. I think one of my other mates is joining anyway.” I lied pretty well in my opinion. He looked at the group of boys again.

“Nah it’s cool. They all seem pretty dorky anyway. Have you seen how they’re obviously making fun out of those sluts?”

“I know! But they’re probably such airheads that they couldn’t even tell!”

Sure enough the girls were now smiling at the guys assuming the complete opposite of the truth. Mr Thomson came in eventually and spent half an hour talking about the course and the methods of assessment. This was after seeing the three slutty girls and giving me and Tyler a funny look. Not surprisingly he then let us out early, deciding that there was no point in keeping us for the rest of the lesson. Just as Tyler and I were leaving the room he called Tyler back.

“Mr Jefferson, can I speak to you for a moment? Don’t worry you’re not in any trouble.” Tyler turned around and I stood waiting at the doors for him.

“Hey it’s ok Pia. You don’t have to wait. I’ll catch up with you later.” I nodded and started walking towards the common room, disappointment overwhelming me. What was happening to me? After all this was just Tyler, right?