Chapter 1

Fear held me back

Now it’s too late

Love leads to pain

And pain leads to hate

Fear is a weakness

Evil, betraying

Pain is relief

My feelings portraying

Blood bares my soul

For all to see

The key to the secret

Of truth and truth only

-Alexandra Phoenix

A firm and loud voice projected itself across the classroom, causing Alex’s poised pen to jolt, sending flickers of ink across the page. “Alexandra, stay behind after the lesson.”

Damn. Got caught at writing depressing poetry again…

Nicky nudged her, and the girl had to suppress a giggle. She replaced her grinning face with a mock serious one, and frowning, stage whispered, “Now you’ve done it!” Mr Canning whirled around and shot an icy glare at Nicky before casting a glance towards Alex’s direction, his perceivable frown softening slightly when he saw her drop her head downwards, not daring to meet his eyes.

The class continued in near silence as he the students copied up the scrawled notes in his messy handwriting up from the board. He sat at his desk, holding her poem in front of him, expression becoming increasingly worried each time he read it over. When the bell finally rang to signal the end of the lesson, an audible sigh of relief soared over the class as they began packing up and filing out.

When she reached the door, Alex held back, thinking for a minute that he had forgotten as he stared down at his desk, at the papers that were scattered over it, with a frown. When she shifted her feet uncomfortably, he looked up and beckoned for her to walk closer.

“Alex, I’m a bit worried about this…are you alright – is everything going right?” She had to swallow before lying.

“Yeah, everything’s good” she said, with a forced smile. “I’m fine…everything’s fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes” she stated, more firmly, slightly annoyed now that he wouldn’t leave her alone – the assurance that she was fine was normally enough for all the other teachers. As well as irritated, she did feel slightly touched however; he wasn’t asking out of duty, he truly was worried about her.

“Alex” he said softly, and waited until she looked up at him. “May I see your arms?”

She unwillingly rolled up the sleeves of her shirt, holding her arms out in front of him, turning them over for inspection, and praying that he wouldn’t notice the scars.

He nodded in satisfaction and she relaxed a little, rolling her sleeves down again once more, and thanking God that she hadn’t cut herself recently at all.

“I’ll be keeping an eye on you” he warned half jokingly, though she knew he would. “But seriously, chin up. I’m not sure what’s going on in your life – though you can come and tell me any time you like, but don’t let it drag you down too much.”

Try saying that when you actually know what’s wrong with me.

That’s not fair, he’s only trying to help

She noticed that Mr Canning was looking at her weirdly and realized she must have drifted off in her head again and gone silence for a couple of minutes.

“Sorry” she muttered, “just…talking to myself I guess.”

“Don’t worry; I do it all the time. Now, off to lunch with you, I think you’ve kept Nicky waiting long enough, don’t you?”

She noticed, through the small window in the door that her friend was waiting impatiently for her to get a move on, and upon seeing her turn, waved at her. Nicky’s only reply was a glare that clearly said get your ass out here now!

His eyes were laughing again, and she was relieved to see he had returned to his usual joking self; a worried teacher was not the best person to have to deal with.

“Well I’m off to lunch now”

“Alright, remember to do your homework”

“I will…” she began “and…Mr Canning?” He looked up at her again. “Thanks for caring.” She felt herself blush and cursed herself. He on the other hand only looked slightly bemused at this.

“You’re very welcome. Now scram!”

She grabbed up her books and headed out of the classroom.

“About time too!”

“Oh well. Thanks for waiting.”

“So what’d he want?”

“Oh…just a…a telling off a bit, and something about my last study” she lied. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Nicky; only that another person worried about her was not her priority. It wasn’t fair on your friends if they worried about that sort of stuff. Plus, Nicky didn’t know about the poem, and hopefully it was going to stay that way.

“Not too harsh I hope.”

“Nope. Lunch? I’m starving.” The two ambled off in companionable silence, only stopping to dump their books on the broad window ledge opposite the entrance to the refectory. A quick glance at the menu showed that lunch was meatloaf, which while it was great at home, was disgusting when made by the school.

They scanned their passes on entrance; a mechanism that allowed the school to see who it was that was missing meals, and collected plates, eyeing the unappetizing meal before them.

“You know” began Alex uncertainly, “we could always make us something to eat at the house…”

“Say no more, we are on our way out,” laughed Nicky, standing up. They dumped their trays, ignoring an accusing look from the member of staff on duty, who happened to be one of those who was insistent that you finished your food; think of those poor children in Africa.

Sometimes she felt like retorting “If you’re so worried, go and do something about it, because the food I do or don’t eat isn’t going to make a difference to them, they’re not getting it either way!” And it was true. Except she didn’t answer back to teachers generally, unless there was a really good reason.

“So you’re making me lunch, scrambled eggs, right?”

“I am?” joked Alex, as they rounded a corner and ran slap bang into Mr Canning.

“Oh, sorry” she tried to sidestep him and found him doing the same. Mentally slapping herself; it was one of those awkward situations where you kept moving until eventually one person stood still and let you pass.

“Stay there” she instructed him, and stepped around him. “There, not so difficult?” she murmured to Nicky over her shoulder who just grinned.

“Have a nice lunch” he called over his shoulder, “Scrambled eggs…they sound really great, if you have any spare, bring me some”. Great, so he had been listening to their conversation too. How wonderful.

They walked another few minutes, exiting the main school building and crossing over to the sixth form courtyard, which was where the last two grades of school lived, in houses of around ten people per house. Tapping in the code, they walked into Ashwood, their assigned house for that year.

“Right, eggs coming up” announced Alex, only five minutes later serving their meal onto two plates and grabbing cutlery and salt from a cupboard.

“Yum. Hey, would you look at that.” They glanced out the window and saw outside someone peering in.

“Hide the food,” muttered Nicky when she saw who it was, then went to open the doors.

“Ah, Katherine, what might you want?”

“D’you guys have any food?” sure enough, and true to their predictions, she had come looking for food…again.

“Actually, no we don’t. We’ve just finished eating.” She stared at the fridge longingly, so much so it was almost scary.

“Tell you what, why don’t you actually go to lunch? It’s meatloaf.” She grimaced – at least, she though, this girl had good taste.

“Nah, I’ll go check all the other houses. Thanks anyway though.”

She let herself out leaving the two girls in silence. Alex promptly switched the TV on so that they could watch the Wimbledon highlights.

“Who is it?”

“Federer and Nadal. Well, the highlights of the match anyway. Aren’t those such cool names?”

“Yeah…” Nicky narrowed her eyes at her friend who was avidly watching the match commence.

“Hey, you do know we have an exam next lesson?”

“We do? Aw hell.” The TV was immediately switched off once more. “Now I have to revise. Chemistry, right? Well, that means you can test me” she announced, seeing Nicky nod. “Come on then. We’ve got about half an hour then.”

“Come on, one more thing.”

“Okay, define‘benzene’.”

“Benzene is an organic chemical compound with the formula C6H6. Did I get it right?”

“Sure did. Ready for this then?” Nicky reached a hand down to help pull her friend up.

“Definitely” Alex answered when they were both on eye level with each other. “Are you?”

“You know it…girlfriend,” she added sending them into bursts of laughter at her reference to ‘my super sweet sixteen’, not that they watched it…often.

Grabbing their necessities for the exam; pens, pencils, rulers and rubbers, they headed over to the exam room, doubling back only to grab sweatshirts. It was the coldest room in the school, and even in summer managed to be amazingly cool. As the twelve chemistry students taking the exam lined up outside the exam room, the head teacher on patrol called for silence.

“Ladies, you will enter the exam room in silence, if you speak once you have crossed the threshold, you will be immediately disqualified from this exam and possibly from all your public exams in this subject, or across the board. You know the drill, Good luck.”

“Good luck” echoed Alex as she whispered into Nicky’s ear, and then they filed in. Two long hours of exams. Fun.

When the small group of relieved girls poured out of the room, the buzz of chatter filled the air as the question was continually asked; “how did you find question so and so?” and “I bet I’ve failed.” Alex, on the whole was quite pleased; she’d been able to answer all the questions and best of all, Benzene rings had been in it, a stroke of luck, for once.

“Hello” a voice said from behind her “How’d your exams go?” She turned around quickly and realized it was only Mr Canning.

“You scared me – they were good. What’re you doing here?”

“I have to invigilate on the eleventh grader’s physics GCSE.”

“Hope it goes well then. Nicky?” she yelled into the crowd trying to distinguish her friend; now the GCSE students were pouring into the hall and since there were a lot more of them, it was crushing. However, it didn’t take long to distinguish her friend’s bright orange-red bouncing curls, which were making their way towards her.

“Anyhow, I’d better get going now; I have a free period.” She grinned almost wickedly at him.

“Just because I have to be stuck in an exam room for an hour, doesn’t mean you get to gloat. You have four hours tomorrow.”

“Yes, and I’ll bet you’re invigilating, right?”

“Yes” he admitted a little sullenly. She was slightly sad when he straightened himself up and bellowed into the crowd; he was just beginning to loosen up – well, if you could call acting like a pouting four year old loosening up, then that was what he was doing.

“Girls would you please just be…” he ground his teeth for a moment; she knew that Mr Canning had the ability of going from pleasantly friendly to furious-venting-steam-type-of-angry, in a split seconds. “…Right that’s it,” he yelled, his temper getting the better of him; which was odd, because it wasn’t as if he had had to ask a second time. “Everybody just shut up!” Bad day, she supposed. The mass of girls quieted immediately, and his expression was only one of kindness immediately after; it was hard to imagine him screaming at them.

“Thank you. Now, you know the drill – Mr Bayton, can you tell them – it’s regulations” he amended, as the crowd groaned.

“Right, I’m gonna go now” Alex said brightly taking her cue from Nicky who had appeared out of nowhere at her right elbow. “Good luck people.” She earned a few smiles from the students at this, grateful ones, but slightly weak; who could blame them, for most, this would be their first public exam, and it would be such a hard subject such as physics – just to set them off.

The two teachers however glared at her, a clear signal to get out now.

They hurriedly departed.

“Hey Nicky?” a quizzical line formed on Alex's forehead as they scurried away.

“Mmhmm?”

“Do we have anymore classes today?”

“Yup.” She grunted in a non-committal style.

“You’re being monosyllabic again.”

“Alex? Shut up.” She stifled a laugh.

“No seriously, which classes do we have today?”

“P.E? I think. But they won’t notice if we skip. And it’s not like it matters.” Alex agreed; it didn’t matter a bit. P.E wasn’t a serious lesson – and they didn’t take registers. Plus, A levels were already over, hell, they had even already applied, and been accepted at various universities both in the UK and the US.

So far, Princeton, Harvard and Cambridge had accepted her but she didn’t want to go to any of them. The place that Alex knew was for her was Yale. She’d been there when she was only fourteen, with her brother who was two years older than her and was at the time looking at universities for himself, and she had been absolutely entranced. He had gone there too, for the same reasons; it was absolutely amazing.

So together, the two girls traveled on the train down to London, after having evaded most of the security cameras on the school driveway by hiding behind bushes and pretending to be ninjas, all the while assuring themselves that this was perfect behavior for 13th graders. They went to cafes, shopped a little; though she wasn’t obsessed with shopping, Alex, like most girls did like the odd purchase, and being trapped at school for so long made her want to buy pretty clothes even more – particularly now she had somebody to impress.

The best times they had ever had were in the park, hanging out with a couple of frappuccinos from Starbucks. They would go to the tennis courts and flirt with all the instructors there, doing dares; they’d go to the climbing tree that Alex had discovered when she was seven years old only. It was shaped a little like a castle if you looked at it in a particular way; the branches curved upwards like a candlestick holder, ending in turrets as the green canopy formed a leafy roof over their heads. They could sit there for hours, just talking and since it was a perfect climbing tree, there were of course the most comfortable places to sit without any part of you getting sore. If you knew the way properly, like they did, you could climb right to the top, where the branches were thinner and swayed as you stood on them. From up there, the two girls felt like they were on the top of the world. This was their places, and from way up high, they could see everything; the little kids swimming in a pool in a house who’s garden bordered the park, and a small dog yapping, running close then darting away again as they splashed it.

“I wonder if our initials are still here,” voiced Nicky, when they had been sitting in a comfortable silence for some time. They climbed up to the largest bough, and read the short words they had carved there eight years beforehand, when Alex had introduced the place to her best friend.

Nicky & Alex

Best Friends Forever

(Yes, we know it sounds cheesy)

xxx

Underneath the inscription, they had both signed it with their initials, the pale white wood of the bark showing through, clearly as it always had. Eventually, they had to climb down when the weather became more downcast, and a south blowing wind swayed the tree menacingly. They made their way back to the train station and bought two tickets back to school. Feeling refreshed with the fun they had had, but sad that it was ended, they boarded the train.