Silver Hill Academy: Chapter One

A dark-haired boy sat in a shabby red velvet armchair, knees to chin and sketchpad on knees. He concentrated furiously on a pencil sketch of a light-haired girl, seemingly drawn from memory.

"Hello?" a female voice called from somewhere outside the room. The boy jolted and his pencil scribbled all over the sketch at random.

"Err, hi. I’m in here..." the boy called distractedly, rapidly erasing his accidental jagged line. A petite girl with chin-length white-blonde hair entered the room, lugging three suitcases, a backpack, and a messenger bag on her tiny frame.

"No, no, don't offer to help, I’m just fine, thanks...” she snapped irritably, letting the suitcases thud onto the ground inside the doorway. "Hi, Tristan." she prodded, trying to drag the dark-haired boy out of his intense concentration.

His eyes flicked upwards. "My God, what did you do to your hair?" Tristan blurted, doing a rapid double take at the sight of the blonde girl.

"Hi, Wyn, nice to see you again, how are you, how was your summer, mine was great but kind of boring how about you? Idiot." Tristan just made a face and went back to his drawing. Wyn dropped her other bags with a loud 'bang' and flopped back on the beanbag.

"Christ, how long have you been here?" Wyn exclaimed, seeing the papers surrounding Tristan’s chair.

"This is my creative chair." Tristan said, scrawling a title onto the latest piece of paper and dropping it into a pile at random.

"As opposed to the chair right across from it, which is this chair's identical twin?" Wyn pointed to the chair to the left of her beanbag.

"Shut up." Tristan said, flushing slightly.

"So... did you miss me?" Wyn said casually.

"Not really." Tristan said, surreptitiously hiding the drawing under a pile of others.

"Oh. Well, how was your summer?" Wyn quickly turned her crestfallen expression into one of vague interest.

"Boring. How 'bout you?" Tristan said, keeping his eyes studiously on his newest sketch of the lonely, dying plant in the corner (he had approximately 17 in various piles surrounding him).

"Meh. I cut my hair, as you already noticed. That was about it." Wyn said,

"Oh." Tristan and Wyn sat in the commons, both pretending to be occupied by the wall in front of them. Tristan broke the awkward silence first, saying, "... how's your mom? Did you see her over the summer?"

"Yeah, she's good. She’s in Wales now... Cardiff is cool. How’s your brother?" Wyn said, clinging desperately to the change of subject.

"He’s all right... his girlfriend's living with him now, so that was a bit awkward."

"Yeah..." Wyn and Tristan trailed into a slightly awkward silence yet again, this time interrupted by the loud 'cre-e-e-eak... slam!' that followed the opening of the main door.

"Hello? Anyone in here?" another person called from the hallway.

"Hi, Indy!" Wyn called, leaning backwards in her beanbag and waving. A girl with long wavy brown hair and a peasant skirt walked by, snorting at her friend's awkward pose. Another boy snuck around behind Tristan's chair and snatched up a drawing, staring at it critically.

"Huh, not bad. Kinda rough around the edges, but not b-"

"Ryan, give me that!" Tristan said, paper and pencil falling to the floor as he stood up to face Ryan. They were eye-to-eye now, Tristan having grown about three inches over the summer.

"Oh, it's special." Ryan teased, and then froze, his face a mask of sudden, horrible comprehension. "Oh."

"What? What’s special?" Wyn pulled herself upright, her mess of blonde hair falling over one eye.

"Don’t you dare.” Tristan warned, his face expressionless.

"No, seriously, what is it?" Wyn asked, all hints of playfulness gone from her voice.

"Why do you want to know?" Ryan said, hiding the drawing so that all Wyn could see was white.

"Um, 'cause if you stealing it gets Tristan all upset, it's got to be good." Wyn said, all but adding the 'duh' at the end of her sentence.

"Hm." Ryan said, pretending to think it over. Tristan looked like he was going to fly into a homicidal rage at any second, so it was just as well that Ryan said, "nah, don't think so."

"What!? Oh, come on!" Wyn said, moving to pull the paper away from Ryan. At that point, Tristan snapped, whirling to face Wyn and giving her a stare that could have burned holes through walls.

"Gwynhwyfar Callahan, don't touch that paper." it was Wyn's turn to freeze now, giving Tristan her own version of that stare.

"How do you know my name? Never mind that, how do you know how to pronounce that?" Wyn said slowly. "I never told anyone how to say it..." Ryan could practically see the mental cogs turning, so he decided to get proactive.

"Wyn, I’ll tell you later, okay?" Ryan said, practically dragging the short girl out of the room. Wyn looked like she was about to start arguing, but instead she scooped up her messenger bag and trudged up the stairs.

As soon as Wyn was out of sight, Ryan turned to face his friend. "What the hell are you doing?" he asked, the happy-go-lucky persona gone in an instant.

"Look, I thought she was going to be late! She’s always late." Tristan said, still uncharacteristically confrontational.

"Not about right now! I mean, what the hell are you doing drawing Wyn?" Ryan said. "I mean, I’ve got a pretty good idea, but I’d like to hear it from you..."

"Um. Well..." Tristan said slowly. "I think I might like her." he sat down in the red velvet chair, sighing sadly.

"You think you might like her? Maybe? 'Cause dude, drawing a girl isn't just something you do because you might maybe like her." Ryan said, flopping into the recently vacated purple beanbag chair.

"I know, all right?" Tristan growled, hiding his eyes with one hand.

"So it's pretty safe to say that this isn't something that'll be going away soon." Ryan said, staring at the ceiling. "Going to talk to her?"

"No!" Tristan blurted, jolted into sitting upright. "No, that would be... awkward. Really, really awkward."

"As opposed to the way you were sitting here earlier, which wasn't awkward at all." Ryan said, rolling his eyes slightly. "Look, do what you want, but I wouldn't be so afraid of rejection that I don't even try. You know?"

"I don't know. I’m so confused."

"Well, that's pretty normal." Ryan mumbled.

"What are you trying to say?" Tristan said, giving Ryan a hard stare.

"Nothing, nothing..." Ryan said, waving it off. "So, how long has it been?"

"Since what?"

"Since you knew you liked her."

"Um, last Christmas. Ish." what Tristan meant was 'last Christmas when I saw her down here by herself at two in the morning, laying on the ground in her pink sparkly skull pajamas, just staring up at the lights on the tree and smiling' but he sure as hell wasn't going to say that.

"Oh, Christ."

"Tell me about it." Tristan said, picking up his sketchpad and pencil again and resuming his sad little sketch of the sad little plant.

"All right, well... have fun doing another drawing of the plant. Let me know when you've finished the other one, okay? I want to see it." Ryan said, standing up and ambling over to the kitchen. Tristan mumbled something in response, absorbed in his drawing again.

"I can't believe he knows my name!"

"It’s not that big a deal..." Indy said soothingly, not really paying attention to her friend's rant.

"Indy, you don't even know my first name." Wyn said, flopping onto the bare mattress.

"Yes I do. It’s Gwyne... something." Indy said, unzipping another suitcase and bringing it onto the bed.

"See? And he even pronounced it right!"

"You’re turning this into a big deal." Indy said calmly, continuing to place folded clothes in a drawer.

"Um, yeah, only 'cause it is!" Wyn said in exasperation.

"Look, I’m sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this." Indy said, bringing out hangers from the closet.

"Like what?"

"Yeah, okay, I don't actually have an explanation." Indy said. "But I’m sure there is one."

"Ha!" Wyn snorted, lying down on the bed. "Argh, shit, I forgot my backpack. Be right back!" she said, quickly standing up. She dashed out the door, taking the banister down the stairs.

"Hi, Caden!" Ryan said to the taller boy, who was rummaging in the fridge for something to eat and pointedly ignoring Ryan.

"So... guess what?" Ryan said, pacing around to behind the counter, snagging a bottle of soda as he went.

"I don't care." Caden snapped, bringing out another bottle of soda.

"No, I think you will care. Probably a lot."

"Whatever." Caden said, finding a glass in a cabinet.

"Tristan likes Wyn." Ryan said.

Caden dropped his glass (which was actually made of plastic and just cracked instead of shattering). "What!?" he said, giving Ryan a glare. "That is not funny. At all."

"Why would it be funny?" Ryan asked, now really curious.

Caden grinned suddenly and... shifted. Suddenly Ryan was facing his mirror image. Caden removed his glasses and kept smiling. "So... guess what?" he asked, his voice the same as Ryan’s but more malicious.

"All right, that's fucking annoying." Ryan said, looking mildly annoyed and slowly reaching for his back pocket.

"Guess." Caden said, still looking like Ryan and still smiling.

"I don't know." Ryan said sharply.

"Wyn likes Tristan." it was Ryan’s turn to drop his drink now, and as he glanced down to pick it up Caden shifted again.

"You’re right, that isn't funny." Ryan said slowly as Caden put his glasses back on. "Fuck... she's coming."

"So, did you see the basketball game last night?" Caden said as Wyn walked through the kitchen door.

"Oh yeah, it was great- hi, Wyn." Ryan said cheerfully.

"Hey, Ryan. Hey, Captain Tightpants. Oh God, did you grow? You grew. I hate you." Wyn said all in one breath.

"So, how are you?" Caden asked, trying to turn the conversation to something safer. Talking about basketball in August invited opportunities for awkward questions. Ryan slipped out the other door and rushed upstairs before she could start asking questions again.

Wyn was not fooled. "Not bad. So... what were you two talking about?"

"Um. Basketball." Caden said, cleaning his glasses with one corner of his untucked button-down shirt.

"Yeah... only two things wrong with that theory. One: you don't watch basketball. Two: basketball's a winter sport. Also, you and Ryan don't talk to each other unless you have to... so I guess that's three things. Whatever, point still stands." Wyn said, getting sidetracked by her own train of thought.

"Ryan was being annoying and I wanted him to leave."

"So you accomplished this by talking about basketball." Wyn said sarcastically, giving her friend an exasperated look. "Please, please, please tell me what's going on? I’m asking you really nicely and everything..."

"Look, I can't tell you or you’ll stab me in my sleep or something... but you could always go ask Ryan yourself." Caden said reluctantly.

"Ah! Thank you!" Wyn said, practically knocking Caden over with a hug. Wyn dashed upstairs without her bag, nearly tripping in her enthusiasm to find out what the hell was going on.

"Oh, God." Caden said after his friend had gone upstairs. "This is going to be awkward."

a/n: Um, yeah. This is a re-re-re-do of an old story of mine that’s been up for a really long time in various incarnations. Reviews are always nice, and constructive criticism is made of win, so… please review? Please?