One: Drew, otherwise known as the Catalyst

He reaches out towards me angrily, right hand raised as if he's going to hit me. I have to stop myself from growling or doing something equally uncivilized and instead I back up and fix him with a cold stare which said that I meant business.

Suddenly, Kara speaks up from behind him, where did she turn up from?

"You're new, aren't you?" she asks him as he spins around to face her. As he moves out of the way I can see her, and she's smirking.

"What does that have to do with anything?" the new boy snaps, though it somehow comes out sounding polite. No one snaps at Kara, one look at her pretty face is enough to make them want to be nice.

"You are soo new," Meredith echoes beside Kara, her voice quivering with suppressed laughter. Seriously, how do these guys appear out of thin air?

"Lils honey, if you want Mr. new guy's nose to stay in place, we should get out of here about now, Dave's coming." Kara sounds more serious now and I force myself to relax out of my tensed position.

"Aww shit," I say, slightly irritated that my opportunity to put the new guy in his place has been ruined. However, I can't resist turning around to smile tauntingly at him before leaving. That guy has got to be ever soo confused and I can't help but be pleased by that.

"That boy is a pain in the arse," I whisper furiously as we walk away, heading out of the library even though I know I have to come back soon- I never shirk my responsibilities, and I still had about a half hours' worth of librarian duty left.

Suddenly a loud crash sounds from behind us and I gasp.

"What on earth!" I spin on my heel and rush back to where we had just left the aforementioned boy.

What I see when I get there shocks me so much that I can do nothing but clap my hands over my ears and cringe away from it all. I stay in that position for a few minutes before I unfreeze and spring into action.

"Nathaniel," I say calmly, firmly, infusing my voice with all my famed authoritativeness- of course I have to raise my voice a little bit so that he actually pays attention to me. Under normal circumstances, people would be flocking to see what was going on but knowing that both Nathaniel and I are involved, they would keep their distance- try to observe without being observed because they really wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of one of my tongue-lashings.

He straightens up slowly, his hazel eyes meeting mine with a calm kind of arrogance, the kind only he and I can manage. I know he's expecting an outburst, maybe he wants me to ask why, but surely he knows I'm not going to fall for a trap of that kind. I take a deep breath and drag my eyes away from his.

"This is a library. Do your fighting outside, okay?" I tell them both as they get up. The new boy stares at Nathaniel, his glare full of hostility and aggressiveness. Nathaniel disregards him completely, his cool gaze weighing down on me. Neither of them makes any move to leave.

"Nathaniel," I snap my patience fast running out, "Out, now!"

Nathaniel moves lazily past me, his fingers trailing over mine as he leaves, the new guy stays still, not budging an inch, transferring his glare onto me.

"You too, new guy, don't think I'd forgotten about you!"

"Drew," he says, moving closer to me, the glare on his face fading away.

"What?" I ask, raising my eyebrows slightly, widening my eyes and tilting my head to the side.

"My name's Drew," he says, sticking out his hand. If the situation was any more absurd I would probably have burst out laughing.

"Okay, Drew; get out," I say, hoping that he would leave now that I had acknowledged his name.

"Aren't you going to tell me yours?" he asks, smiling.

Now I'm infuriated but nonetheless I force myself to smile back. I've realized that it's no use getting aggressive with this guy.

"Lillian," I say, shaking his hand, intent on dropping it as soon as possible but he doesn't seem to be thinking along those lines so I end up having to snatch my hand out of his grasp.

"Would you like to tell me what that was all about?" he asks the smile still on his face. I'm contemplating how to respond to that when I feel a hand on my shoulder. I shrug it off irritated but I don't think I've ever been this happy about Dave's presence.

"Lily, what the hell is going on?" he asks me, not paying any attention to Drew. Drew's eyes flick to him for a moment and then they settle on me again.

"Nothing," I mumble, taking hold of Dave's arm, fully intending to drag him away before the situation could get any more awkward.

"Aren't you going to introduce us?" Drew asks, his smile turning into a smirk- he was such a smug bugger.

"Dave, this is Drew. Drew, this is my best friend David." I gesture between them aimlessly, eager to have this conversation over.

They smile at each other and shake hands; I find out from their conversation that Drew is a junior. Dave's being very polite to him and I realize he thinks that the new guy is my friend or something.

"Dave, didn't you need help with Economics? Let's go- it's almost lunch time." Dave looks confused but regardless he says bye to Drew and comes with me, throwing me looks which said that he thought I was crazy.

I practically drag Dave out of the library while also keeping an eye out for Meredith and Kara, ignoring all of Dave's grumbles. Finally I spot them but from their smirks I can tell that they're not going to interrupt while I'm with Dave. I sigh resignedly and tug Dave into our classroom which was right next to the library.

"Okay, stop already," he sighs, perching on the edge of a desk in the front row while I sat down on the teacher's desk, facing him.

"So, that guy Drew, he got into a fight with me, he called me a few names and all that and then Nathaniel started beating him up. What the hell was that about?" I ask him, making sure that I don't let my eyes drift away from him, hoping that he'll feel pressurized into confessing.

"Wait, what?!" he exclaims and I sigh disappointedly, shaking my head. If Dave won't tell me what's going on then I don't know how I'm going to find out. I'm thinking about this and completely ignoring Dave when I realize who I can ask.

"Hannah," I exclaim, a little surprised that it took me this long to think of her and I hop off the table and head for the door.

"Lily," he protests, grabbing my wrist and pulling me back to stand in front of him.

Just at that moment, Sean walked into class and as soon as he saw us, he began ranting something along the lines of how Dave and I should stop denying that we liked each other. Dave is so shocked by this that he drops my hand and I take advantage of this to slip away from him and out the door, smacking the back of Sean's head on my way out.

"Lillian," both of them call out, sounding so whiny that I burst out laughing as I walk towards the back entrance of the high school building. I'm so absorbed in my delighted snickering that I don't see Nathaniel till he's right in front of me and I find myself walking straight into him as it was too late to turn aside. He grabs hold of my arms, steadying me.

"Thanks," I say and look pointedly into his eyes till he releases me and then I'm on my way again. Hannah should be in the computer lab and I really want to know what Nathaniel's problem is. The thing is, I already have a sneaking suspicion about what it might be but I want to confirm it with Hannah.

"Hannah," I drawl as I approach her, smiling brightly, "How are you today?"

"Aw Lillian, I'm good, thanks for asking," she says in the same extra cheerful tone I had used and then she falls back to her normal voice "What do you need? Out with it." Her smile's still on her face though and that's a good sign.

I flash her another smile as I consider how to put my question to her and after a lot of rumination I decide to just come out with it straight. I explain what had happened and watch her expression carefully as she takes it all in.

"So, what is up with Nathaniel?" I ask her when I finish my narration. I'm almost holding my breath in anticipation because I'm sure that if she doesn't tell me, then no one can- except possibly Sean but there is no way in hell I'm speaking to Sean about Nathaniel.

"You really just want to hear me say it, don't you?" she asks me after gazing at me for a long time.

"Yeah, that would help," I respond with a smile, glad that both Hannah and I are in the right mood for this kind of conversation.

"He likes you- he just can't get you out of his mind. Remember how much he liked you in sophomore year? He likes you way more now."

I'm struck dumb by her revelation, I hadn't thought it possible for anyone to be even more in love than Nathaniel had been with me in sophomore year. I come to my senses and realize that I can't just take her at her word, not with the entire Natasha episode.

"Oh yeah? And what about Natasha then, what was she? His rebound girl? " I ask, managing to twist my mouth into a sneer and keep all the hope out of my voice, everyone knew that Nathaniel was still pining for Natasha.

"Exactly," she replies with a smile, patting my shoulder in a sympathetic manner. I just stare at her in shock as she gets up and leaves telling me that I'll get my head wrapped around it soon enough.

God, she can be so infuriating at times. I'm still working things through in my head when I feel a hand on my shoulder. I look up and see Drew.

"What?" I snap, almost reflexively. Suddenly this new boy whose name I had not even known an hour ago is everywhere, and this only compounds my frustration.

"I need to close up now, its lunch time," he says with a smirk and I shoot him a dirty look as I get up and stalk towards the door.

"Hey wait," he says, grabbing hold of my arm. What is it with people grabbing my arms today? Seriously?

I sigh and turn to face him, donning my most patient expression and speaking in my most patient tone i.e. the explain yourself now or you're dead meat one.

"What is it, Drew?"

"Wait for me, we can walk to lunch together, everyone else is gone anyway," he says, dropping my arm as soon as he realizes that I'm not going to bolt.

"Okay, fine." I don't bother to hide the fact that I'm seriously disgruntled. I help him close up, making quite a bit of noise in my hurry to be done with it and get out of having to spend time with him alone.

He takes his time walking to lunch, he's walking very slowly and I settle into his pace as well. For now he isn't speaking and I'm happy about that, I've always enjoyed silences and I know it's only a matter of time before he breaks this one.

"Are you dating Nathaniel?" he asks me and I gape at him, I guess I should have expected him to just go straight for the kill, so far he's demonstrated a remarkable distaste for beating about the bush.

"What is your problem?" I ask him irritated after a minute, glaring at him with a shake of my head.

"The fact that you don't want to talk to me," he retorts and I smirk, refusing to give in.

"You know what they say?" he asks and he pauses, but I'm sure he's going to continue any way so I simply raise my eyebrows in a question without bothering to speak.

"They say you dated Matt, but you cheated on him with Nathaniel and then you dumped Matt but you didn't stay with Nathaniel for long either," he pauses again, obviously hoping that I'm going to give him the correct version.

"Is that what they say?" I ask with a smile, it's remarkably easy to aggravate him and I'm determined on keeping that up for as long as I can because I have no doubt that ultimately he is going to get the truth out of me.

"They say you were with Jonathan for an entire year, that you guys broke up only because he was going to Film School in Canada?" he makes the last bit sound like a question and I decide to give him something to keep him satisfied for now.

"Yes," I say "that's true."

I smile at him and turn away because we've reached the dining hall and I'm not about to risk eating with him, he's far too good at extracting information from me. As I walk away, he smiles back at me, a dazzling smile to rival Matt's best and I can't help wondering what it is about him, because there's definitely something different.