Her mother walked up to him and hugged him warmly. Leyla tried to stay out of the picture. She was still in a state of shock. Gregory nodded dismissively in her direction.
That son of a bitch! The black-haired girl kissed him goodbye on both cheeks. The two of them seemed to be so damn close already! He sure wasn’t wasting any time the b...!
"See you at school Bro, can't wait,” the girl chirped, passing by without paying attention to Leyla and her mom.
The whole situation smelled like trouble to Leyla. Her prince charming had apparently turned into a walking nightmare, and on top of that, an arrogant asshole. He was probably not such a perfect catch after all. Well, at least the pierced horse on which he had come riding along had flaunted away. Leyla grinned wickedly to herself, giving Gregory a look of annoyance.
There hadn’t been much talking on the way home. She didn’t feel like being part of the conversation and pretended to be listening to some music through her headphones. As soon as they got home, Leyla went to her room, excusing herself with a headache. She definitely needed time on her own to sulk alone in disappointment.
A whole new world
Leyla was startled by her confusing dreams when her clock radio sounded to One Direction singing about the story of their lives. She remembered vaguely reading a short story yesterday evening on Wattpad, where a certain Scarlett had fallen out of bed upon hearing the music of One Direction.
Leyla’s heart went out to her. She yawned and pulled herself out of bed, still feeling drowsy. They had no clue what they were singing about! What did those guys know about her life? She dragged herself to the bathroom and almost screamed as she collided with Gregory. He seemed to be in a far better mood than yesterday. The sparkle was definitely back in his blue eyes.
“Hey sleepy head, already up and on your way?”
She grumbled something incomprehensible and slammed the bathroom door in his face. She heard a knock on the bathroom door, followed by Gregory’s quiet words.
“Hey Lela, are you ignoring me?”
As she had no intention of ever talking to him again, she opened the water tap and turned on the showerhead at the same time with full force, drowning out his voice entirely.
‘Lela’ -that was how he used to say her name in the past. Well, that seemed like a long time ago, and they certainly no longer had that same connection to one another. He’d made that quite clear yesterday. She hadn’t yet gotten over the disappointment of his behavior. It hurt her to see her childhood hero acting so cold and indifferent. She sighed as she reached for the showerhead and started to sing.
“Bang he shot me down… bang bang I hit the ground”
She heard a hoarse laughter in the corridor and stopped singing. Alarmed, she looked at her wristwatch.
Holy Shit!
It was much later than she had expected.
Why hadn’t anybody told her? What was wrong with these people?
She dried herself quickly and got dressed. She decided to wear a very bold, sombre outfit for a summer day. Black leggings, a black t-shirt, and a black hooded jumper. She looked at herself in the bedroom mirror and thought, maybe black is the new white. Did that even make any sense? Anyway, it was too late to change her mind, and she rushed down the stairs.
Reaching for the door, she shouted her goodbyes to everybody. Suddenly, her mother grabbed her by the strap of her shoulder bag.
"Whoa, whoa slow down love.”
Leyla turned around impatiently to see what was going on. Her father was sitting at the breakfast table with Gregory. Nobody seemed to be in a hurry.
Leyla looked at her watch, annoyed.
"Folks, I have to be at school in three quarters of an hour, and I really have to get to the subway in five minutes. So if you’ll excuse me, I have to run."
Her dad looked across at her.
“I will drive you both to school today, because it is Gregory's first day, and I will need to talk to the principal anyway."
Leyla shook her head in anger.
“Sorry, but that is not gonna happen. I gotta be going. I don’t want to be late because of this freak."
She said pointing towards Gregory. Tossing back her tangled hair mane, she stormed out of the house, leaving her family speechless. She ran the short distance between her house and the Main Street underground station. She made it just in time to catch the train. Completely out of breath, she sank into a vacant seat and immediately doubted her choice of black clothes. It was already quite warm this morning, and would surely get warmer throughout the day. She felt sweat begin to drip down her spine at the thought of it. There was a filthy-looking guy with a Rasta hairstyle sitting opposite her, watching her lustfully from top to bottom.
Well, that one seemed to like her symphony in black, she thought to herself. She considered changing to another section of the train when she saw her best and only friend, Brooklyn. She was getting on at the next station, Victoria Park. She got on the train, along with coat hanger babe, Melissa, who was gesticulating wildly at her whilst talking to Brooklyn.
Brooklyn spotted Leyla and came steering towards her, with Melissa tagging along. The Rasta guy gave up and started looking in another direction. Probably three broads were too many, even for him. Leyla grinned to herself as Brooklyn smirked at her. Leyla admired the incredible fashion style of her beautiful friend. She always looked as if she had stepped straight out of a fashion magazine, or had just come back from a shopping spree. Brooklyn’s parents were incredibly rich and snobby. Her father was some kind of executive banker, and her mother was crazy. Brooklyn however, was not what anyone might expect given her circumstances. A completely down-to-earth person, on whom she could always rely, no matter what kind of mess she got herself into.
Brooklyn was tall and slender. Her long blonde hair fell almost to her hips in soft curls and her green almond-shaped eyes, discreetly accentuated with a fine line of eyeliner, were sparkling. Today, her lips were shining in pale pink and she was wearing a white scarf, despite the fact that today was supposed to be one of the hottest days of the summer. This matched the inappropriateness of Leyla’s black outfit, but at least she had good reason. A guy had confused her! Leyla wanted to find out what Brooklyn’s reason was for wearing that scarf. Nevertheless, Melissa babbled without pausing for breath, and it proved very difficult to interrupt her.
When Melissa finally took a breath, Leyla whispered into Brooklyn’s ear.
“What’s with the scarf sis?”
Brooklyn leaned towards her and whispered three words:
"Hickey… Jason… Idiot”
Leyla giggled quietly. Melissa wanted to know what was going on. By this point, they had arrived at Scarborough Centre, and got off the train. Scarborough High was only two blocks away, and the three girls ran into Jason and his grim-looking friend Aiden on their way to school.
Jason tried to link arms with Brooklyn but she wriggled away evasively, which led her to bump softly against Aiden. She shot him a look of distaste, but it didn’t seem to have any effect on him, so she apologized. The two of them moved ahead of the group.
“Aiden scares the shit out of me. He is a real grim muscleman with an anger problem.”
Leyla shook in revulsion.
Brooklyn was decidedly unimpressed.
"I think he is kind of sexy!"
Melissa giggled.
“Brooklyn thinks that all the guys are sexy”
She chuckled stupidly and Leyla jabbed her sharply in the ribs.
"Still better than creepy old men like my dad”
Melissa rubbed her ribs, insulted
"Ouch, you're so mean”
She took off, striding towards a group of lingering girls. Brooklyn looked at Leyla.
“What about your super boy Gregory, where is he?”
She looked around.
“I have to finally see the hottest guy in the universe”
Leyla sighed loudly.
“Unfortunately, the hottest guy in the unive
rse has turned into a nightmare.”
A dark blue van pulled up with screeching tires and the pair of them looked up at the same time. Leyla looked startled. It was her dad's car. The door opened and her dream – her nightmare got out. He gave her a look that disturbed her, passing by without a word.
Brooklyn murmured.
“Holy Shit Leyla. That was him right? He sure knows how to make an entrance.”
Leyla nodded unhappy. Brooklyn looked at her from the side. “Love, I think your quiet days at high school are definitely over. “They rushed to their lockers and the next unpleasant encounter was coming up for Leyla. Greyson, who had a major crush on her since ancient times came along, with a big smile on his face. He carried a box and babbled something about a school project on which he needed her help. He leaned over her and tucked back an unruly hair strand of hair behind her ear. That was exactly when Gregory came to his new locker, which of course was opposite hers and he was not alone.
The black-haired girl accompanied him, the one she had seen him with at the airport yesterday. Leyla’s mood dropped below zero.
Gregory’s unexpected interested gaze wandered over her and Greyson. Stowing his stuff into the locker, he gave them a broad grin and disappeared with the black-haired girl into their classroom. Leyla stayed behind almost bursting with anger and she couldn’t recall a single word Greyson had told her.
Gregory’s violent touchdown
To be honest, he did not understand what had hit him. Of course, it had bothered him that Leyla had a crush on him in the past and that she looked at him adoringly with her golden brown big eyes, just like Bambi. Yet now, Bambi had become a snarling and hostile beast, who apparently no longer belonged to Team Gregory. Her eyes still golden, but that was it. Where had the adoring part gone? Bambi times seemed to be clearly over. He admitted that he was actually disappointed. He had wanted her to back off, keeping her distance by putting on his show and his arrogant behavior yesterday. He never wanted her to become his enemy. Right now, he desperately needed friends to survive this senior year here without any major disasters.
He needed Leyla in his team and frankly, he wanted her to be around. Why he had behaved so repulsive towards her was a mystery to him. After all, she was his childhood companion and he trusted her.
Probably, he was afraid of his feelings for her and wouldn’t let them come to the surface by any means. All he knew was that he had to win her friendship back and that he did not want to become the dark weirdo again.
He put his stuff into the locker, lost in thought, when Natalie came strolling along getting him back to reality. She beamed at him and started talking without taking a breathing break, constantly telling him this and that. All the dirty little secrets about her classmates, even if he didn't really care to know. Despite the distraction, Gregory tried to find out what was going on with Leyla and the other guy at the opposite locker. Sadly, he could not hear what they were saying. They looked quite cosy and something actually seemed to be going on. The guy was probably one of the basketball stars at this school, given the way he looked and the way the girls stared at him while passing by. Gregory did not have a clue why, but it bothered him enormously that Leyla had apparently overcome her crush on him and found a pretty serious replacement so easily.
She really had changed. There was no doubt about that. She looked damn good;the little girl with the braces was gone. Ok, she was still not that tall and would probably never be, but that didn’t bother him at all. She had a slim, graceful body, long rebellious dark curls and huge Bambi or Beast eyes probably depending on how nice or how stupid she considered someone to be. Her face was oval and she had inherited the Mediterranean complexion of her dad. In the past, he had always teased her because of herfreckles. To his disappointment, they had almost all disappeared. Feeling Natalie's arm on his shoulder tore him from his thoughts. Leyla raised her head, for a brief moment their eyes locked, and he felt as if he was the cowboy on the wooden horse again and she was the Indian being shot down. He quickly looked away and followed Natalie into the classroom.
The teacher, Mrs. Perry, a slightly overweight elder lady, introduced him to the class, which was commented with boos from a couple of tough looking guys. That was just great. Gregory ironically felt at home.
A different continent, but he seemed to attract the same situations everywhere. He could only hope that the situation would not get out of hand this time. Mrs. Perry threatened the tough guys with consequences for their behavior and encouraged him to look for a free seat. He sat down beside Natalie, which resulted in another booing and hissing in his direction.
The first hour turned out to be math. Since he already knew the teaching material and finished the given task very quickly, he took his time to have a good look at the other classmates. In the front row, there were some good-looking girls, probably cheerleaders. On the other side of the classroom, he located the nerds, all of them sitting together in the second row. There was a dark-haired beauty, who was sitting alone at a desk with an unapproachable attitude. The obligatory good-looking guys from the basketball team, so tall that they almost couldn’t fit behind their desks.
Leyla's new lover was among them and giving him a curious look. My God he looked like a male model, no wonder Leyla liked him. Gregory shook his head in disbelief. Was he jealous? Of course not!
His gaze kept wandering. On the left side in the back of the classroom, he found the gang of the bad boys. He had to take a closer look, as they probably were about to cause him much bigger problems than Mr. Model ever would. He had to be very careful around them, if he didn’t want to get in trouble again. There was a blond hulk with a no-nonsense haircut and pale-blue cold eyes, who had booed the loudest, like a true bull with a bull’s neck. Moreover, there was a grim-faced guy, with almost black hair that stuck out like spines. Gregory had to suppress a grin. His hair as well as his black eyes made him think of a raven’s plumage. He wore a sleeveless basketball shirt showing off a tattoo on his upper arm with a blazing flame and he was constantly flexing his muscles.
The other guys seemed less dangerous. They must have been followers with no opinion of their own. Finally, the lesson was over and Gregory was hoping for something a little more interesting to cup. Unfortunately, it did not get any better. The next lesson was about sexual education, focussing on the issue of contraception, which of course incited the behavior of the bad boys to absolute heights of absurdity. The Teaching Team, having the almost impossible task to bring up this subject to a bunch of mostly 18-year’s old teenagers, consisted of two young men acting quite feminine. They seemed far too intellectual and not at all down to earth. They didn’t have the slightest chance to bring up their concerns to the class in a reasonable way. Especially the practice, how to use a condom correctly, which had to be practiced on some kind of wooden bananas that had been distributed to the students drowned in obscene bawling and laughter.
The bad boy corner was out of control; they were molesting the cheerleaders. The blonde hulk seemed to have some sort of a problem with Natalie and made inappropriate moves with his wooden banana in her direction, making choking sounds. Gregory tried to get things under control by negotiating and settling the situation, but he got himself caught in the crossfire.
The blonde hulk was just about to smash his face, when the two teachers started splashing with water guns at the bunch of students out of control. The quantity of water from the water-jet was huge, almost as from some kind of water cannon.
The troublemakers drove apart fleeing from the water jet.
The two teachers stood there like two alien soldiers, holding their space guns, with their glasses and the serious faces. Gregory couldn't help finding the whole scenario somehow funny.
"This will have severe consequences; this class is unacceptable,” one of the teachers said furiously and they left the classroom. There was an awkward silence and nobody moved. They just sat there for a moment soaking wet. Luckily, the bell rang and the soaking wet
students left the classroom. The students from the other classes stopped and looked at them, shaking their heads. Natalie's face seemed to have been hit the most; she looked like a zombie. Her eye makeup ran down her cheeks in black streaks, her lipstick smeared and she looked once more like the Joker from Batman.
Gregory fumbled for tissues he had seen lying on the floor and wanted to give them to Natalie so she could clean herself a bit, when the blond hulk pushed him brutally aside.
“What are you doing with this jerk Natalie? You can hardly wait to try out the banana thing with him, huh, bitch. Look at you. You look just like a cheap hooker, what’s wrong with you.” He tried to throw one of the wooden bananas at her, which he had taken from the classroom.
Gregory caught the banana and raised both hands.
“Whoa buddy calm down, she hasn’t done anything to upset you.” The guy did not answer, and seemed to walk away with his buddies. Then he suddenly turned around and landed a well-aimed punch on Gregory's nose, which immediately began to bleed heavily. Gregory fell like a tree and lay on the ground dazed. Natalie screamed hysterically and ran down the corridor like a headless chicken. The bad boys went away laughing and the hulk boasted about how he had shown this freak who had hit on his girl. Natalie shouted after him that she was not his girl and he was an aggressive asshole. Gregory was lying on the school hallway floor and saw everything through a milky fog. He felt an illogical, unstoppable rage rise inside of him like a huge blazing flame and his only thought was: Oh, no, not again.
The group of bad boys laughed and were already walking away when the blond guy’s clothes went up in flames. He screamed and tried to put out the flames. His buddies threw their jackets on him choking the flames eventually. In the massive confusion, no one noticed that Aiden, the guy with the black spiky hair, gazed interestingly at Gregory who was still lying on the ground. Natalie flapped her arms and ran screaming hysterically around Gregory and her friend Mila, the dark haired beauty with the unapproachable attitude, tried to calm her down. Mila’s eyes darted to Aiden with a conspiratorial look. They nodded as their eyes fell in unison on Gregory.
ELEMENTARY VIRTUE: The Savior Page 2