Dragging her feet as well as her tattered messenger bag along the hallway, Addison reached the door marked Detention and sighed before opening the door. True, she only had herself to blame for landing in detention but it was still a pain in the ass having to spend an hour and a half sat in a painfully hard chair while staring out of a smudged window.

From her regular seat, second from the back and closest to the window, Lisa Bowen gave Addison a friendly and welcoming smile as she slid into her own regular seat, back row and second closest to the window. Both Addison and Lisa were regulars in detention. Lisa was a small and pretty looking blonde whose looks never really went with her incredibly tough persona. Because of the way she looked, Lisa was often found being hit on by unsuspecting boys. Said boys would usually find themselves in the nurse's office, with either a bloody nose or bruised testicles and Lisa always found herself thrown into detention. While Addison and Lisa weren't what you would count as close friends, Lisa and Brigid got on quite well and had done since junior school. Addison was sure it was because both of them had quite fiery tempers but either way, it was nice having Lisa around sometimes.

"So who was the poor, senseless victim today?" Addison asked, pulling her sketch pad out of her bag. During her art class that afternoon, she'd started working on something for her portfolio. Still, she wasn't sure if the medium she'd chosen was good enough to go into her portfolio. She was half tempted to throw that thing away, though that may have been because she'd been staring at it for far too long.

"It was that asshole of a creep Ryan Cooper from my Psychology class. He tried to grab my ass so I threw a shoe at him." Lisa explained with an incredibly casual air. To be fair she had the right to sound causal about it because that really wasn't the worst thing she had done to a guy that had hit on her. She had actually broken a guy's arm when he had tried to hit on her before. "The damn shoe missed him because he leap out the way screaming like a girl but apparently my 'conduct' was 'less than acceptable' so here I am." Lisa added shrugging her shoulders.

"Cooper had it coming to him." Addison said shrugging her shoulders. She'd shared an English class with Cooper. A speck of dust had better views on their English assignments than Ryan Cooper.

"I'd agree with you there." Lisa said smirking before she rummaged in her bag for a second. "Gum?" she asked Addison holding out a pack of spearmint gum.

"Thanks" Addison said giving Lisa a rare smile. She threw a few pieces of gum into her mouth before placing her earphones into her ears and returning to her sketch. She drowned out everyone around her as music filled her ears and she hoped that the next few hours would go fairly quickly. Afterwards she could drag herself home. If God, or whoever was up there, was on Addison's side then her brothers would still be at work or just out the house.

The sketch still didn't look right. With an exasperated sigh, Addison threw her pencil down onto the table. Lisa looked up from the book she was reading and gave her a sympathetic look. She'd witnessed many an art related fit when it came to Addison. Just as she was about to say something to Lisa, the chair next to Addison scraped against the floor. This had the same effect on Addison as fingernails on a blackboard and caused her to shudder. Ripping out her earphones she turned to who it was that had pulled the chair out to glare at them. She realised that it was none other than Dylan Willis. Dylan gave her a mocking grin before he threw himself into his seat strangely full of refinement for someone so tall and broad looking. Addison raised an eyebrow before placing her earphones back in.

"Hey Lisa." Dylan said.

"Hey there Dylan." Addison heard Lisa reply in a friendly manner. That managed to draw her attention from the sketch in front of her. Turning to Lisa, she raised an eyebrow at her. "Dylan's in my psychology class" Lisa added with a shrug when she saw Addison's face.

"Yeah, you were the one who threw the shoe at that guy, right?" Dylan asked sound vaguely in awe of Lisa's action.

"Yeah that's me." Lisa said proudly. Dylan smirked slightly before he glanced over at Addison. Addison couldn't help but smirk right back and she was oddly proud when she saw Dylan's face redden. Dylan broke the eye contact first and started staring out the window to the playing field where the school's football team were beginning to practice. Addison remembered sitting in the cold every Friday night during game season with her family. She'd sit and watch Eric run up and down that field doing whatever the hell it was that football players actually did. Addison had been highly relieved that neither Mark nor Aaron had been remotely interested in competitive sports. After Eric left school, Addison wasn't obligated to sit on a hard bench watching a sport she couldn't care less about.

"So...it's only you're first day here and you're already in detention." Addison said. Dylan glanced over and he was clearly trying to pick out if Addison was being friendly or not.

"What can I say, it's a real talent. Apparently, this place had a rule against smoking on campus. Who'd of thought it?" Dylan said with a broad smile. Clearly, he had decided that Addison was being genuinely friendly.

"I hate to break it to you, but most places have that rule." Addison said smirking back at Dylan. Dylan raised an eyebrow in surprise before he was distracted by a phone in his pocket beeping. Rolling his eyes he pulled the phone out and tapping at the screen. He glanced up towards the front of the room where their detention supervisor was sat. She was more interested in reading this month's copy of Beautiful Homes than actually paying attention to the room full of delinquents. Looking relieved, Dylan went back to tapping the screen.

"Hey." Dylan said tapping Addison on the shoulder lightly. "When does this shit-fest normally end?"

"Are you asking because I look like the kind of person who spends my life in detention?" Addison asked.

"Well, you do seem at home." Dylan pointed out nodding to the way Addison was now sat with her feet up on the desk. Addison gave him a sneering smile as she heard Lisa snort loudly before leaning over closer to Dylan.

"The 'shit-fest' ends at five so you only have another hour and a half to sit through before you can waltz on home." Addison explained as she leaned back further in her seat. She scrolled through her iPod until she found a decent enough track to distract her from Dylan Willis, who was now settling himself into his chair and pulling a book out of his bag. Addison didn't look at the title of the book, she was too busy wondering why there were several terribly cheesy 90's pop bands on her iPod. When on earth had Aaron, because it could have only been Aaron, done so? Still, she couldn't help but notice how worn and well read the book looked. Interesting as the only time books were ever read in detention was when they were read by Addison and Lisa, who had recently become obsessed with reading a series of books based on the zombie apocalypse.

---

Brigid was waiting for Addison as she walked out of detention. She had been sat against a cluster of lockers scribbling away in a small sketchpad. Like Addison, Brigid enjoyed drawing and was very good at it. They were in different art classes. Brigid had chosen Graphic Design while Addison had gone for Classic Art. When she saw that Addison had been let out of detention she stood up and hastily put her things back into her bag.

"Hey, are you ready to go or do you need to do anything else?" Brigid asked as Addison walked over to her.

"I've got nothing else to do we can get going." Addison said giving Lisa a nod as she walked past. Brigid gave her a wave and a smile. "Were you waiting out here all this time?" Addison asked.

"Oh no, I was with Poppy going over her homework for Chemistry." Brigid said. "I've only been here for about fifteen minutes though." Brigid added with a shrug before her eyebrows shot up so quickly it was almost comical. "Isn't that the new guy? Dylan Willis?" She asked in a near whisper as Dylan came walking down the hallway and gave Addison a nod of acknowledgment with a brief smile.

"Yes" Addison said while Brigid continued to stare at Dylan. If she wasn't completely in love with the barista at their favourite café, Addison would have assumed that she was having a 'moment' over Dylan Willis of all people. "That would be Dylan Willis."

"Have you spoken to him?" Brigid asked while they both watched Dylan walk down the hallway, pulling out his phone as he walked.

"Barely, he's just some guy that ended up in detention on his first day." Addison said with a shrug of her shoulders. Brigid opened her mouth to say something else but Addison quickly cut her off. "Come on, let's get going."

"Ok, coffee?" Brigid asked smiling at the thought.

"Yeah sure, though are we going for the caffeine or for the achingly hip looking barista that gives you free shots of syrup in your coffee?" Addison asked raising an eyebrow.

Brigid gave her a roll of her eyes before saying, with a slight smile "How do you know it's the barista? I could just really like the syrup."

"Yeah, of course, that's what it is." Addison said with a voice dripping with sarcasm as Brigid whacked her across the back of the head.