Hey guys, sorry this chapter is slightly longer than usual. A lot needed to happen :) Hope you enjoy it!

Ps: I love all of you, thank you so
much for taking the time to read my story. You are amazing x

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Mrs Agnes dropped us off at the door on the end of the quiet hallway. "Good luck," she croaked, and then she scampered off back to her office as fast as her stubbly legs could carry her. I got the impression that she didn't like us very much, not by what she said but more about the way she said it. Like we were a pile of dirt she'd accidentally stepped on and couldn't get rid of fast enough.

I bit my lip as I stared forlornly at Mrs Agnes' retreating back. I didn't like her but I thought she'd at least show us in. Guess not.

With a sigh, I turned back to Damien. "Okay Damien, open the door."

"No! You do it."

"Why? You're closer!"

He took a large step back, "Now I'm not."

I raised my eyebrows in surprise. "Seriously Damien! What are you, two?"

He huffed out a breath but didn't meet my eyes. I got it, he was nervous. But so was I. I loved Damien but sometimes he annoyed the hell out of me.

"Fine," I snapped, "I'll go first."

I shut my eyes and pushed my thick, curly hair to one side of my face. Placing one shaking hand on the knob of the door, I rested it there, trying to build the courage to turn it. I was grateful that the door was solid wood. I didn't need our fellow classmates to witness me flailing about.

I felt Damien move closer and his breath fanned the back of my neck. "Open it," he chanted softy, "open it."

I pulled my hand back to glare at him. "You wanna open it?"

His eyes opened wide I could fully see the whites of his eyeballs. "Nooo, I'm good," he smiled toothily at me and made 'get to it' motions with his hands. I rolled my eyes.

I sent a quick prayer to the heavens and swiftly opened the door, leaving no time for me to hesitate and run away like I wanted to.

The door squealed in protest to reveal a room full of approximated twenty students. The muted buzz of quiet conversation came to an abrupt halt the moment we entered the door and all twenty pairs of eyes locked onto us.

"Shoot," I muttered, freezing midway into the room. Damien gave me a large shove from behind and I stumbled forwards.

Their glazed over eyes brightened, maybe hoping that we'd serve to be a distraction from whatever mind-numbing task they had been set to complete.

"Er, hi," I said, waving awkwardly at the class. They blinked back at me in silence.

It was so quiet I could hear my heartbeat thumping loudly in my chest. I swallowed, willing something would happen to break their attention away from us.

"Woow," Damien whispered in my ear, voice low. I barely heard him, "It's so damn quiet in here, it's like someone died." He snickered, "Oh, yeah, they did."

"Ha ha, very funny Damien," I said dryly, just as quietly.

My eyes roamed the room, coming to a stop when I reached the large, brown paneled window in the center. Outside, a water fountain stood tall and proud. The alleged murder/ suicide site. Great. Just looking at it sent shivers down my spine.

But it also rose a lump to my throat. My parents drowned, at least, that's what I was told. It hurt to think that this poor girl's life slowly ebbed away from her as she lay submerged under the water, alone. At least my parents had each other. She had no one.

The fountain itself was old but sturdy; the type that would be common in large Victorian houses but looked severely out of place in the modern maze of a school. I was marginally surprised to see that it didn't get removed after the girl committed suicide. Maybe they wanted it to remain a cruel reminder to all the other students that life could be just as easily snuffed out.

The window's pixilated glass distorted the grandiose water fountain but did nothing to diminish the eerie feeling.

I tried to ignore Damien, but his running commentary about the 'creepy' classroom and the even creepier water fountain made me feel on edge.

Ignoring the class' hopeful stares, I turned to face the teacher at the front of the room. The man appeared to be in his late thirties maybe early forties with a scruffy two-day-old stubble and a wrinkled grey suit. He had his feet propped up on the desk in front of him and a book in his hands but from this angle, I couldn't make out what the title was. Not that I'd want to, anyway. Judging from his barely open eyelids, the book was gently lulling him to sleep.

Grabbing Damien by the wrist, I dragged him to the teacher's desk. I cleared my throat to get his attention.

"Hi there, Sir," I chirped. "I'm Abigail Winters and this is my brother Damien. We're new here." As far as introductions go, I thought it went pretty smoothly albeit the teacher not even lowering his book an inch.

We stood there for about five minutes waiting for a response. I used that time to peruse the space behind him that was littered with stacks of marked and graded papers. I chuckled quietly to myself. He was a damn harsh marker alright, I almost felt bad for those students. Almost. But it was too funny; the guy clearly loved his red ink. It was everywhere. Even on the papers that did okay! There was nothing stopping this guy when he got going.

I sidled a glance at Damien. "I feel like an idiot standing here," I murmured, angry that the man didn't have the decency to even act like he was listening.

Finally he lowered the book and glowered at us. Probably because we didn't get the hint and go away.

Oh well. 

"What do you want? You're interrupting my reading."

"Um...we're new," Damien repeated. I began tapping a rhythm on the floor with the toe of my converse, wishing that I could just leave. The teacher didn't seem to give a rat's ass about his students so I doubted he would even notice our absence. I mean, who reads a book during lesson time? In all honesty though, he was doing more snoozing than actual reading so it was unfair for him to say we were interrupting. Interrupting the snoozing maybe, but not reading.

I was going to tell him as much but Damien slyly pinched my arm, obviously guessing what I was thinking. I crossed my arms and looked away, letting Damien deal with him instead.

"New, you say?" The man had a deep, gravelly voice, like he smoked one too many cigarettes. I was sorely tempted to point out that his lungs were probably rotting but I held my tongue. I doubted he would appreciate my words of wisdom.

Putting the book to one side, he lazily pointed at a door beside him. "Go inside and pick up the textbooks on the Cold War and the Vietnam War, that's what we will be covering this year. Also," he added, "pick up the stack of assignments and the textbook on the history of America. You two will have to work on this project independently to gain enough credits to pass this year. No excuses, Clear?"

"Clear," we intoned back.

This time, Damien dragged me to the door the teacher pointed to. It was more of a closet than anything, barely two feet wide and four feet in length.

"Damn," Damien said, "this sure is tiny."

I shook my head in response, speechless. There were haphazardly arranged history textbooks and random papers strewn everywhere. Almost instantly, we were hit with a foul odor the moment we stepped through the door.

"And messy," I added, my nose scrunching up from the smell of something putrid and rotting.

"What is that smell?" he gasped, turning his head to the open door.

"I think there's a dead mouse somewhere," I told him. The poor thing probably lost his way in all the mess and died of starvation. I wasn't surprised, considering the state of the teacher's desk. I think I even saw cobwebs in the corners of the underside of it.

Damien had backed up after the initial whiff hit him in the face and was now standing a few inches away from the door, hand over his nose.

"Damien! Get back here." My head ached from the smell so I pulled up my t-shirt and wrapped the material over my nose, blocking most of the stench.

"No, I'm good here."

I shot him a look and waited. Not for long, though. Grumbling under his breath, Damien copied me and covered his nose.

"I hate this school," I muttered as I rifled through the stacks of books and pulled out two copies of the ones we needed.

"Ditto," Damien muttered back. He grabbed the other papers, the ones we had to do separately, and we stumbled out of the room.

The teacher cleared his throat loudly to get our attention and we turned to him, perplexed. He didn't even make an effort to get up and come to us.

"You!" He pointed at me, "Sit next to Mr Wilde." He pointed vaguely in the direction of a boy who was sitting at the back of the room. The boy didn't look up when his name was called. Maybe he was embarrassed about having the last name 'Wilde'. I would be, but then again, I was 'Winters' so I was one to talk.

I clutched my rucksack tighter in my palms and walked over to the desk. Looking over my shoulder, I waved at Damien. "Farewell my dear brother, I must leave you now," I said with mock seriousness.

"Alas my dearest sister Abigail, we shall meet again." A small smile tugged his lips and he raised his fingers in mock salute. I copied the motion and turned back, misjudging the distance and bumping into the edge of the table.

"Ow," I muttered as the pain radiated from my hip bone upwards. I rubbed the sore spot and raised my head.

I blinked, dazed at what, or rather who, I saw before me. His head low, a lock of dark brown it-almost-looked-black hair flopping forwards. Long, dark lashes fanned his cheeks and fringed his evergreen eyes that were encased behind thick framed glasses. Eyes that were currently staring at me. Crap! 

I looked away quickly, colour staining my cheeks almost immediately.

I've seen him before, but where?

My mind whizzed over all the people I knew, but something didn't add up. I couldn't remember ever actually meeting him.

He leaned back in his chair so that only two legs of the chair were supporting his weight and my breath caught on a gasp.

That was it! He looked like my Mr Dream Hottie. I didn't want to believe it. I couldn't. My brain just refused to accept the fact that the guy I dreamed about for three months turned out to be a living, breathing person.

I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me. Humiliation swept through me like a hurricane. I kissed this guy! Maybe not him him, but the dream him. That was still just as bad though and I was glad he would never know. In that moment, I swore to myself that I would take the secret to my grave.

I stood to the side, contemplating whether I should make a break for it.

He raised an eyebrow. "You going to sit anytime soon or are you just going stand there?"

Something melted inside me. And not in a good way. His voice flowed like honey, all smooth and silky. It was exactly like how I dreamed him. I was good but not that good. Something weird was going and a thought was niggling at the back of my subconscious but I wasn't quite sure what it was.

"S-sit," I stuttered. What was wrong with me? I didn't even have a stutter.

I moved around the desk and pulled out the chair. Somehow, my bag must've gotten caught and when I sat down, the zip burst open and everything went tumbling onto the floor. 

Cliche, much, I thought wirily. I glared at the floor, contemplating whether I should bother picking them up.

A smirk played on the guy's lips. "I'll get that for you," he purred. He leaned over me, low enough that his chest brushed my knees and I choked on my breath. I pushed back into the chair but I had nowhere to go. Eyes wide, I watched him pick up the books Damien and I just got. I breathed through my nose, trying in vain to calm my rapidly increasing heart rate.

Less than a minute later, he leaned back over to his side, dropping the books in front on me on his way.

I caught a whiff of sandalwood and something else, something that was uniquely his. I wanted to lean over and inhale his heady scent but I refrained myself. I'd embarrassed myself enough as it was.

"Thank you," I murmured.

"Pleasure," his voice caressed the word. I shivered. Mind meet gutter.

Maybe I was hallucinating? I didn't get a good night of sleep because of the weird dream so maybe my mind was playing tricks on me. Maybe I saw him walking yesterday and my mind decided to use him in the dream? I knew that was highly unlikely, but I was grasping at straws. There was no way this could be real.

Slowly, I edged one finger in his direction and poked him, just to check he wasn't a hallucination.

He wasn't.

My finger met solid muscle and I recoiled, pulling my finger away.

My mouth fell open as I openly gawped at him. "Goddamn it!" I whispered.

He raised his dark eyebrows, "Something wrong?"

My cheeks burned scarlet and I averted my eyes. "No..."

I shouldn't have been surprised he caught me; I wasn't exactly being discreet about it.

I slyly looked at him from the corner of my eye, his brows creased as he worked meticulously on a drawing. I leaned further in his direction to see what it was but he moved his hand to cover it. 

Message received, loud and clear; he didn't want me to see it. That made me even more adamant to check it out.

I turned back to face the front and let my long curls fall forward to create a shield between us. Then, I attempted to ignore him for the rest of the lesson.

It didn't work.

I was hyper aware of him, my arm tingling every time he accidentally brushed his arm against mine when he was doing his work. Or drawing. Whatever.

I let out a quiet groan and banged my head on the table. "Why?" I muttered to myself. I didn't know what was wrong with me. I never acted like a fool before. I needed to know who he was and how he managed to reduce me to a pile of Abigail goo.

By the time the bell rang, he had finished his drawing and colored it in. Curiosity was killing me but I refrained from looking over again.

He rolled the paper and tied an elastic band around it before standing up and leaving it on his side of the desk.

I watched his every move like a hawk, trying to convince myself that somehow, I was able to dream up a real person I'd never seen before. I wasn't convinced.

He walked with a swagger, like he ruled the world or something. His hips moved fluidly and I stared, transfixed, until I remembered the paper he left behind. 

"Hey..." I called out, faltering. I didn't know his name and I hardly thought he would appreciate it if I called him Mr Wilde like the teacher had done.

By the time I pulled myself out of the reverie, the class had already emptied within seconds, and the guy disappeared in the throng of rushing students.

I'd say that I stood up and left the paper on the desk but then I would be lying.

Curiosity may have killed the cat, but I wasn't a cat, so I stuffed it in my bag and hurried after the remaining students. I caught up with Damien, who had been pushed to the side when the students made a break for freedom and made our way to the next lesson.