CHAPTER FOUR

Rayne Parker walked into his English class a few minutes late, panting a little from running down the road to get to school in time. Mr Daniels frowned at him disapprovingly but he quickly pulled his tattered Wuthering Heights book out from his bag and shuffled over to where his friend Becky had saved a seat. English was the only class he really struggled in and he had promised his mum he would work as hard as he could this year. He desperately needed to get perfect grades by the time graduation rolled around to be eligible for the scholarship he'd been dreaming off since forever. He wasn't going to let anything at all ruin his chances of a better life.

Almost all his subjects were Advanced ones which meant everyone in the class actually worked. It may have meant many nights spend poring over the much harder material but at least he didn't have to deal with too much crap within class. Being one of the very few kids in Premrose that got in due to his brain rather than his parents money meant that he wasn't exactly what you'd call popular in school. In fact, he was somewhere near the very bottom of the social hierarchy. And although high school wasn't quite as bad as depicted by Mean Girls, it wasn't brilliant either.

Thankfully his difficult subjects meant not many of the more popular crowd were in his classes. To be honest, the fact that there were a few in some of the Advanced classes was a phenomenon on its own; how did they have time to keep up with the workload when most of their day must be spent perfecting their hair?

Becky poked him out of his daydreaming and gestured towards the whiteboard where some writing had appeared. "Oi, stop spacing out you fool!" she whispered. Rebecca and Carter Price were twins and had been his neighbours since they were kids. Both with tight black curls, glowing bronze skin and warm inky eyes, they were almost identical. That was where the similarities stopped though; the two couldn't be any different. Carter was more reserved, into his books and adored computer programming no matter how geeky it seemed. Becky on the other hand had more sass than anyone else he knew, her fashion sense was impeccable and she had absolutely no problem with poking him with her extremely sharp elbow at any time of the day. He had to hand it to her though, she had managed to bring him out of his thoughts and made him focus back on Mr Daniels waffling on about novels written in the 1800's.

"Right, as I'm sure you're aware from last year, we will continue with Wuthering Heights for this term. To start the year, you'll be working in pairs to each write an essay concentrating on a specific theme from Bronte's masterpiece okay? I'm going to choose everything so no moaning about your groups okay?"

The entire class collectively groaned and Rayne laid his head on the desk with a frown. He hated working with people other than his friends; he'd end up doing all the work.

Mr Daniels continued speaking, ignoring all the muffled complaining as he handed out worksheets. "I'd also like all of you to refer to present time as much as possible to highlight the contrast between Bronte's time period and ours. So, if you can, make it as personal as possible."

With the tip of his tongue sticking out in concentration, Rayne began filling in the first few questions of the worksheet. Mr Daniels began reading out the pairs, temporary pausing to listen to Jakub loudly explain why he couldn't work with Karishma. Putting his hand out to silence him, the teacher continued reciting the themes out as though he hadn't been interrupted in the first place.

Rayne hadn't been paying attention when his name was called, far too busy trying to figure out the answer to question four. How was he supposed to write a quote comparing the two male love interests when he couldn't even remember who they were?

"The next pair is Rayne Parker and Hannah Adem with the theme of family values."

He looked up when his name was called out, supressing a groan when he realised who he was working with. He resisted the urge to bang his head on the table and instead glared towards his teacher. 'This has got to be a punishment for being late or something!' he thought to himself with a sigh.

It was bad enough that he had to put up with these dumb Barbie dolls and their huge egos in school but now he would have to face out outside for a couple of weeks if he wanted to pass. And he had to pass. There was no doubt about it; without this class he would lose his chance of the scholarship he so desperately needed. He felt as though his whole year was ruined and it wasn't even the second week of school yet! Rayne had no desire to be near popular rich girls with their fake nails, jock boyfriends and perfect families but now he had no choice but to spend an entire month with one. 'Brilliant, just bloody brilliant,' he thought.

Mr Daniels continued reading the rest of the names out but Rayne had gotten back to his worksheet, quickly answering the question he had left out by writing down the quote Catherine Earnshaw said comparing the two men. "Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire." Rayne was about to begin analysing the use of the words frost and fire when Mr Daniels announced that everyone needed to go sit with their partners.

Rayne felt like sinking to the ground in embarrassment. There was no way Hannah Adem – most popular girl at Pemrose – knew he existed never mind who he was. But to his utter disbelief she floated past the class towards the back, sat in the seat beside him and beamed so brightly he was reminded of a Colgate advert.

"Hiya Rayne."

He gawked for probably a full minute, completely in shock that she knew his name until she laughed at his expression. Not one of those stupid fake giggles that most girls in school did to try to sound sexy but a proper laugh. From the corner of his eye, Rayne could see Becky turn around from her partner – some Arab guy – and slightly open her fuchsia lipstick-ed mouth in disbelief.

Although it made his skin crawl to admit it, Hannah Adem had always been one of the prettiest girls in school but seeing her up close and laughing was probably the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. He shook his head slightly; absolutely appalled at his train of thought about a girl he didn't give a flying shit about.

Hannah looked down and started filling in the worksheet – bloody hell, even her handwriting was perfect – as he tried not to make it obvious he was studying her. Being practically at the bottom of the social ladder meant he had never so much as seen any of the more popular crowd up close before and he couldn't help looking in wonder.

Her skin wasn't just light brown like he'd always thought, it was the colour of dawn; radiating golden light and drawing admiring eyes towards it. It was the hue of milky cappuchino, contrasting deeply with the jet-black hair resting neatly against her shoulders. Her eyebrows – which were currently screwed up in concentration – were arched perfectly. With prominent cheekbones and naturally full lips, there was no doubt she was beautiful, although he didn't want to admit it.

But it was her eyes he couldn't stop looking at: they were the colour of cinnamon with random lighter flecks in them. They turned up at the outer corners showing her heritage – he couldn't even remember what she was. Indian? Pakistani? Bengali? – and were framed with the longest natural lashes he had ever seen.

She must have felt his gaze because at that moment the looked up and grinned at him. 'Shit,' he thought, hoping his gawking wasn't too obvious.

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Hannah couldn't help laughing at Rayne's shock when she sat down next to him, neatening out the non-existent creases in her navy school skirt. He obviously hadn't been expecting her to know who he was but living with Cameron – who was definitely the biggest gossiper in school – meant she knew of practically everyone. She knew he was pretty quiet and very smart and she was fairly certain she'd had at least one class with him for the past couple of years. His skin was pale, his features somehow both rounded and angular at the same time. His lips were fairly thin although not much more than usual for a white boy and his eyes were forest green. 'Very pretty eyes for a boy,' she thought in a passing glance. His hair was brown – or at least she assumed so from his eyebrows as it was hidden beneath a black beanie.

She looked down at the desk she had just sat in and began filling in the answers to the worksheet, trying not to tense at the thought of how angry Gabe would be if he knew she would need to spend so much time with a random guy. Trying to shrug that thought off, Hannah forced herself to remember that her grades were much more important than a relationship in which she felt more like a pretty Chihuahua than a human being at times.

Smiling at how absurd her thoughts were, she looked back up to ask Rayne when he would like to meet up only to find him stating at her intently. He flushed a little at being caught and looked away quickly. That made her grin; no guy had ever been embarrassed at being caught looking at her before. They usually revelled in it, taking pride in their flirting and lame jokes.

She felt a little weird thinking of this though and instead focused on the task they had been given. "How about we start finding relevant quotes from the novel like it says at the top and then maybe, we can decide when to meet up to continue it or something?" she asked uncertainly, internally debating how much of her life she would reveal. She had kept all the information about her family entirely hidden for years and couldn't bare it if anyone knew the truth.

Rayne nodded and they worked together quietly, writing down every idea they came up with on a spare bit of paper from Hannah's homework planner. And as they did, Rayne couldn't help wondering just how different this school year was going to be compared to the monotony he was used to.