CHAPTER NINE

The bell clanged loudly against the silence of the classroom where the students desperately scribbled down as many answers as possible before Mr Harris collected their papers in. He had surprised them with a short Maths test on the differentiation and integration chapters they had learnt and Hannah was glad she had quickly gone over them the previous night.

'Ugh, great,' she grumbled to herself sarcastically. She had gotten stuck on the last integration question and hadn't been able to complete it before Mr Harris swept away her paper. She grabbed hold of her blazer hanging on the back of her chair and threw it over her arm, too lazy to wear it. Carefully picking up her Michael Kors bag – last years birthday present from Uncle Jay – she said goodbye to Charmaine and Karishma and made her way out of the classroom.

"Hey babes!" Ashlyn greeted her with an air kiss, having been leaning against the door in her usual flirtatious manner waiting for her best friend. Surprisingly Matt wasn't with her; they were probably over. Ashlyn would have her sights on someone else soon, someone much better than him.

"Eh, we're finished," Ash explained as Hannah asked her, snootily rolling her eyes at some Year Nine boys openly gaping at them. "He was getting far too clingy."

Hannah laughed out loud at that; her words reminding her of Cameron's million excuses over the years of why he couldn't settle down or at least give up his playboy ways. She explained this to Ashlyn who giggled, tossing back her perfectly curled hair while doing so.

"Speaking of Cam, what's up with him? He's been acting a bit funny recently, don't you think?" she asked, concern seeping through her voice for a change. Ashlyn rarely let her emotions show; she was cold and hard from the outside and for her to show her concern was a big deal.

Hannah sighed, her shoulders slumping a little as they walked together. "Your guess is as good as mine." She smiled politely at some random younger girls she didn't recognise but who were eagerly waving at her.

Ashlyns' eyebrows raised a little in confusion. "Hmm," she murmured more to herself than to her best friend. Hannah didn't like that at all, she knew Ash would soon be up to something. The girl couldn't live without having to know everything going on around her – it was how she remained at the top of The Elite in school.

Hannah just ignored her comment as they made their way into the common room. The room was specifically for their year group as they were the oldest in the school and had been painted recently. The walls were a pale coffee colour with cherry red leather sofas and matching rug. There were sofas to lounge on, an assortment of chairs, air hockey and fooseball tables as well as a fridge and microwave. All in all, it wasn't too shabby and they spent a lot of their free lessons there. Where else would they go, to the disgusting library? Ashlyn would have a brain aneurysm!

After Hannah stopped to talk to a few friends – or rather acquaintances considering they didn't give a toss about her other than her position in the school hierarchy – the two girls neatly laid themselves on the comfiest sofa, after Ashlyn threatened the poor guy already on it.

"So, I was thinking," Ashlyn began, her voice dropping to a hushed tone against the chattering of the common room. "We should go to Jazz after school today! Because you still need to buy a dress for Gabe's sisters wedding and plus, I need a new outfit for Charmaine's party next week."

Hannah visibly flinched, something her best friend pretended to ignore. "Uhm, I wont be able to today cuz I have to meet with my partner for some English project but how about I'll let you know, maybe tomorrow?" she answered, trying to sound optimistic.

Ashlyn was clearly disgruntled but she agreed and before long, the subject had been changed to working-out tips, the ins and outs of online shopping and the latest guy Ash had her eye on.

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"I'm sorry I'm late!" Rayne panted.

He had been astounded when his pathetic excuse of a phone had beeped in the middle of his last lesson to signal a text message from Hannah Adem. She had asked if he'd be okay to meet today after school and due to his uncomfortably empty social calendar, he replied with a yes. He'd forgotten about it however once he was helping Mrs Rashida sort out some dusty Geography books and if it wasn't for a quick glance at the time, he would have missed it altogether.

He had run down the school hallway without pausing for the stich in his side to ease up in fear of Hannah having a temper tantrum and suing him for wasting her precious time. It sounded preposterous, even inside his own head, but he honestly wouldn't put it past her. The girl and her group of friends were pure evil.

However, Hannah just grinned and shook her head, her pin straight hair coming out of the sleek ponytail it was in and fanning around her head like a halo. "It's okay," she chirped when he apologised, pulling her bright white headphones out of her ears.

They began the awkward walk towards the library together, Rayne a step ahead as he was the one who knew the way. They waded through an alleyway to get there, a common shortcut. Rayne was fully expecting the girl beside him to squeal loudly at the dark or to sneer at the messy graffiti lingering on the walls but she only looked around curiously as she followed him.

Before long they were at the library, a small run down building on the edge of a residential street. It was somewhat grimy looking and definitely needed a good lick of paint but the inside was quaint and almost homely.

Rayne fondly greeted the creepy looking 'emo' girl behind the desk with a warm hug while Hannah just gaped at her. Her skin was pale but she seemed more European than White British, her hair short and in a pixie cut. Streaks of pink and blue were intricately woven into her natural honey blonde and her outfit was all different layers black. There were multiple piercings from what Hannah could see, tattoos up and down her slim arms and even her combat boots were intimidating. All in all, she was quite surprised that Rayne – who she had thought of being quite geeky – was clearly close friends with her.

Both Rayne and Hannah made their way past the rickety bookshelves on the verge of toppling over, towards the very back of the library where the computers were. They were placed rather haphazardly on the scratched wooden desks but luckily they weren't currently in use.

Hannah took a seat – the chair groaning under her weight – and smiled at Rayne as she pulled out her perfectly crisp copy of Wuthering Heights from her bag. "So, where shall we start from?" she asked.

To say Rayne was shocked was a massive understatement! He'd fully expected her to be freaking out by now. This was his element – this crappy grime-covered library – and truth be told, he was purposefully trying to scare her off. He thought the location would be enough for that; all the run-down parks, 99p stores and council houses around were obvious but she didn't bat an eyelid.

Rayne wanted her to run away from all of this and demand him to do the entire project himself. That's what happened in movies right? Beautiful, popular, rich girls weren't supposed to happily work on something as unimportant to them as a school project with poor, nerdy boys. That just wasn't how high school worked; it certainly wasn't how Pemrose worked!

But this wasn't a movie and Hannah wasn't going anywhere, in fact she had only looked around the library in interest not contempt like he was expecting.

She flicked through her Wuthering Heights copy deep in thought, debating on what she was going to say about her family. Mr Daniels had specifically stated they needed to bring in their own personal experience but her family life had always been a sore subject and she didn't know what to do. She didn't trust Rayne anyway or maybe it was that she couldn't trust him. She couldn't trust anyone in school and that was that.

"Uhm I think the most important family relationship in the entire novel is the one with the three children and Mr Earnshaw. So how about we start our project about fathers?" Rayne started saying, flushing slightly under her unwavering gaze. He still wasn't used to having her in front of him – it was Hannah Adem for Gods sake! Throughout the whole of his school life, she had been more like a celebrity plastered on billboards and magazines rather than a normal teenager and this whole thing was a little weird.

Hannah felt her stomach drop. She was hoping they could avoid talking about parents, at least for the mean time until she thought of a suitable story to make up.

"Why do you feel that's the most important? Because I think Hindley and Catherine's sibling relationship is the one we should write about first," she said, secretly disagreeing with her own words. She would much rather talk about siblings however than parents – she didn't want to bring up her own situation. Mr Daniels and the rest of their English class didn't need to know about her hate-filled mother who was never there and an unknown father who didn't think her existence was important enough to stick around for.

Rayne frowned unconsciously, pushing back his ever-present beanie slightly to uncover the tip of his hairline. "Yeah but surely the sibling relationship only changes because Mr Earnshaw brings Heathcliff back with him? The story wouldn't exist if Catherine's dad hadn't decided to adopt Heathcliff. That's the catalyst that started it all, right?"

Hannah nodded slightly, pursing her lips; she couldn't really disagree with him. Rayne grinned lopsidedly and began scribbling down some notes with a grubby biro pen as she flicked through the book looking for relevant quotes about the father in Bronte's novel. He paused and scratched his head, not sure what to write when Hannah put in her two cents. "How about starting with something like: although Mr Earnshaw died over 25 years before Nelly recounts the story, his acceptance of orphaned Heathcliff plays the most pivotal part of Bronte's tragic novel?" she said, not noticing his shock that she actually knew what she was talking about. He hadn't expected her to have read the novel but once again, she had surprised him.

"So uhm, what are we gonna write about us? Do we have to write about our fathers or what?" Hannah asked, her voice betraying her indifference expression by shaking slightly.

Rayne shrugged his shoulders slightly, his off-white oversized school shirt creasing with the movement. "I dunno, I don't have anything to say to be honest," he murmured as though it was no big deal. "My dad's dead."

Hannah just gaped at him. She wasn't expecting to hear that, he had just seemed so normal. She wasn't going to say a word about her own family of course but there was something about his bluntness that made her open her mouth in reply.

"Mine may as well be dead," she whispered, never having said those words out loud before. She sat up in shock, the chair creaking, when she heard what she'd said. It was his raw honesty that had caused her to talk before she could think, not realising what she'd done until the words were out.

But he didn't ask her any questions and if it wasn't for the slight raise of his auburn eyebrows she would have assumed he hadn't heard her. She knew he was expecting her family to be one of the golden, perfect ones like the rest of her friends but that wasn't the case. And the fact that he didn't comment caused a flutter of warmth in her heart.

The two of them continued working on their project in a silence that was only occasionally broken by quoting the characters they were analysing. And although they didn't talk about it, their confessions were on both their minds for the rest of the day.