Chapter Three - It's All In The Name
It was surprising how her mother had just allowed her to go out and play…on her own, without her nanny Josie. It definitely was something new for her. For the past years of her existence, she had never been allowed to play on her own, even with the tantrums and the crying that she never forgot to add as a convincing factor. It never worked before.
It was surprising that it only took a pout and a little whine to get her mother to comply this time.
Okay, maybe a little sniffling added to the trick. But still. She was an eight-year old girl. Eight-year olds are definitely allowed to sniffle… and pout and whine.
No matter what came to her mother for allowing her this huge freedom, Leila didn’t care anymore. All she knew was, she was here now, playing on her own.
And apparently, she was also approaching an unsurprisingly old tree. What the tree was, she didn’t know. How was she supposed to know the difference between all those ancient trees? Trees were trees. To an innocent young mind, all trees were the same and should be left at that. Besides, she was too happy right now to be bothered by trivial things such as what kind of tree she was seeing at the moment.
Or where those sobs were coming from.
Okay, maybe the sobs did get her attention as she now tried to listen a little more attentively. Well what was a curious little girl to do when she knew someone’s crying maybe just a few feet from her? Snoop around of course.
Which brought her back to the ancient boring tree. As it turned out, she realized the sobs came from behind the tree.
So Leila tiptoed carefully towards the tree, trying carefully not to disturb the crying entity nearby. She approached like a little predator stalking its prey, only this time she was a girl, not a predator, and the other was most definitely… also a girl. A crying, totally helpless, blonde girl. Still a girl though.
“Why are you crying?”
The other girl immediately swung her head up to look at where the unexpected voice came from. She had been undoubtedly surprised to find another being standing next to her.
Leila crouched near the crying girl and smiled a little, before patting her back.
“I’m Leila,” she said, looking expectantly at the blonde girl who by now had stopped sobbing and just looked at her with an unknown expression.
“Wh-where did you c-come f-from?”
“From a lot of places. I can’t remember all of them. But I think I’ve been to France and Australia.” Leila smiled even wider, now ceasing the pat on the other girl’s back. “My name’s Leila. What’s your name?”
“K-Kristen.” Kristen paused to stop the left-over sobs. “Ummm… so you’ve been to France?”
“Yes.”
“How was it like there?”
“I can’t remember. My mom just told me we’ve been there. I was still a baby.”
“Oh. How about Australia?”
Leila saw the girl loosening up and she kept her smile as radiant as possible. “I didn’t see much. I wasn’t allowed to go outside to play.”
A comfortable pause.
“So, why are you crying?”
Kristen didn’t want to speak up. She felt embarrassed for being such a crybaby. If her friends found out she’d been crying behind a tree, they would tease her for life.
Leila wasn’t about to give up though.
“Did you hurt yourself? I scraped my knee once and the blood started going out. I cried. It hurt really bad.”
“No.”
“Did your dog die?”
“No.”
“Did your cat die?”
“No.”
“Your bird?”
Kristen shook her head.
“Huh?” Leila’s eyebrows scrunched up in confusion. “So, you have a pet monkey then? You know...that died.”
The blonde girl giggled at Leila’s outrageous innocence. Leila couldn’t help but giggle along with her.
“I don’t have a pet,” Kristen said, after the relaxing giggles.
“So why are you crying?”
“Ummm…they’re teasing me.”
“Who?”
“My friends.”
“If they tease you and make you cry, then they’re not good friends.”
“They’re good friends. I’m just…” Kristen looked down, “…a crybaby.”
“You won’t cry if they didn’t make you cry.”
Kristen sniffled. Leila placed her hands once more on the blonde’s back, but now, instead of patting, she was rubbing it.
“I’m not going to make you cry.”
Kristen looked up.
“I want to be your friend, Kristen.”
…………
She took off her sunglasses and threw them to the back of her car before closing the door. She was aware of all the eyes drawn towards here. She was used to this – the scrutiny, the ogle. They were all part of her daily life.
For a brief moment, Lei wondered what had come upon her to subject herself to the torture of studying in a high school – an environment – that was leagues different from what she had been used to all her life. Then she remembered, and the pain came flooding back in huge waves.
How could she forget?
All these – the stares, the unwanted attention – was nothing compared to that.
She had to get away. She just had to.
Finally, she looked around and noticed how crowded the parking lot really was. People sure did snoop around a lot in this school.
She conjured her patented Leila-heiress grin and looked around once more. Then she noticed the outrageously gargantuan banner with her and the school’s name on it. The message was something around the likes of welcoming her. She didn’t bother reading the whole thing. She just wanted to get the day over with. Maybe tomorrow, the students would act a little more normally, or maybe just tone down the stares to discrete glances here and there. With a slight wave to the obviously overexcited crowd, she headed for the main building.
I swear there were lots drooling. And a few swooning… from some of the girls of course.
After a few steps though, her plan to get out of the crowd was immediately thwarted by the figure that blocked her way. The figure apparently belonged to a fairly sexy brunette wearing a cami tank and a skimpy – too skimpy for my taste – red skirt, who now sported a huge grin and a faint blush.
Lei kept her smile and looked directly to the other girl’s eyes. This seemed to fuel the other brunette’s blush and her face flushed a little redder.
Time to speak or we’ll be here all day.
“Hi.”
The brunette went out of her trance as her eyes widened in realization. “HI!”
Leila’s smile widened and her eyes hinted a glint of amusement. A crush and I haven’t even been here 5 minutes. Oh, this will be fun. “So…”
“So…” the brunette repeated in anticipation.
“So… you’re blocking my way.”
Once again, the other girl’s eyes widened in realization and instantly moved to the side, allowing Lei to pass. “Oh my gosh! I’m so, so sorry!”
“That’s okay.”
Lei didn’t move an inch though, as she waited for the brunette to speak up. When the other didn’t, she sighed inwardly and figured she’d have to start the conversation once more.
“Are you going to tell me anything? I mean, with the blocking my way and all, I think you want to tell me something.”
“I’m Diane,” the brunette blurted out in a hurry that Lei almost didn’t get it.
“And I’m Lei,” she held out her hand. “Nice meeting you Diane.”
Diane looked at the hand being offered and back at Lei’s face, then to the hand once more and finally, shook it profusely.
“It’s so nice finally meeting you, Miss Charles-Carlson! I mean, when we first heard you were coming here to study for your final year, we were all so, so very thrilled! As in like really! You don’t know how you’re being here is such a huge thing!”
Lei was, apparently, having trouble getting her hand out of the very forceful handshake.
“I’m Diane Briggs and I’m the head cheerleader here at Wright Duncan. Did you like the banner? We made it really big just for you. We wanted to show everyone how grateful we are that you chose our school for your senior year!”
Fortunately, Lei managed to squeeze her hand out of Diane’s death grip and began massaging it when one thing registered in her head. Did she just say cheerleader? Oh no! Not this early!
“Miss Charles-Carlson, did you like the banner?”
The girl with dark brown hair looked at the exasperatingly chirpy look on Diane’s face and once again, sighed inwardly.
“I loved the banner, thank you.” Another sigh. “And Lei would be fine. Just Lei, since we’ll be schoolmates and all.”
Diane squealed. Did the heiress just say to call her by her nickname?
“Now if you’ll excuse me, Diane. I have to –” And Lei was once on her way to the nearest building when Diane blocked her path once more.
“Wait, I have a friend here who’s a part of the student government. She’ll be glad to finally meet you.”
The brunette yanked another figure and Lei found herself staring at sparkling, emerald green eyes. She tore her gaze away from the other girl’s eyes to her face – ensconced in long flowing blond hair.
“I’m Kristen.”
…………
She tapped her pen on the desk lightly and sighed. She had been having the urge to place her hand on her chin and just yawn for all her heart’s worth, but she realized that on her first day of classes in a new school, giving the impression that she was uninterested in the lessons probably wouldn’t be such a good idea. She may be a rich and famous student, but she still was a student and teachers were … well, still teachers. Also, if she wanted to gain their respect by just being Lei and not being “the heiress”, she had to impress them with her charming personality.
And she knew just how charming she could be.
However, she still didn’t understand why she had to have Pre-calculus this early in the morning. Way to set the mood for a girl.
The teacher wasn’t really all that boring, she had to admit. It was just her and numbers. She doubt there ever was a time that the combination of her and math ever became anything other than boring. All these years, Lei still failed to understand how math was going to help her in life. Well, if she didn’t become an actress, she’d be managing her parents’ businesses and be up in her office signing papers all day… or something to that effect.
Okay, so maybe managing a business would take numbers and calculations. But when that happens, she’d have employees doing all the computations for her and her only worries would be about the statistical blah blahs.
At least her Statistics class would be more useful than the Pre-calculus class that was currently melting her brains out with all the boredom.
Lei sighed in silence once more. She really had to pay attention to her teacher. He was even cute with all the enthusiasm. If she never admitted to herself she was gay, she’d totally and understandably have a mild crush on him.
“So what do you think about the course outline, Ms. Carlson?”
She snapped out of her reverie. Did he just call her attention?
“I beg your pardon, sir?” She stood up.
“The course outline. What’s your opinion about the topics we’ll be having this year, Ms. Carlson?”
Lei tried to gauge the older man for any hint of antagonism. Looking at Mr. Hansen, his face actually looked friendly and expectant. She smiled at him.
“I’m sure I’d be looking forward to …derivatives, sir.”
Ugh, I did not just say that.
“That’s great! I do also believe that it’s actually one of the most interesting topics. Thank you for your opinion, Ms. Carlson,” he gave Lei a pleasant yet very obviously I-know-you-were-on-your-own-world look and smiled.
Lei decided to play with him a little.
“Sir…”
“Yes?”
“It’s not just Carlson,” she smirked at him. “It’s Charles-Carlson.”
He looked slightly taken aback, but immediately went back to his cool and friendly demeanor – which was what Lei actually expected out of the teacher.
“Noted, Ms. Charles-Carlson.”
She smiled at him sweetly and sat back down. Lei thought that having Hansen for a teacher just might ease the boredom off and make the year interesting.
The rest of the class looked at Lei in awe. It was definitely going to be one hell of an interesting year with Leila Charles-Carlson around.
End of Chapter Three.
Coming soon on Of Tears And Broken Hearts:
“We’ve been running around for hours, Leila. I just want to sleep.”
“On the grass? Come on! A bed’s better! Let’s stay at our house,” the brunette said as she unceremoniously plopped down next to her friend.
“But we just slept there last night.”
“You can sleep there again,” the brunette smiled at her friend.
…………
Kristen knew there was only one reason she was being bothered like this. She had been unable to concentrate on any class at all that morning and she knew it was because she was too preoccupied with other thoughts. Thoughts about a certain brunette with calm blue eyes, sweet smile, and an angelic face.