CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
"So what did he say?" Alex asked in concern from his position on the bed as he watched his girlfriend pacing around the room, wringing her hands together anxiously.
They were at her house, working on the very last painting of the two of them at Lacey's party when the phone had rang. Her mum had popped her head in the door to tell them their art teacher, Mr Jamison, was on the phone and wanted to talk to Kalila. Alex had stopped painting the fireworks the minute he heard that and couldn't seem to calm down as he waited in anticipation. Teachers never rang home unless it was urgent and with their art project due in two days, the pressure to perfect it was higher than ever.
Kalila had come back in almost a daze and was pacing around her room so hard, Alex was certain she'd cause permanent imprints of her feet in the carpet.
"Oh my God," was all she managed to say before squealing and jumping on him, causing the paintbrushes on the bed to bounce up and hit the floor.
He laughed as he hugged her back, assuming it wasn't anything too bad from the nervous smile on her face. She pulled herself out of his grip and clapped her hands excitedly, the news bursting out so fast, he needed a minute to process it. "The vice chancellor is coming!"
"Wait, what, who?" he asked, having no idea what she was talking about.
Kalila rolled her eyes and opened a website on her laptop to show him. "The vice-chancellor of Central Saint Martins! He's gonna come to our school to watch our class present our work! Mr Jamison called to let me know because he knows going there has literally been my dream since we started high school all the way back in year seven. Oh my God... they're gonna see our work and we're not even done yet! Oh my God! Shit!" she exclaimed, the nervousness of the situation making her voice rise considerably.
Alex took a moment to absorb the information before grinning in pride at his girlfriend. He knew that despite her insecurities and fear of not getting in, she surpassed the talent they were looking for. They would offer her a place; they'd be stupid not to. "Well c'mon then," he told Kalila, pulling her by the arm back towards the A3 canvas. "We should get it done then."
They worked in a steady silence, each deep in thought as the painting began to come alive in an array of brush strokes and glowing colours. Just as Alex was slowly dotting the stars in white against the night sky, he remembered something they had overlooked. "Lila, we still need to think of what we're gonna say when we're presenting."
Kalila paused, deep in thought with her paintbrush hovering over the blurry faces of her friends that she was adding detail to. She thought for a minute before remembering that it they still had tomorrow to finalize their speech. "How about during fourth period tomorrow?" she asked, knowing that they both had a free lesson as Alex nodded in conformation.
Before long, the look of relief on Kalila's face was evident as they were nearing the end of painting the final picture. "What if we call it new beginnings?" she asked as they were deciding what to label it as. Alex didn't need to think about it very much; it was the perfect title to end their project on.
When they had first been partnered up together, Kalila had been determined she could convince him of the numerous reasons for him to live despite them barely knowing each other. At the time he had almost scoffed, thinking how much of a stupid idea it was and hadn't planned on being alive much longer than a few days at most. But somehow she had succeeded and everything had finally fallen into place.
New beginnings, indeed.
---
"So how about a movie night later on since you finished your art thing?" Tyler whispered the following morning, trying not to alert the teacher. He was half asleep with his head on the desk, eagerly waiting until the end of the History lesson they were in. Alex nodded in confirmation, too absorbed in answering the last question on the quiz he was doing to respond.
Now that all the paintings for his art project were all complete, he was trying to bring the work from the rest of his lessons up to scratch. After the accident that had taken his sisters life and left him on a path of self-destruction, school work was hardly at the top of his priorities but now it was time to change that. He wanted to do well and actually get somewhere in life because he knew it would have made his parents proud. They had drilled the importance of education into him from a very young age and although he was already guaranteed a position in his uncles' financial company, he wanted to make something of himself alone.
He wanted to be a photographer.
After Alice's death, it had become more than a hobby; it was almost a way of helping him cope. 'And the first step to fulfilling that dream is to get decent marks in this bloody quiz,' he thought, groaning when the bell rang, the last question still incomplete.
Flinging his books into his bag, he made his way out of the class and caught up with Tyler and Emma deep in conversation ahead of him. The three of them talked for a while, discussing the seemingly never ending university application process until they were interrupted by a blur of blonde hair.
"Oh hello Mel," Tyler said, forcing his tone of voice to be polite. With a perfectly-manicured finger pushing back her fringe, she said hi to the boys, completely ignoring Emma. Tyler raised an eyebrow at the girl in question who just rolled her eyes. She had spent years being overlooked by Melissa and her posse and things weren't going to change just because she was now friends with two of the most popular guys in school.
"Listen boys, there's a party at Matts tonight, his parents are out of town. Neither of you have been out in a while, especially you Alex. You'll come with me right? I've missed you," she purred, her eyelashes fluttering in an attempt to hold his attention.
Not that it worked though. At that moment Alex had caught sight of Kalila and Lacey looking at something on one of their phones and he'd completely tuned out. "I'll see you later," he muttered absentmindedly as he hurried along to join them.
Melissa's heart sank when she saw the way his eyes lit up as he beamed at Kalila. Long gone were the blank eyes and poker faced expression that she'd gotten accustomed to; he looked so happy now.
He'd never looked at her like that.
"Hey girlfriend." Alex grinned, leaning against some random locker. Kalila just laughed and rolled her eyes. Although they had been officially together for a couple of days already, she was still a little surprised every time he said that word. It seemed too good to be true.
Trying not to dwell on that, she leant forward a little and joined her lips to his. It was only supposed to be a peck but that thought went flying out of the window once his mouth began to respond.
"Hello! Ew. I'm still here guys!" they heard a disgruntled Lacey groan loudly.
They separated quickly; Kalila's face flushed as Alex laughed, throwing an arm around his best friend. "You can't complain considering you and Ty have been trying to get me a decent girlfriend for years!"
Lacey grumbled some more although it was more for the sake of being a drama queen than anything else. She was ecstatic that they were together, nobody deserved happiness more than the two of them. From across the hall, Tyler was thinking the same thing as he watched their interaction with affection. He owed everything to Kalila, thanks to her he had gotten his best friend back from the depths of his own personal hell. 'And wherever Alice is now, I bet she'd be well happy too,' he thought with a sad smile.
He nudged Emma â the two of them had gotten close after she'd stopped fangirl-ing when she found out about his boyfriend â and they went to join their friends, leaving Melissa behind. Mel watched them for a short while, the anger almost radiating off her body. That was supposed to be her boyfriend, those were supposed to be her friends! She knew she had messed up all those months ago when she had accidentally cheated on Alex at a party but she was on her way getting close to him again.
Or at least she was before Kalila had waltzed in out of nowhere and whisked him away.
She couldn't bear watching them kiss again as the bell rang loudly so she grabbed hold of her fur coat with its matching handbag and ran towards the toilets, ignoring the fact that she had a lesson.
---
"I think my contact lenses are playing up," Kalila said her Maths teacher, rubbing her left eye vigorously as she grimaced in pain. "Can I go to the loo to sort it out, please Miss?"
She almost skipped to the toilets as soon as her teacher nodded, swinging the bathroom pass in one hand as she clutched her contact lens solution in the other. She was expecting it to be empty as it was in the middle of lessons and if there was one thing Clermount High was strict about, it was punctuality. She soon realized that wasn't the case, however, when she heard a muffled cry from the last stall.
Stepping around the bright yellow 'caution: wet floor' sign, Kalila walked a little closer as she realized she recognized the sobs. It had been a long time since she'd last heard them but the voice was exactly the same.
"Melissa?" she asked hesitantly, lightly knocking on the door.
Mel looked up in alarm, she could have sworn she had locked the door but obviously not. It swung open, Kalila looking at her in concern on the other side, her arm still raised from the knock.
"What do you want?!" Mel spat out, her sadness quickly turning into anger.
Kalila blinked. Despite looking like a lost child sitting on the lid of the toilet seat, her knees drawn under her chin and with mascara trails down her cheeks, Melissa was still quite terrifying.
"I â I um, I just wanted to see if you were okay," Kalila responded, slightly confused at the intensity of her anger. Sure, they weren't friends but it wasn't as though they were sworn enemies so she had no idea why she was seething.
With the back of her hand, Mel angrily wiped her tears away and stood up. "Yeah fucking right!" she yelled. "More like you just wanna shove it in my face! Just go away, you and your perfect life with your perfect fucking boyfriend!"
Kalila stood there stunned, her paining eye long forgotten. It wasn't when she noticed the sadness reappear on Melissa's face at that last word did she understand. "You're mad at me because I'm going out with Alex?" she asked, still slightly baffled at the turn of events.
Melissa's forest green eyes flashed with so much anger they almost became deep brown, her scowl getting deeper as she stepped closer and closer. "Mad? Mad?" she repeated slowly before bursting out the words she'd kept hidden. "I'm fucking furious! How dare you just come out of nowhere and just steal him away? Alex was meant to be my boyfriend. I worked so hard to get to where I am in this school and you just took away everything without even trying! You got everything I was meant to have without even trying! The way he looks at you, heâ he never looked at meâ at me like that." She trailed off, her voice breaking at the end in despair.
She flinched when she heard how desperately sad her voice sounded, raising her head high in an attempt to control her emotions, the anger coursing through her veins again. She clenched her hands tightly and finished off her speech. "Just go away, I don't want your concern; I bloody hate you!" she burst out, unconsciously reaching forward and pushing Kalila back with all the force she had.
Kalila was stunned but before she could think about what to say in response, she felt her body start to fall. Her feet scrambled behind her to control her footing but it was no use, the slightly wet floor caused her to crumple backwards effectively hitting the back of her head on one of the pristine white sinks.
The last thing she remembered was Melissa's loud gasp of surprise, the wet floor under her back soaking through her clothes and a blur of pain.
And then it all went black.