Teen Ink

The Beginning... sort of

Chapter 1:
The Beginning

“You’re a” I didn’t hear the next word. Everything was muffled and my ears rang. After a minute I realized he was waiting for a response.
“I’m a what?” something told me I didn’t want to know the answer. Was the ringing my self-defense?
“You’re a” the word muffled again, but now his hesitation made sense, how did I get to this point?! Everything has happened so fast. . .

6 months ago September 8th – Back to boarding school.

“Bye mom, love you”, I whispered as she drove off, leaving me to face boarding school, courtesy of the dad I’ve never met.
Within the first few hours I’d met my roommate, which was my old friend Jessie that I met last year, heard rumors about a new guy, and was putting my clothes away while talking to Jessie.
“We have dinner in 20 minutes, do you want help?” she offered, looking at my half packed suitcase.
“No I’m good, but could you find the new shirts?” she left the room mumbling something about stupid uniforms. You see the shirts are our uniform. They have the school insignia on them and we must be wearing them at all times during class hours, and to all meals.
I let out a big breath. If going to this stupid boarding school annoyed me, knowing my dad paid for it, and for some reason cared about my grades, drove me insane! If he wasn’t such a coward he would come meet me. Mom said he goes between the U.S. and England, so he must be a busy guy, but too busy to visit the daughter he’s quite literally paying for? As I get older, every summer is spent waiting, each year gaining stress. Right then, Jess walked in.
“Here you go, come on were going to be late!”
I threw on the shirt, brushed my hair and looked in the mirror. My mothers auburn hair, her fair skin, but emerald eyes and tall lean build just like the sperm donor himself. They formed me.
Jess and I ran to the café. We went through the buffet line and picked the only edible food out that day, spaghetti and salad. But when we turned round I could see exactly why there were rumors about the new boy already. He was good looking like all the other guys that went here, but he was sitting at our table. Jessie didn’t seem to mind, she headed to the normal spot so I followed but of course she left me the seat next to him. Wonderful, see Jessie has a boyfriend and she’s determined I need one too. The scary part was when he looked up at me, I felt like I already knew him.
“Sorry am I in your spot?” he asked me with a slight English accent. He stood up, offering me his seat.
“Oh, no it’s fine; you can sit here… if you want.” I felt myself blush as I said this but he sat back down and I sat down next to him.
“Hey so, this is Thomas Xavier, Thomas this is Lizzy Conroy.”
“It’s nice to meet you Elizabeth” Thomas said. We locked eyes and I fumbled with a response.
“It’s nice to meet you too.” I finally managed “and Jessie you know I don’t like being called Lizzy.”
Jessie just smiled and laughed. “What else am I supposed to call you?” the question was obviously rhetorical, but Tom answered anyways.
“You could call her Ellie.” Jess and her boyfriend, Charlie, looked at him. I blushed.
“Ellie. How about it?” Jess asked
“Yeah, Ellie is fine. That is my family’s nickname.”
Everyone went quiet, I felt Thomas looking at me. He smiled and raised an eyebrow while getting up, asking me to come along. Jessie saw and nodded. I followed him out.
“So Ellie, funny you came up with that name.” I said to him as we left the doors swinging behind us.
“Mmm well I think it fits you. You’re quite striking you know?” he smiled obviously trying to divert me, again this only made him seem more familiar to me. It worked though.
"You think I'm striking?" I asked. He smiled.
"Striking as beautiful and I take rather intelligent?" He was flirting with me, obviously.
"You know I recognize you from somewhere. It's just so strange, you seem so familiar." His face clouded over at the comment but it was gone so quickly some wouldn't be sure they saw it, but I was… I think...
"Well I do know a few Conroy’s, what is your fathers’ name?" he asked. Okay the 'flash' had to mean something or maybe not. I could just be imagining things like usual. So I decided to answer his question.
"It's Michael"
"It is possible I know him" Tom responded with a smile.
"Yeah so what brought you here?" I asked lamely, not knowing quite what to say.
"Well some family affairs. Moved here for a year or two my Dad said. What brought you here?"
"Ha that's a bit harder to explain." he waited.
"Oh, uh, well my Dad doesn't live with me anymore and I guess he had always felt kind of guilty so he pays for my education. The catch being he chooses the school. So here I am." I said summing up my explanation pretty lamely realizing we both had some daddy issues.
“When is the last time you saw him?” Tom asked quietly; that made me stop.
“I … I can’t remember” I finally stuttered out.
We had stopped walking and I realized we were very close to each other, and then suddenly Thomas reached out and took my hand. I couldn’t do this. Not only because I had just met him, but because this girl had trust issues.
“Tom, I can’t. It’s not funny, I mean we just met, and yeah for some reason you feel familiar and stuff but-” He cut me off.
“I did not realize holding some ones hand was a crime in America. Please, enlighten me on what it means?” he asked me with this wry half smile on his face. I just wanted to slap him for it but I knew his intentions were different than other guys so I restrained myself.
“You know what it means. A couple. And being the first time we’ve met, it is not right and -” Once again I was cut off.
“Then would you like to go out this weekend to better our knowledge of each other. We could even make it one of those annoying double dates you Americans seem to enjoy so much.” He smiled confidently, joking I presumed but after a moment I detected an air of seriousness.
“Just let me know when” I whispered, surprising myself.
He smiled radiantly and led me back to the café. Charlie and Jessie seemed to detect something and I saw her raise an eyebrow. I just shrugged. What had I gotten myself into?!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“He asked you out? What did you say? I knew something had changed when you guys came back in! You like him, don’t you?” Jessie rambled on and on but when she paused to take a breath I took the advantage.
“Yes” her eyebrows shot up. Woops yes to which?
“I mean no I don’t know if I like him, yes he asked me out and I said yes… sort of.”
That was good enough for her. She launched back into her ramble. Finally she tired and we went to bed.