Something Bad

Chapter One: I Have a 'No Talking to Douchebags' Policy

      “Should is an ideal,” she replied, speaking as though I wasn’t a yard away.

      “Of course. Well, how about I talk to you first, and then we’ll bring Olivia in to discuss the course of action we’ll be taking next,” he suggested.

      “Sounds like a plan to me!” I jumped right into the conversation.

      “We’ll be right back. Do anything potentially harmful to humanity and I will take your phone away for the next month,” my mom warned sincerely.

      “So?” I challenged, acting as if her little threat hadn’t slightly marred my confidence.

      “And your credit card will be cut off,” she added for the extra theatricality of it.

      “Got it,” I winked at her dryly. She pressed her lips into an unyielding, vertical line, entering the office along side Harry, my dear principal who I had had the pleasure to get to know fairly well over the past three years in hell. I waved with a certain center finger of mine as the door shut with a slam.

      Once I was sure they were out of sight, I turned my body, and propped my feet up on the chair beside me. I allowed my eyes to close, the events of the day tiring my mind. A short nap would do the mischief within good. All of the sudden, I heard a faint “thud!” and flashed open my eyes to see a boy sitting in a vacant chair that neither my feet nor torso were occupying.

      He smiled at me, before looking me over once, and transforming his expression into a smirk. “I’m Luke,” he said, with a gleam in his eyes I couldn’t quite peg.

      “Great,” I said, not sharing my own name.

      “What’s your name?” he prompted for the information I had intentionally withheld. I wasn’t exactly a “people person”, per se. In fact, I was about as antisocial as they came.

      “Doesn’t matter.”

      “Yes, it does. Tell me your name,” he demanded strangely.

      “Olivia,” I said, as my eyes involuntarily rotated about swiftly.

      “Ross?” he questioned. I nodded dully, suddenly having the urge to go to sleep. “I’ve heard of you.”

      “Have you?” I yawned, my voice coming across indifferent. It wasn’t news to me.

      Though the institution I went to prided itself on the “education” they were granting adolescents, gossip was another thing that consumed a great deal of the students’ time. It wasn’t a big school, though it wasn’t small by any means, either. There were about a hundred fifty kids per grade, the school amounting to a rough total of six hundred, privileged teens.

      The amount of people I actually knew, however, was quite limited. I had two friends, and barely spoke to anyone else, unless if forced by a higher authority. Kids knew who I was, but they didn’t know me. In a school like mine, words spread like an infectious disease, which was why I wasn’t too surprised that the boy before me had heard of me. I had no clue who he was, and, frankly, I didn’t care.

      “Yeah, Harry’s always comparing me to you, which, personally, I don’t think is fair, because I’m more… experienced, and, well, older than you,” he said.

      I shot up at the mention of Harry and a comparison, examining the boy closer. He was a good-looking guy, and I had seen him pass in the halls over the years. A bit of a loner, but, then again, so was I. His hair was a curly dark brown, and lips a soft pink. He wore a leather jacket, army green T-shirt, tattered jeans, and a pair of worn, black Converse. His eyes, though, were the most attractive feature about him: deep gray that looked as though they could unravel an infinite amount of secrets and stories. His appearance was different from the normal douches that went here. Luke. The name fit him.