Ravan Goodman POV
I woke up to a relatively sunny Autumn day, surprising for this region's irregular weather patterns. It had been warm all week without variation, despite the forecast's continuous predictions of wind and rain. I swung myself out of bed and stretched out my aching back, which had started cramping from the many hours I spent hunched on the floor doing Lego last night.
I hurriedly put on my school uniform, a dull navy blazer, white button-up blouse, and brown knee-length skirt, before shovelling some soggy Weetbix in my mouth while I fiddled around with my latest project; a miniature Lego Death Star. It involved lots of tiny pieces that were difficult to click into their places and kept getting lost on my floor, I was slowly working my way through it though. The pieces were too small to take on the train, so I picked up my half-finished Lego Olaf figurine and decided to take it to work on instead.
My backpack was heavy with my textbooks, namely the maths books. It banged awkwardly against my back as I made my way to the station. My best friend, Gael Gay, was waiting for me there already, and he raised his hand in a cheerful greeting. "Heyyy! You ready to write that essay babes?"
I groaned, having completely forgotten about schoolwork in favour of building my Lego sets. Olaf would have to wait, it seemed, as I was going to be swamped with all the revision I was supposed to have done last night.
Gael seemed to share my sentiments because he quickly launched into an impassioned rant about the pains of high school and having to be friendly to everyone. Although that's not much of a problem for him; He's the school's Gossip Queen.
He was still going when the train arrived and I stepped inside, bracing myself as the familiar rumble of the train's engine restarted itself. Despite my precautions, I still stumbled into Gael's lanky frame when it began to move. The first few times it happened, I had knocked him over completely, but by now we were both used to my complete lack of balance. The doctors had informed me that it was caused by an iron deficiency but none of the supplements they tried ever worked on my body.
I mumbled an apology to Gael, but he just brushed it off with a laugh.
"It wouldn't be normal if you didn't fall on me, bestie. Remember the first time it happened when you were just some random girl at school, I really wasn't kind to you back then," he chuckled, reflecting on the first time we met. When I had rushed late onto the train and completely forgotten how to stand up.
By the time we got to school, he had to rush off to meet with a teacher and I made my way to my locker, intending to put away my bag before heading to the library to cram-study for my essay. I got to my first destination with no issues but on the stairs leading down towards the second, I felt my shoelace catch under the bottom of a shoe, sending the books and laptop I had been carrying flying.
Luckily, my body only suffered a bruised shin and a hot flush of embarrassment, but my things were surely worse for wear. I expected to look up and find them scattered at the very bottom of the staircase, but I instead found myself locking eyes with Rowan Everbright, who appeared to have caught my stuff when it was airborne.
In the clouded morning light slanting in through the window, his eyes seemed to shift from an opalescent blue to reveal flecks of a fiery red. When I first noticed this trait in Year 7, I thought it was pretty and made him stand out in my mind against the rest of the people in my classes. Over our high school years, I had silently watched him grow from an acne-plagued boy into a handsome, well-muscled man, albeit still very reserved when he wasn't around Rylan.
Wordlessly, he presented my books and laptop to me. I took them back shyly. "Sorry about that," I mumbled. "Thanks for catching them for me."
His only response was a small shrug and he seemed eager to get as far away from me as possible. I couldn't help but feel slightly hurt by this. Despite what Gael had identified as an obvious crush on my behalf, Rowan had never seemed to care for me much.
As we passed by each other on the stairs, I noticed him suddenly tense and recoil away from me. He flinched so hard that he almost careened into the wall and had to reach out to steady himself with one hand on the banister of the already crowding stairs. A large part of me wanted to rush back to check he was alright but his obvious discomfort around me combined with my growing anxiety about finishing my schoolwork on time pushed me onwards in the direction of the library in the next building over.
I shot one last look up the stairs to where I expected to see Rowan's retreating form but instead met his blue and red flashing gaze as he stared down at me with an unreadable expression, still leaning heavily against the wall in a daze.
My first subject for the day was, unfortunately for me, Maths. Gael wasn't in my class so I was used to sitting alone in a corner and struggling along by myself. My teacher, however, clearly disapproved of this and was prone to making almost all of our assignments group projects. He claimed that this was because we would have helped each other anyway and this method encouraged collaborative skills, but I had a sneaking suspicion he just liked to watch us squirm as we were forced to make conversation.
Our newest assignment was on trigonometry, which I still had no understanding of and, to make matters worse, the partner selected for me was Rylan Mehan. He was best friends with Rowan, and, unlike the latter, was clearly not oblivious to the crush that had formed over the years. He seemed to have made it his sole responsibility to erase any chance I might have had with Rowan. It was frustrating enough watching him glare at me from the other side of the room, let alone sitting on the desk beside me.
I had been trying to avoid conversation by fiddling around with my calculator, which I still barely knew how to use even after 4 years with it. I was supposed to be converting my decimal answer to minutes and seconds, but I had no idea which button to press. Without me realising, Rylan must have been watching because he suddenly loomed over me, his silver hair brushing against my forehead, his breath against my ear, as he took the calculator out of my hands.
"Hey!" I squeaked in shock. He pointed to a button with an icon of a book on it, ignoring my indignant protests.
"You need to press this and then select 'DMS' if you want to change it," he explained, showing me what he meant. As he went to hand it back to me, he inhaled sharply and wrinkled his nose. There was a hint of confusion and resentment in his expression as he quickly snatched his hand back, and he returned to his own calculations.
"You need to contribute more, Ravan," he said aggressively. "I've been doing all the work here while you seem to need an instruction manual for the most basic calculator functions." He hadn't raised his voice above a soft murmur, but his tone was sharp and cold.
Ashamed, I put my head down and began the next few questions, but it didn't take long before he was leaning over me again, demanding that I explain my scribbled working out. When the lesson finally ended, both my self-esteem and my remaining mathematical ability had been reduced significantly.
I was looking forward to talking to Gael at recess to get this whole interaction off my chest. Before I could escape, however, Rylan caught my arm to make one final comment. "Rowan told me about your little fall this morning. Stay away from him." He hissed.
I should have just nodded and kept walking but part of me felt protective of Rowan. He always seemed to be overshadowed by Rylan's louder personality and his compliance was constantly being abused. If he wasn't going to stand up for himself, then I would have to step in. "Sure thing. You can control him like everything else in your life. Is he even a person to you?" I muttered under my breath sarcastically. Whether he heard or not, I didn't turn back to check.