Chapter Eleven

sky.

I was finally, actually here. Here as in Ivy Cordelia- as in the school of my freaking dreams. It was just me and my laptop bag, since I'd sent the rest of my belongings over yesterday. I was told, in a brief email, that I'd be permitted entrance to the school at 1:30. My meeting with the Dean was a short ten minutes later. The email was accompanied with a small map leading me to my destination.

I hot foot it over, secretly hoping to bump into some really hot guy with rock hard abs like they do in all of the books. Unfortunately, I made it there sans incident with the model-like teen I'd obviously end up marrying. That'd come a little later in the year, I'm sure.

I make it to the heavy oak doors of her office, admiring the more modern take on older boarding schools. It held a nice balance between old and stuffy crumbling brick, and stiff and cold whites and marbles.

I love learning and I crave to get as many lessons out of life as possible before I'm gone. And you'll never learn any real life knowledge without real life lessons. But it's surprising that not even twenty minutes into my day at ICBS, I learn a really big one. NEVER STAND BEHIND A DOOR THAT ISN'T GLASS. I mean, it should be obvious that the people inside can't see you.

Still, for some reason I can't fathom, I make that exact mistake. Learning, in the worst way possible, how bad an oak door feels smacking you directly in the face. Especially when shoved open by an angry boy who looks like he bench presses refrigerators for a living. I mean...mini ones- but, still refrigerators.

"It was supposed to be your abs" I whisper, and then all I see is black.

I wake up in what I quickly realize is the nurse's office. Since I don't immediately assume the bright white room I'm in is the hospital, I'm sure my brain's not damaged. "She's up, doc" a voice as smooth, and sensuous, as chocolate drizzle running down an ice cream sundae says from beside me. I turn my head quickly, wincing at the throbbing protest from every fiber of my being.

"Careful, Skylar" he says gently, looking at me with bottle green eyes, set beneath a line of thick lashes. "Give her the pills on the stand beside you. Maybe taking care of the mess you've made will help you get a leash on your anger, Damien" another voice in the room says.

I refuse, though, to turn towards that one. Instead, I focus on the messy- browed boy beside me.

"I could pluck those. I took a class, once" I say, absentmindedly reaching for his face. He doesn't put up a fuss as I stroke his brow with my thumb, tilting a small cup of pills to my parted lips. He only sports an amused smile on sexy lips that are made even better by the small scar on the top right of his mouth.

"Take these. They'll make your head feel a lot better" he says, and so I do, accepting the water he offers as well. "Thank you, Damien, who has caused this mess. Why ARE you so angry?" I ask, dropping my tired arm back to my side.

"I may or may not be in trouble for sneaking back onto the school grounds past curfew. In my defense, Skylar, I left before curfew ended and was only late by two minutes. I mean, who punishes someone for being two minutes late?".

"The Dean, I guess. Maybe if you wouldn't have tried to sneak back onto the grounds, you wouldn't have been punished. If you think about it, you though you deserved to be in trouble, as well".

He groans, taking downing the rest of the water from my cup. "I just smacked you across the face with a door. Why are you making so much sense right now? And I wasn't going to bring this up, so as not to embarrass you, but now I think you deserve it. Why were you talking about my abs earlier?".

I giggle, and feel instant regret. "I was supposed to bump into a guy with rock hard abs on my way to the Dean's office, but instead, I was KO'd by a door. I suppose, in an abstract way, this is that exact scenario. You know, if you squint a little bit and tilt your head to the side".

He chuckles, resting his elbows on his knees and peering down at me curiously. "I do agree with you, I do. And I like you, too, you know that. Everyone's been complaining about how aliens were going to be infiltrating our school today. But, in my opinion, an alien invasion sounded pretty freaking cool. You proved my hypothesis correct, Skylar Compton".

I grin up at him, somehow feeling miles better than before he made that statement.

"Great. Now, about those eyebrows".

sky.

My meeting with the Dean was rescheduled for the next morning at ten, so I was allowed to leave the nurse's office at seven to get ready for it. After taking my last cup of pills and saying goodbye to Nurse Jackie who was, in fact, the sweetest old woman I'd ever met, I head over to the AC dorms. Even though it was pretty early on a Sunday, everyone seemed to be up and ready for the day.

A group of painters with their easels surrounding the fountain, were dressed in their cute little painting smocks. There was a girl in the group who had a dandelion tucked behind her ear as she painted, and a guy with bright blue hair and salmon pink cat socks beside her. They kept sneaking little love bug glances at each other every chance they got.

In another part of the quad, there was a group of girls laid out on the grass, heads touching and forming an X with their bodies, pointing at the different clouds and giving them all names. Two of them- a gorgeous Asian girl with pale skin and pitch black haired that fanned out around her, and another girl with bubblegum pink hair and the cutest pair of overalls, had their pinkies link between them.

And another mixed group of students, dressed in grungy wear, but wearing the cutest pastel makeup and Easter-toned dyed hair, were dancing around a mini unicorn speaker to fairy music. Two guys, who had matching clothes and makeup- attempting to do some kind of waltz, just ended up laughing and falling all over each other in the grass. There was so much love everywhere. It was nice, for a moment, to just take it all in. The smell of fresh cinnamon buns and coffee emanating from the stands, along with the light music and happiness around me created a symphony that catered to all of my senses.

Upon entering the dorm, though, the vibes completely changed. There was chaos in every aspect of the place, shoved into every nook and cranny. Suitcases cluttered the floors, along with boxes of things haphazardly strewn everywhere- messily labeled with name and content. Two girls were yelling at each other about one of them knocking over the other ones luggage. And there was a three way tug-of-war over a scarf that looked as if it'd be torn into several pieces any second.

They were all screaming about whose it was and yelling at the others to let it go. Two girls were standing at the top of the stairs wearing disgusted looks on their faces- arms folded over their chest. I recognized them from my stalking sessions as Nastassia Petrov and Peyton Gutierrez, the tippiest of top tier at ICBS. And they looked TERRIFYING. Unfortunately, my room was on the top floor and I was way too scared to ask them to walk past.

Anyone with eyes and ears could see why they were upset. The only people in the dorm acting like animals, I recognized from Glendale. There was a girl sitting on the back of the couch with her left foot propped up on it, polishing her toenails. WITH SCARLET RED LACQER. And another studying all of the books on a bookshelf- but once she looked at one, sitting it on the table instead of back where she got it from. I couldn't imagine the chaos from yesterday, and I was more than glad that I wasn't here. I was disgusted, too. It didn't feel nice to be jumbled into a group with them.

"You. Who are you?" the blonde calls from her perch on the steps, studying me with slate gray eyes. I step over a girl sitting on the floor, surrounded by at least thirty succulents, and make my way to the bottom of the staircase.

"Skylar Compton. My room is up there, actually". Her eyes light up with recognition and she slightly shoulder bumps the girl beside her. "Blog girl. Come on up. You're the only person I've seen so far who acts even remotely normal. What did they feed you guys there?" she asks with a lazy smile on her pretty face.

I smile back, walking up to the stairs landing. They back up to allow me access. "Dino nuggets and french fries. Glendale was a degenerates paradise". They both laugh, studying me curiously. "Seems like it" they say, separating from one another and linking an arm through each of mine. "What happened to your face, by the way? It looks like someone face palmed you with a door" Peyton tells me. I groan. "I guess that's because they did". "Hmmm...story time" Nastassia sing-songs.

Where are they walking me?

s.

My current predicament is one I'm not very proud to be in. Just yesterday night I had a phone call with my dad, promising them that I'd be the very best girl I could be. And while I was clearly lying, I didn't expect to be caught being bad so promptly after. I mean, can a girl live. Apparently not, since Cason Jett, Grayson Du Pont and I are in the office of the House Master. The House Mistress is here, too- both of them giving us their best disappointed face. Oops.

It's not like I was doing anything terrible, really. It kind of just...seemed like I was. They did find me in his bed at six this morning, because some guy narced on us. And we weren't even hooking up. I was just SLEEPING there- in Cason's bed. We hadn't even kissed. But, there was no convincing them of that. I could fully understand their perspective.

If I were to explain myself, it'd go a little something like this: It's not what it looks like. And I KNOW what it looks like. It seems to you that your students are hooking up right under your noses, something that I've been accused of before. But it's not like that at all.

You see, Mr. and Mrs. Sir and Ma'am, my dorm has become a zoo. A zoo that houses unruly animals that originate from Glendale Boarding School. And I have enough chaos going on, to want to live in it.

Understand this- NOTHING HAPPENED. I only had a couple of options on that fabled Saturday morning when I woke up to a group of girls screaming at each other. Names were called and purses were thrown. And the poor stairs were being beaten up by suitcases that were dragged up and down, and up and down them.

The cacophony of sounds were then combined with an attack on my nostrils when I left my room and smelled the excessive amounts of hairspray these girls used, combined with the clash of magazine perfumes. I had to escape. And there weren't may options presented to me.

Option one was to go back in my room and hold a pillow over my head. I tried it, by the way, and it worked horribly. Option two was to just deal with it. And while I tried for a good five minutes, I found myself wanting to leave my room and kill all of them with blunt force trauma to the head with a perfume bottle. One filled with an actual, nice smelling scent.

Option three, the last option, was to find somewhere else to sleep. And you can see why this faces me with even more problems, since any room in the AC dorms were dealing with the same issues. And I couldn't show up to the rest of the Cordelia dorms, because who'd let a complete stranger in to sleep in their room. Plus, I'm sure there were girls screaming their as well.

So, I took my travels to the Ivy Dorms. The IA dorm, to be specific. It was a much more sophisticated move-in day going on in there. The boys weren't hollering or screaming, at all. And they lifted up their suitcases and boxes, instead of dragging them along the floor.

Now, I was faced with several options here, as well. Option one, was Armani Hendrix. And this obviously couldn't happen, because I didn't want him to get any ideas. Next was Damien Beckett. Unfortunately, upon trying to access his dorm, I found that he wasn't there at all. So the obvious next thought was Grayson, who was only third on the list since we'd already been together once and I didn't want him to think it'd happen again. But, since I was sure he'd take no for an answer, I went there.

And he came through for me, graciously letting me into his room and bed, which was a pretty tight fit. And he's a wild sleeper, as well. This resulted in me being knocked off of his bed several times during the morning.

His roommate, though, heard me hitting the floor on the fourth swipe of his arm and woke up. He was shocked to see me there, of course, but upon explanation- let me sleep with him. In the purely innocent sense of the word. And I did, until twelve in the afternoon that day. My travels had left me quite exhausted. He told me that he'd have a bed anytime I needed it, and I promised to take him up on the offer.

I did so, when the clock hit ten that night and the CA dorm was still a hell hole. He welcomed me into his bed and I slept there, very comfortably curled up at his side, until Mr. Sir burst in with guns a blazing. And now, here we are.

End explanation.

Since they didn't care to have any of that explained, ranting about how the staff has so much on there plates because of the influx of students, we were slammed with a week of detention. Luckily, they weren't going to present the situation to the Dean and instead, barred me from ever entering the boys dorms again. We all expected worse, so were quite relieved with the outcome. Plus, I'd made a new friend in Cason. And since doing something I wasn't supposed to do is my kink, I'd find even more excitement sneaking in that night. They definitely wouldn't expect it after all that. Sorry, dad.