“I’m Jonathan,” he introduced himself in an oddly attractive British accent. I slowed my pace, watching him stare unblinkingly into my eyes. I struggled to tear my own eyes from his blue irises, turning a corner into a hall lined with ugly beige lockers.

“I know. What’s your number?” I inquired, uncaring, upon him.

“Two-sixty-eight,” he spoke cheerfully as I showed him his locker, the stupid British accent already giving me a headache. I left him at it, heading to my own locker downstairs. I felt his eyes on me as I walked down the hall. I quickened my pace, into the stairwell, feeling stupid for running from his intense eyes. As I left the stairwell on the next landing, I felt someone behind me. Not uncommon, someone always romed these halls, keeping an eye on the “mentally challenged.” I had never expected a British mental case to be so- incredibly attractive. Stupidd new students. Why me? Why not any of the other girls who drooled at his hair, or his perfect skin, or his abnormally georgus blue eyes that made me want to kiss the ground he walked on. I shook my head fiercely; amazed by the goofy spell I went into because of him. Stupid hot British boy. No. Just stupid British boy. Not hot. I was determined to hate him. Stubborn. Nothing else was expected of me. He was just another imbosal.

My locker opened easily, a slight surprise, considering the fundraiser-built school had the oldest and least desirable things. I shoved my bag haphazardly into my locker, grabbing my jacket that warded off the cold and slammig it shut with elaborate force. My heart skipped a beat. Jonathan Lockwood stood beside me, leaning against neighboring lockers.

“Oh my God,” I sighed breathlessly. “How’d you do that?” I felt my heart regain the powerful hammering against my rib cage. He just smiled a perfect smile that made me want to knock him on his butt. I got fed up with his smile after a minute and walked away briskly. He was beside me in a matter of seconds.

“Where to?” I stopped suddenly and closed my eyes, biting my lip to keep in the vial words that wanted so badly to leave my lips.

“I’m going to go to my room, but you can go rot in a hole,” Whoops. I hung my head in defeat. Once I opened my mouth, all the words came pouring out. I was glad that’s all I said; at least it wasn’t the worst of the places I thought he could go. I picked up my head to see his reaction. He wore a nerve racking smile with a hint of pleased curiosity. “Sorry,” I sighed. “Follow me,” I started down the hall, kicking myself for trying to be polite. It never got me anywhere. I felt him following me as we left the building, turning a corner to Building 4, the dorms. The hot, blinding sunlight hit my skin with no help as we crossed the greeen grss to the dormitory. The icy cold that existed only for me penetrated, forcing my jacket on. I stopped to zip the jacket, not having enough coordination to do both at once. Jonathan caught up and stopped beside me.

“You’re cold?” He asked. The tone of his voice was more confirming than anything else. We went up the steps and entered the lame doors to our cell block.

“Always,” I replied icily. “Your room’s over there.” I nodded to the left and passed him to the right, into the girl’s dormitory, without another word.

“Wait,” he called. I turned slowly and unwillingly back to face him. His beauty caught me off guard and I stumbled over whispers in my mouth. “What’s your name?” his voice danced like whispering wind. Name. What was my name? I blinked my eyes tightly, regaining focus. I forgot he didn’t know. The way he smiled at me was like he was my best friend. There was another reason I hated him: he seemed to- expect me. Like I was planned.

“Sam,” my voice was tight, trying to put ice into the words, telling him to leave me alone. His beautiful smile told me that I had failed in the attempt. He stared at me for an awkward moment, which didn’t seem so awkward to him, before I turned to leave. As soon as I took a step away from him, I felt the most peculiar feeling. I was…warm. The cold was gone, replaced by a warm sun that heated my body down to my toes. I stopped in sudden curiosity of the feeling. I didn’t care where it came from, as long as it stayed. For some reason, unknown to me, I turned around to Jonathan. There was no Jonathan. No sign of his beautiful blue eyes or trace of his hair, which fell awkwardly over his ears, a style only his perfect face could pull off. The second I had noticed he was gone, the cold triumphed. The warm sun left, being replaced by an icy snowball. I pulled the hood of my jacket over my head and tucked my hands as deep into my pockets as the fabric would allow. I screamed loudly at myself in my head, a lethal battle raging between my brain and my instincts. You don’t like him. My brain told me. You hate him. He’s horrible and mean and British… And perfect and beautiful and polite and can’t stop staring at you, My instincts defended. …he makes me want to be sick and punch something with that…amazingly perfect smile….NO! If Jonathan’s accent hadn’t given me a headache, I had one now. After a second of after-battle break, I turned into the slightly more decorative hallway of the girls dorms. I shivered as I entered the white-walled coridor, looking at the thousands of pictures and fliers that decorated the entire hall, making the white less dominant. I rolled my eyes at the dry-erase board on my sixth door down.
Erica & Sam’s Room! J

She had once again changed the sign. Her twirly swirly writing crowded my simple scrawl. Erica was my much-too informed sixteen year old roommate. She had extremely tan skin and black hair from her Latino background. When she was born her parents didn’t want her, so she lived in an orphanage in New Mexico, then California, then North Carolina, then Alabama. I laughed when she got transferred here in the dead of winter. Erica wasn’t one of my biggest fans, but she was getting to know me better. She talked to me only when my nails were painted eight different shades of neon, that was when I was in a good mood, or when I was covered in paint, meaning I had snuck into the art room to paint a picture. Erica backed off and left me alone when I had Jiffy Pop on. Jiffy Pop was my purple and pink ski hat that I had received from an aunt in Alaska, but had the fortune to never use. My Dad had called it Jiffy Pop because it was too big and I refused to roll it up, so a big bubble stuck up at the top, like Jiffy Pop Popcorn when it was just about done.

I opened the door to my room and slammed it loudly behind me, sliding the chain lock into place on the wall. The drawer in my dresser was already half open, so I dug through it with power, locating Jiffy Pop and jamming it over the tight brown spirals of my long curly hair. Erica’s bookshelf rattled as I shut the drawer with more force than necessary. It used to make me laugh how she tried to be normal here, with her books and posters of movie stars scattering the walls. I lay on my bed with my hands behind my head and my eyes closed, trying to fight the after battle headache. After I had figured out that there was no use in fighting an enemy that had already invaded, I began to count the triangles on the mattress pattern of Erica’s bed overhead. I shivered and remembered the warmth that had come over me in the hallway, and the cold that forced jeans and a hoodie on me on this ninety-four degree day. The prison guards had taken me to a doctor or two when they noticed my fashion sense, but other than that, no one cared. That was the way I liked it, no one notices, no one question’s, no one cares. Then again, there was always that one curious person that pretended to care, so I had gotten sent to the school psychiatrist. They said I was cold for the same reason I ended up here: when my dad died, we were in a car wreck. We lay in the snow over a cliff for eight hours after we smashed through the guard rails. He landed in the ICU, my mom went nuts, and they left me to rot away here.

I must’ve layed on the bed for a while, because I was on triangle eighty-six when there was a knock on the door.

“Go away. Eighty-seven, eighty-eight…” I called to the unwelcome visitor.

“Sorry, Love,” i heard the voice and then saw the unwelcome figure in my doorway.