The British accent made my ears ring. The door swung open with a creak. I sat bolt up-right at the noise, forgetting the bunk beds and slamming my head off of the metal bars that held up Erica’s bed.

“Aww…” I cried, falling back down onto my pillows with my hand on my forehead. My vision was obscured from the impact, but there was no mistaking the blonde hair or British accent of the Devil. Stupid British kid. I heard his soft and caressing laugh through my now-ringing ears. “Shut up, that hurt,” I mumbled. Stupid beautiful British boy. Not beautiful. Stupid. Ugh. My brains felt scrambled. “I thught I locked the chain?” I muttered. I heard the Devil laugh again.

“You’re delirious,” He sighed. Stupid British kid in my bedroom. Jonathan walked over to my bed and sat at my feet. “`Lemme see,” He motioned for me to give him my head. Yeah, first the British hottie breaks into my room, now he wants to play doctor? He’s lucky my head hurt too much to tell my hand to smack him.

I gave Jonathan the look of stupid ideas, which, if possible, only made my head hurt worse. I closed my eyes in pain. Stupid, over-observant, foreign kid. He noticed the cringe of pain and rolled his eyes at my stubornness. I sat up in defeat of a lost battle and pulled Jiffy Pop off of my head. He smiled at the old, ratty hat. “An old friend?” I threw Jiffy Pop onto the floor and ignored the Devils question. The moment his fingers touched my head, the weird warmth returned. I closed my eyes. Why him? Why the stupid foreign exchange student that I was so determined to hate five seconds ago. Any feeling of hatered towards Jonathan faded away at that moment. I was then frustrated at how easily I gave up in hating him. Stupid foreign exchange student that I now felt like drooling over freely.





Chapter 6










Jonathan’s fingers caressed my forehead where I had collided with the metal bed frame. I couldn’t believe I had given in to his beauty so easily. I was usually better at being stubborn than that. I looked up at him through my long eyelashes. He was so…beautiful. There was no other word for it. He was straight forward, grade a gorgeous. I kicked myself for basically falling for a stupid, beautiful, British, hot, over-observant, foreign, kid in my bedroom, which I happened to be almost drooling over. Stupid British kid. Jonathan found the impact sight where the bed frame and I had been playing chicken. I cringed away; the moment his fingers had left my forehead, the cold returned, leaving me in Antarctica in a bathing suit.

“Sorry,” He apologized for hitting my bump. I wasn’t paying attention. Why was I only warm when he touched me? It was probably just my brain; I had tricked myself into thinking he made me warm because I suddenly wanted him so much. Stupid beautiful foreign kid. I dug my hands deeper into my pockets, trying to ward off the cold. “You’re still cold?” He asked, taking note of my almost-chattering teeth.

“Always,” I answered like I had before

“Did you ever see a doctor?” he frowned.

“Why? Are you a doctor?” I replied, “I bet that’s why you’re in here, huh? Impersonated a doctor and made a guy think he was a rooster?” I joked. I could tell by his smile that he knew what I was up to. I wanted to know how he got stuck here. “Wait,” I realized, “How’d you find my room?” I had specifically not told him where my room was. He just kept smiling at me.

“What?” I asked finally, his perfect smile almost scaring me.

“Are you going to be nice now?” He asked.

“What?” I asked, disbelieving.

“Five minutes ago, you were treating me like dung on the bottom of your shoe. You just made a joke, almost being nice to me,” Jonathan said.

“Excuse me?” I asked. Somehow, that sounded insulting.

“Oh, go on being mean, then, I am planning to pull you out of it soon,” He allowed with a wave of his hand. I wasn’t too good with people, but I knew that his remark insulted me somehow.

“And how were you planning to do that?” I asked with attitude planted into my voice. Jonathan shrugged.

“Are you going to be nice now and save me the time of doing it myself?’ He asked. Again, I was appalled at his rudeness. “Are you?” He asked again when I didn’t answer.

“Sure-” I said cautiously.

“Good, now that’s settled,” He began. Jonathan stopped talking and stared at me with a solemn face.

“Go pick up your cap, please,” Jonathan asked suddenly. I smiled, thinking he was making a British joke, but he remained serious.

“Okay-” I answered warily. I got up off the bed slowly, trying to see why he made me get Jiffy Pop. I understood. As soon as I got up, my head spun and throbbed, somehow resulting in me on the floor. Jonathan stood over me with a wry smile.

“Fine, are you?” He held out his hand which I took warily. Jonathan pulled me up beside him and put his arm around my waist and mine over his shoulders. Wow. His arms were so big and muscular. He was so big and muscular. The warmth that my brain had tricked into me came back at his first touch. “Now, seeing as though my mentor was very bad at her job-” Jonathan began as he attempted to walk me out of my room.

“Hey, I thought we were being nice?” He was cheating. Stupid foreign kid.

“No. We said that you were going to be nice, but I was never obligated to abide by our newly educated rules,” Stupid foreign kid with his fancy words.

“Huh?” I asked stupidly as he tried to move me out of the room. He laughed softly and my lungs stopped working. Stupid beautiful foreign kid was shutting down all my organs.

“Just tell me where to go, please,” He rephrased in American Teenager.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“To the nurse,” He answered simply.

“No,” I demanded, trying to pull myself out of his grasp. His arms were solid. “I don’t like nurse’s offices or doctors, I’ve spent too much time in hospitals as it is,” I whined. Jonathan loosened his grip to look at me and I abused the time to pull out of his grasp and move to the bed frame for support.

“Why have you been in hospitals?” He asked, watching me curiously. The way he asked that not-so-simple question, like he was asking me about a homework assignment, caught me off guard and I answered without thinking, almost like I had no control over my mouth and brains’ interaction.

“My family and I were in a car crash when I was twelve. We slid on the ice and the car hit a rusted guardrail. We went through it and the car rolled down a hill. We lay in the snow for over eight hours before someone found us. When they finally did, it was almost too late; my dad had to go into the ICU, my mom into a mental facility and I got stuck here, so when I went into shock, they could watch me crash. Mind, this was almost six years ago, which for your information, Dr. Lockwood, is why the shrinks say I’m always cold. One also said that I missed my parents so much that it made my heart was empty, so there’s no love to keep it warm, which is the stupidest explanation for something that I have ever heard, but,” I finally took a breath after my long run-on declaration.

Jonathan was laughing almost hysterically. My jaw dropped. “How the hell did you do that?” I yelled, fighting a longing to go slap him. “I just threw my life at you; I never told anyone anything about my life. Never! Then you walk in with your fancy accent and blonde hair and I hand my life to you on a silver platter!” I could’ve gone on, but I needed a breath. Jonathan was still laughing, but less loudly now. I made to grab a pillow, planning to maim him with the feathered weapon, but my head spun once more and I had to grab the bed frame to hold myself straight. “Whoa,” I sighed, seeing three identical Devils walking towards me. Only two of the six arms grabbed me and held me from swaying. As the two did, the other four disappeared and the three devils became one muscled and gorgeous boy helping me stay up right.

“Come on,” He said, tossing one of my arms over his shoulder to help me walk. We made our way out the door, down the hall, and out onto the front lawn. Jonathan stopped and looked around to the buildings surrounding us.

“Where do we go?”

“Let me walk and I’ll go,” I instructed with high hopes of him protesting the idea. He stopped and took my arm from around his shoulders.

“Go ahead,” He instructed, smiling in spite of himself, “Try,” Good. He knew I wouldn’t be able to do it. Smart foreign kid. I really did try to go as far as my spinning head would allow, which came to a grand total of four steps before Jonathan was beside me, holding me still from my swaying position. I had noticed something weird, though: when he let go of me, I was still warm. Stupid brain. I knew I would fail and he would hold me up again, so I didn’t get cold? My brain really must have been broken. “Nice try,” He smirked.

“We’re being nice, so, thank you, I’ll take that as a compliment,” Stupid beautiful foreign kid and his gorgeous foreign smile.

“Okay, but it wasn’t,” He confirmed. I sighed.

“Building 6,” I pointed to the left. We walked two buildings over and up the steps into the front office. “Straight back,” We walked past the secretary and Dean’s Office, into the door labeled so clearly any mental case could have understood.

Jonathan deposited me on one of the ugly green plastic beds and called a nurse. He told her how I had hit my head and then fell over, apparently deciding not to tell her that it was his fault. Darn beautiful British boy. A short, stumpy nurse came over to me and began poking my forehead. Jonathan stood in the doorway and smiled at me as I made goofy faces when the nurse hit my bump. Beautiful British boy. He was so- pretty. I couldn’t stop looking at him.