Staring out the window at the rain soaked street below, where the usual latecomers gravitated towards the door, adopting a remarkably casual approach while chewing down the last mouthfuls of toast, or whatever conveniently mobile breakfast they could find, I wondered if I had missed her. She usually arrives a little late and I'd been there for at least twenty minutes, so why hadn't I seen her? With nothing better to do till class started, I began to run through all the possible scenarios that could have led to her not walking around that oh-so-familiar corner yet. The obvious ones of course: that she'd forgotten to set the alarm clock and slept in. She's ill, all tucked up in bed with hot tea, tissues and her favourite teddy bear; or a family bereavement…. No, wait, I've got it, her dog has died and she's completely, utterly, inconsolable. Bless her; she loved that dog. Old George. She was never apart from him since he was a puppy. Hang on a minute…Does she even have a dog? I don't know. Then came the not so obvious ones: that the tanned, muscled, smouldering eyed pool boy named Juan that she met on holiday in St Lucia had tracked her down using only his wits, charm, and a 1987 Thompsons Local directory and after hours of passionate lovemaking had whisked her off for a life of carefree mojito sipping aboard his father's catamaran. Or even that she'd been suddenly and violently kidnapped by a gang of ruthless marauding mafioso types in retaliation for her 'wrong place, wrong time' father squealing on little Jimmy 'the squitz' Lassativo when he'd been caught knocking off the pit bosses daughter, in the basement, with the candlestick holder……

I was rudely awakened from the random, incessant and never ceasing ramblings of my mind by the sound of my name being called; and by the tone I knew it wasn't the first time either.

'Spencer Carlin. Any chance you'll be coming back down to earth to join us today?' Mr Aiken chided, looking at me disapprovingly over the top of his thick rimmed glasses.

'Sorry sir' I genuinely replied. 'I'm here… obviously. I just didn't get much sleep last night so not really with it today.' Not a lie. I couldn't sleep owing to the unwanted pain of longing in my chest and the constant images of her flashing through my mind. Not to mention where my imagination took me of an evening. How could I even consider sleep?

The thin, gaunt and greying man turned a few pages in his note book, quickly scanned through the one he was looking for before turning back to face me. 'Well, from the look of your recent and rapidly descending grades you haven't been getting much sleep for a while. Try to pick it up would you girl, now is not the time for distractions. You were doing excellently until two months ago.'

'Yeah, sorry sir.' I replied again meekly. 'I just have a lot going on right now. You know, finals coming up an all.' Again not a lie. My mind was cluttered with feelings and emotions that I simply didn't know how to deal with on top of the usual teenage angst, anxiety, family dysfunctions and school pressures.

'Very well, just remember if there is anything serious bothering you, you can speak to me or one of the guidance councillors. It is, after all, what we're here for.' At that a few of my fellow students snickered and I felt the blood rushing to my face.

'T-thank y-you sir but I'm ok.' I stammered and with that he turned back to taking class attendance for the morning and I turned back towards the window, my eyes assuming what was now their natural position, falling on the corner of Portobello and Mountcastle. The corner I had become so familiar with.

Where was she?

The penny eventually dropped and I silently cursed myself on two separate counts simultaneously. Firstly, I knew that by running to the bathroom earlier, in a vain, and frankly pathetic, attempt to dry my soggy hair and clothes, I would run the risk of missing her on the off chance she was early, and yet I had still gone! My justification for this radical deviation from an otherwise strictly regimented, and adhered to, morning routine was that on the staggeringly minute chance I might actually talk to her today I couldn't bear to look like I crawled under a bush and through muddy puddle to get here while using an electric toaster and a spaghetti fork to dry my hair. And two, the more serious of my self-chastising topics for the day, was why the schizz am I still obsessing over this girl? I don't even know her name, where she lives, or even what she's studying here.

Initially, when she'd first arrived, I thought I just was curious about the attractive new girl, but within a matter of days my thoughts and feelings had intensified and I found that I was developing a strong attraction to her, an obsession maybe?. Her long, flowing, perfectly styled dark brown curls and deep chocolate eyes were becoming ingrained on my senses. I simply couldn't get her out of my mind and that thought terrified me completely. I wasn't gay. Was I?! Does every girl go through this? Is it just a phase? How come I have never felt this way towards another girl before? Gahhh - Way too many serious thoughts for one cold, wet Monday morning.

Drawing in a tired and disappointed breath, I slowly began to turn and face the rest of the day without my recommended daily visual dosage, when her familiar figure emerged from around the corner. Holding the peak of her hood out before her face to keep the rain out with one hand and carrying her guitar case in the other she stopped to cross the street. For the briefest of moments she looked up at the building I was in and I imagined she was looking right at me. A shiver ran down my spine at the thought of her eyes on me. She was wearing the same red fleece-lined blue cropped riding jacket, which she had worn every day since the beginning of the semester when the weather had turned, dark blue boot cut jeans that hugged her slim, athletic figure in just the right places, together with tan coloured timberland boots. Despite being rain-soaked to the core she literally took my breath away while my heart lurched forward in my chest, just as it had done every single time I'd seen her since she'd magically appeared on campus two months ago. I was a hopeless case and I knew it.

Actually though, the more I come to think about it, obsession does not quite begin to describe my unfounded, and now safe to say, long running fascination with the mystery woman. Whatever it is it seems to be getting stronger, edging its way deeper and deeper in to the cracks and crevices of my existence. Infecting all aspects of my life. I know I needed to put and end to it. My grades were slipping, I wasn't sleeping and my family were worried that I was becoming 'distant' and I hadn't seen my friends in what seemed like forever. The only problem was, despite my best efforts, it was definitely getting worse and I couldn't seem to even slow its acceleration, let alone stop it, with my puny will and logic. Although at a guess I'd say things like this can never be dissimilated and fixed by logic. When it comes to love and lust the rulebook is blank and anything goes. Ah crap. I just broke rule one in the book of 'lets use puny will and logic to sort out this mess'. I had admitted that I loved her, again. I admitted that I lust after her, again. Sod it. I needed help. How can you believe you love someone you've never spoken to? And worse, how can I possibly be in love with another girl? I really needed help. I needed advice, I needed the big guns. I needed Kyla.


Ok. So this was the first fanfic I've ever written. Actually, it's the first anything I've ever written so please read, review and let me know if it's utter tosh! Thanx