Chapter 3: Lysander

The rest of the morning passed like a blur, announcements, introductions, classes everything was like time lapse video to Lysander. He kept the notebook beside him, sneaking it a lot of times, something about it made him irresistibly drawn to it, like if he was a moth flying to the light.

Everything was pretty normal, until it was lunch time. He walked to the fountain where he'd agreed to meet up with his friends. But he also wanted to finish reading a particular story the writer of the notebook had written. He had been about to discover if the ending was going to be tragic but the bell had rang and he didn't like to admit it but he hadn't eaten breakfast that particular morning.

When he arrived to the fountain, two girls were surrounding a figure whose shoulders were tensed. Rosalya, was one of the girls surrounding the figure. Her eyes went to him as he came forward.

"Lys-baby! Perfect timing, too! Look, here is the new transfer student." The figure turned around and Lysander was taken aback. She was wearing a simple, loose long sleeved button up shirt, long black skirt and a pair of black boots. Medium length dark brown hair kept in a French braid and brown eyes. A pair of almond shaped eyes that he knew.

"Pleased to…" the girl began saying but when she saw him her eyes narrowed. "You." She said like on would say to someone one didn't like and didn't feel pleased to meet.

"Do you know lysander?" asked Melody. The girl didn't turn around. Her eyes were on Lysander and he was afraid for a moment that she was planning her next move to kill him. He had seen Rosalya and his mother, Amelia wearing the same look in their eyes when they were angry or PMSing.

"We've met." She said shortly.

"Is that so?" said Rosalya cheerily, clearly not sensing the mood.

"Yes." said the girl still not turning around. "I happened to run into this young man, this morning and I dropped my notebook and my ring." She said slowly and calmly but it was force calm. "Do you have it, by any chance?" Lysander didn't say anything, he still couldn't get over the shock of seeing her a second time.

"Do you? Mr…."

"Lysander. Lysander Ainsworth." chimed in Rosalya.

"Mr. Ainsworth do you have my notebook?" he was still stupefied she was talking so formally. Castiel was smirking and Nathaniel had his eyebrows raised. Lysander was pretty sure that Castiel must have been thinking that this girl was a bit like him. He felt compelled to say that that wasn't the case. Lysander liked to think that he was a pretty calm person, he didn't care what the rest of the world thought (except his loved ones) and he certainly didn't fall easily in love.

Or so he thought.

He was pretty sure his voice was going to be a little bit strained the way when someone made him nervous but to his surprise his voice was calm.

"Yes, I have with me." He said reaching out the notebook he had carried all day. She reached her arm and flexed her fingers for a second but then paused and frowned pressing her lips together before ducking her head and his eyes followed her hand that went into a black, leather, messenger bag. She took out a notebook, his notebook and presented it to him.

"I believe this belongs to you."

"It must have gotten mixed when we crashed."

"Indeed. Um, I might have written on your notebook." he was surprised. "I didn't know it was not mine so I'm sorry, I would have taken away the page but it had something written on the back. I read the back of the page but I didn't read anything else. I'm sorry if I saw something private."

"That is okay. I…er…read your notebook." She looked at him with eyebrows raised. "to see of you had scribbled information somewhere so that I could give it back to you." He said hastily.

"Really?" I'm surprised you can, most of what is written there is way too disorganized. It looks like gibberish. Not even I can read it."

"Not at all. It was quite interesting." She looked at him with an eyebrow raised.

"I see." She said quietly. "Thank you for taking care of it." She took the notebook from him lightly while he took his from her anxiously. He had been working on the lyrics for a new song but his head was too full of the story. He wasn't going to be able to finish it now because he had to give her the notebook back but surely he could ask to keep it for a little while, no? He bit his lip flipping open his own notebook careful of not looking, well, staring at the girl in front of him. It wasn't correct to do such a thing.

"Oh, and I have your ring." He said taking out the ring from his pocket, holding it out in his palm. Her eyes got wide she reached for it with her hand trembling. When she took it, she examined it carefully.

"I didn't lose it, thank god." She whispered holding the ring in her between her index finger and her thumb. Lysander was about to say something but a high voice called the girl's name.

"Ro-o-se!" she turned around and sure enough Alexy was walking with that confident walk of his, a raven haired boy was walking with him, breathless and hand on his arm.

"Leo, Alexy. So good to see you." She said sarcastically.

"Ah…well, sorry about that." Said Leo rubbing his neck. She looked at Alexy and frowned.

"Alexy your neck." Alexy raised his eyebrows.

"You want to kiss my neck?" the blue haired boy said wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. Rosaline didn't lose her calm.
"You have red mark on your neck." She said calmly. "Did you get bitten by an insect?" At that everyone snorted. Even Lysander had to fight the urge to smile. Surely she was joking, right? But the tone and the expression in which she had said it indicated that it wasn't a joke at all.

"What kind of insect would leave such a big mark?" asked Castiel sarcastically. She turned to look at him curiously.

"You'd be surprised." was all she said and turned to Alexy.

"It's okay." He said hastily. "Oh, and I just remembered that I forgot something at class, Leo come and help me!" he said dragging Leo along with him, who was looking amused. She turned and looked at the girls.

"Um…thanks for showing me around my classes." She said shifting her weight from her left leg to her right leg.

"No problem." Said Melody while Rosalya said. "Anytime." And she winked at her. "But…you know we didn't show you around the whole school."

"That's okay, I'll find a way around the campus on my own."

"Alone? But it's so big." asked Roslaya disappointed.

"I don't want to bother any of you. It's the first day of class you must have a lot to do." Rosalya shifted uncomfortable at this, she had a lot to do indeed but how could she leave this girl alone? She had seen how Lysander had looked at her, it was a look that she had never seen giving to someone as if he had seen a dream come true. An idea came to her, a brilliant and bold idea. Melody on the other hand was worried, she too had things to do, some of which involved her boyfriend Nathaniel but she couldn't leave a girl alone.

"Then how about, Lys-baby showing you around?" said Rosalya suddenly, looking at Lysander with huge, tragically baby eyes.

"Well…" She brought out her lower lip something that didn't have any effect on Lysander but he knew the hidden message behind it.

Do it or I'll chop you head off.

More than once had Lysander had ignored this from Rosalya partly because he didn't fall for feminine charms and partly because he didn't care and he had suffered most dearly. Rosalya had made sure to make his life miserable for at least one week. And though he had said no countless times, suffering the consequences, this time, he was genuinely interested.

"I have a free period after lunch. I can show you around." he said addressing Rosaline. She looked at him almost angered but he decided it was appropriate considering he read her notebook and that must have been private.

"I have a free period too." She said slowly. "but are you sure you have nothing to do? I don't mean to interrupt anything you have planned."

"Not at all." He lied. He had plans to hang out with Castiel and Nathaniel but after seeing Nathaniel so eager to be with Melody and Castiel looking at the doors longingly, probably waiting for Bianca he decided it was better to show Rosaline around than to stick as third wheel with his friends. "In fact, I think we should get started now, because the campus is very big." he gestured forward and she nodded curtly. And she walked to stand beside him.

"Where are we going first?" said Rosaline calmly and anger was clear in her body language but her eyes were sparkling as if they were starting an adventure. He had to resist the urge to kiss her something that didn't happen to him often. He was pretty sure it would be a bad idea.

"Lead the way." He said before starting his walk with her.