“C, please just talk to me?” Lucy begged, clasping her hands together but Claire remained silent and unmoved.

They were sitting in physics, which was their second class, waiting for the teacher to arrive. After being called a ‘drama queen’ for trying to protect her own best friend, Claire wanted nothing to do with Lucy. She felt like a total fool shifting from New York for a person who would only make her look like an idiot in front of the entire school, that too on her first day.

“C, please try to understand. I needed talk to him. I built up my courage for this day. The day I’d talk to him.”

“Good for you, Luce.”

“That’s not fair, C. You had Dan. I never dated a guy in my life.”

Claire felt the guilt choke her. She was right, of course. Things had been really easy with Dan considering he’d made all the moves. Claire had merely thrived in the attention and enjoyed the time they had been together.

“I guess, I understand.”

“I knew you’d come around.” Lucy smiled, giving Claire a hug from the side. Claire merely smiled back and watched the class fill up with students. Her eyes met a few people’s who were gawking at her as though she was some sort of an alien. It made her squirm in her seat.

She tried smiling at a few girls just to be polite but they just whispered something in their friends’ ears. Claire literally felt offended by their rudeness and looked away. She heard Lucy chuckle and turned to her best friend.

“You do know why they’re whispering about you. Right?” Lucy asked, curling her hair with her finger.
“Yeah. I’m the new girl.” Claire replied miserably and put her head down on the table.

“Well…that and….”

“There’s an and?” Claire groaned and shut her eyes in frustration.

“And…” Lucy went on as though she wasn’t interrupted. “Cause you’re the new girl who is absolutely gorgeous!”

Claire chuckled at her best friend’s humor and raised her head, feeling a bit better after Lucy had lightened the mood.

“Yeah. Cause you give death glares to people you think looks good, of course.” Claire replied sarcastically and rolled her eyes.

“Sour grapes, C! That’s what they are.”

“Yeah, of course.” Claire chuckled rolling her eyes, taking out her notepad.

“God, C! You really need to put your insecurities to rest, once and for all.

“Good morning, class!” The teacher greeted as he entered, making everyone take their seats in a hurry. “I’m sure you all remember me from last year. But for the new students, I’m-“

The teacher was interrupted as a group of boys barged in through the doors, looking rather intimidating. Their eyes skimmed through the seats before they began pushing other students out of the chair they preferred sitting on.

“Move!” Claire watched the only blonde in the group order a guy two seats away from her. The poor guy scurried away, frightened out of his mind.

They cleared out four seats even though there were six of them present. The seating arrangement they had chosen was shaped like a ‘T’; three guys would be sitting side by side while another one sat behind the guy in the middle. Claire watched in fascination as three of the guys began filing out of the class while the other three stood by their seats. Her eyes caught sight of someone else entering the classroom and she gasped when she realized it was the boy with the beautiful green eyes. The boy her best friend had been previously trying to hit on unabashedly and was drooling over now.

“C, oh my God!” She heard Lucy whisper from her left. “He’s in biology with us!”

“So I see.” Claire whispered back without taking her eyes off the boy as he headed towards the seat in the middle of the ‘T’, which was a seat away from Claire.

“Good to have you with us, Mr. Styles.” The teacher greeted with a smile but it faded when he noticed this ‘Mr. Styles’ giving him a glare in return. Claire frowned at the boy as he took his seat and the poor, flustered teacher began his lesson.

She turned away and opened her book to the page the teacher mentioned but had the unshakeable feeling that she was being watched. Without thinking she took a peek at the green-eyed boy, to realize that he wasn’t the one staring at her.

“Thought you were the one!”

It was the boy she had met in the hallway, the one who had given her directions to the principal’s office. He was sitting next to the guy Lucy fancied and that is when Claire realized that they were in the same gang. As though the tattoos, piercings and hair weren’t a dead giveaway!

Claire turned away without saying a word to him and concentrated on the teacher’s lecture. I mean what do you reply to that? Plus, Orlando had warned her to stay away from him and that’s what she planned to do.

“Ouch.”

She heard him say and turned to look at him with widened eyes. He had a hand planted over the left side of his chest and a lopsided smirk pasted on his face. She bit down on her lips to stop herself from smiling, before looking away.

“Ah! She smiles!” He announced, making Claire turn red as a beetroot.

“Ahem!” The teacher drew their attention, and glared at them. “Mr. Malik and Miss…..”

The teacher let the pause drag so that Claire was forced to give him her last name.

“Rowland.” She whispered, before biting down on her lips.

“Miss Rowland! Right! Do you think you two could maybe try to concentrate in class?”

Claire blushed abashedly and lowered her head but her head snapped to her right when she heard a deep voice reply, “Sorry, Teach! But some of us have a sex life to maintain, you see. Not that I expect you to understand.”

The entire class burst out into laughter and Claire’s entire face went red as she watched the Malik boy fist bump the green-eyed guy, who had just embarrassed the teacher infront of the entire class.

She looked away quickly when she saw him turn towards her and give her a cheeky smirk. Claire tried to shrink in her chair but knew it’d be of no use. The teacher was beyond mortified, to say the least and tried to cover it up by going back to his lecture.

“So, Rowland.” She turned to find the Malik guy give her another one of his lop-sided smiles. “Now that Harry has cleared things up. What are your plans after school?”

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Notes

A/N: Thank you all so much for the votes, subscriptions and feedbacks! :) I love you all.

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