I'm not even sure where this is going. But I'd really appreciate some in-depth reviews. If this is going anywhere, I'd like to be good. Like better than good.
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CHAPTER ONE
This girl is apparently me, but I don’t feel like her. I don’t fit her. I want to be a carefree girl, living like most other Daphnis people, in modest homes, no white pillars, no brightly painted rooms. This is Stella Rayleigh. Girl from Daphnis.
I’m shocked out of my reverie by my mother’s stiff, emotionless voice. “Stella, come down and wish your brother a nice goodbye before he leaves.” I pause before I respond, reluctance clear in my tone. “Fine.”
I drop heavily on each carpeted step that leads to the extravagant entryway. It slows me down only a fraction of a second, but it assures me nonetheless that I’m taking that much longer to reach my statue family. I turn around the corner of the staircase and my mother’s white-blond bob comes into view. I step off the stairs with a thud and she turns. Her pointy nose looks my way, dull gray eyes reproachful.
“Hurry up, Stella!” There’s now a high note in her tone, only indicating her exasperation. “Sebastian’s only got so much time before his train!” So I move a little faster. Not for her, but for Seb, because he’s the only one I love in my so-called family.
Seb’s like both my mother and me. He loves his wealth, wallows in the advantages of it, but he’s also aware of the poverty that’s hidden from us rich people. I like him because he at least has a streak of reason in the blond head of his. And now he’s heading off to university.
As soon as I’m within arm’s length of him, I lunge. He catches me in his strong arms, hand clasping behind my back. I inhale his strong, musky smell, not wanting to forget my brother’s comforting scent.
“I’ll miss you, Seb,” I whisper quietly into his armpit. He laughs, the sound reverberating deep inside his chest.
“So will I. But I know you will get along fine, Stella.”
I glance behind me, making sure my mother isn’t close enough to hear, before I say, “I’m not so sure. I hate it here. Maybe I’ll make a run for it.” I add a small giggle, to lighten the mood of my statement. Seb joins in, but I can hear the hesitance in his tone. He’s weighing the meaning of my words as he’s always done with me since I hit eleven. Since I expressed sympathy for the poor folk of Daphnis.
“Just not before you graduate.” He ruffles my hair jokingly, like I’m a child playing a game. I look up at him for the first time, boring my green eyes into his. His smile reveals perfectly straight, perfectly white teeth. I smile to him and then I feel my mother’s cold and bony hands gently pulling me from him. “Sebastian’s going to miss his train, Stella.”
I turn sharply out of my mother’s grasp. Seb’s already snuck outside before he has to go through the torture of my mother’s usual chilly farewells. Anyway, she’s now walking back into our all-white living room to read some stupid weight-loss magazine. I scuttle over to the entryway’s window seat, and dig my knees into the scratchy material of pure silk. Pulling the curtains to the side, I take one long last look at Seb, my brother, before he gets into the cab and it pulls away, taking all its bright, happy yellowness with it away from the ghost of a house I live in.
*
At school, during break, the only time the rich children are allowed to mix with the poor, I’ve often heard us—that is, the wealthy—being described as snobby, cold and undeserving. I couldn’t agree more.
In Daphnis, there are two social groups: the rich and the poor. There is no middle class. Either you live in a mansion or a shack. It’s all black and white and no gray.
Apparently, according to history books, Daphnis used to have a middle class, but then there was a huge economic crash. Only those who had jobs with reliable organizations—such as commerce and fashion—survived. The rest soon found themselves homeless or living in cheaply made shacks. And almost overnight, it was a battle against the rich and the poor.
Seb told me that we only survived because of our long line of criminal lawyers. The Rayleigh Law Firm apparently joined in on the condemnation of the supposed rebels during the crash. Our law firm gave us the money for my father to purchase the mansion we now live in and all its grandeur.
This time, during the break, I sit on a stone ledge that juts out from the school’s wall. Kids run by crazily, playing tag or some other playground game. The older kids, like me, mingle with friends. I’m not mingling but my close friend Saskia sits close.
I’m on the edge of a daydream when Saskia leans in and whispers in my ear, “That poor boy Luca Griffin’s looking at you.”
My eyes follow Saskia’s bright blue ones to the soccer field where a rabble of poverty-stricken boys and girls play. The one that I’m supposed to be looking for stands at the net as goalie. His loose blond ringlets seem to be cut perfectly—if a bit roughly for lack of a proper barber—halfway down his ears. There’s a lanky body hidden somewhere beneath the bulky goalie gear and warm brown eyes twinkle beneath the sunlight that glares onto the dead grass. Luca Griffin.
But he isn’t looking at me.
“Saskia—” I start my he’s-not-looking-at-me-you-hopeless-romantic lecture when I’m interrupted by my friend.
“Quick. He’s looking.”
My head turns fast a lightning back to the soccer field. And sure enough, Luca Griffin’s looking at me. I look back, eyes empty of any emotion. It’s like the movies my mother rents at times, where the girl and boy have a connection. Luca starts to move away from the net, moving toward me. My legs are like jelly, jiggling, jiggling, jiggling with anxiety. I glance back at Saskia who’s trembling for me, look back at Luca only see him being hit right smack in the head with a hard soccer ball.
*
I’m sitting with a few of Luca’s friends in the waiting room of the school infirmary. Why? I was one of the first to come running to his side. I got a couple of looks from disapproving friends, being the only rich person to come to Luca’s aid.
Luca was out cold, a bit of blood lightly seeping just above his right eye. With the help of his three friends, we were able to haul him into the nurse’s room. Not that he was heavy—Luca’s quite thin, actually, being of the poverty-stricken crowd—but it was his heavy soccer gear that loaded him down.
Now waiting silently in cold plastic chairs, we can only hear the moans and groans of a slightly conscious Luca. I’m the closest the closed door where he’s enclosed and beside me are his three bulky friends: Gideon, Fisher and Helmut.
“So…where d’you live?” grunts Helmut. He’s the biggest of three, with a large chest, big thighs and muscular arms. He’s also hairy all over with long wavy locks to shoulder—brown—and a growing beard. Tufts of chest hair peek out from his plaid shirt.
“Um, in Laurel Grove.” Usually, it’s nice to announce my living in one of the fanciest neighbourhoods of Cassa, the capital of Daphnis. But telling these boys, ones who most likely live in one room shacks with a family of five or six, it’s downright awkward.
“Oh. So you’re really rich, eh?” Fisher butts in. The question in itself is harmless, but his tone is judgmental. Like he’s already come to the conclusion that I’m a snobby brat with so much money she doesn’t know what to do with it.
“Doesn’t necessarily mean I’m happy with it,” I reply in an equally chilly tone. Fisher grumbles an apology. There’s another prolonged uncomfortable silence before the nurse, a kindly lady with wild red hair, peeks into the waiting room. “Luca’s ready for a visit, if you’d like.” All four of us stand up, eager to see the boy who was smacked with a soccer ball. Before I know it, Helmut, Fisher and Gideon have rushed passed me into Luca’s room. I take a step forward to follow, but I find the nurse’s freckled hand in front of my chest, holding me back.
“Sorry, Miss Rayleigh, but only three at a time.”
I find the rule immediately absurd, thinking a fourth person wouldn’t stress out the patient much more. I expel my thoughts before I can think about it. The nurse sadly shakes her head.
“Unfortunately, it’s not because of the patient—he’s fine, really, except for a minor concussion—but because of space. There’s really no more room for a fourth person in that tiny sick chamber.” The lady gives a weak smile. I return it as I move slowly back to my seat.
I didn’t want to talk to Luca alone. I barely even know him and it feels a little too intimate. Especially because he’s injured. It’s like another movie of my mother’s where one lover gets hurt or sick and then there’s that tender moment with the other lover in the dimly light hospital room. I only wanted to tell Luca I hope he feels better.
Within a few minutes, Fisher’s out, beaming from ear to ear. Obviously there’d been a joke because almost seconds after, Gideon and Helmut fall out of the room laughing. Their cheeks are flushed with hilarity and now I’m reluctant to drop in on Luca. Sometimes boys get much too ahead of themselves when in a joking mood. But I go in only because the nurse herds me.
My spirits immediately drop when I see the room is dim in lighting. The blinds are half closed, letting only snippets of light land on the opposite wall. A tiny white cot that’s nothing compared to the real hospital beds is positioned in the centre of the room, Luca tucked in. His yellow curls a still laidback and loose, and only the edge of his forehead hints to any kind of injury. The nurse leaves us, closing the door behind her.
“Hi,” I say.
“Hi.” Luca reaches over to his small transparent cup of water. Takes a sip. Returns the cup to its place on the bedside table. “What are you doing here?”
“I was…a witness at the…incident.” I can’t quite get my words right, hence my hesitations.
“Oh.” Luca looks at me, waiting for more.
“And just to be nice.”
“I never thought a rich girl like you’d bother to see how I’m feeling.”
I’m taken aback by his comment. I’d thought he’d be as nice as he looked. Apparently not. “Sorry, then. I’ll go now.” I turn away, moving back to the door. I’ve just reached for the knob when Luca says, barely audible, “I saw you looking at me on the field.”
I don’t turn. In fact, I move closer to the door, my fingers settling on the silver doorknob. I gather my thoughts. “You looked first.”
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