Chapter-1

It's said that, "We fall in love with the most unexpected person at the most unexpected time because unplanned moments are always better than planned ones."

I never believed this quote until that day - 8th August 2021. How can I ever forget this date? This date changed my whole life - I lost something precious, but I gained something more precious. It's like Newton's third law of motion: "For every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction."

Now that we're talking about Newton, I remember, that day I was revising physics formulas since we had an exam. 1 month had already passed in this new high school of mine called "St. Xander High School" and we were already having our first exam.

Since a few minutes were left for the exam to begin, I was sitting in the examination hall and remembering all the formulas once again.

"Dimensional formula of inertia is [M¹L²T⁰]" I murmured.

Suddenly, I felt someone looking at me. I turned in that direction and found Alexander writing something in his notebook.

"It must be an illusion," I remarked in my mind and continued revising the formulas. But once again, I felt that gaze. I quickly turned and found Alexander looking at me. But as soon as our eyes met, he looked away.

"What is wrong with him?" I wondered. This time, I didn't turn around and stared at him. He turned back, and when he caught me looking towards him, he once again looked away.

"Is something wrong with my face?" I wondered which touching my face.

Never in my life had I ever talked with Alexander. He was known as the most handsome boy in our whole class. Sometimes, I wonder, what are people actually going to do with a handsome face? Personality is what matters the most, doesn't it? But for some people, that was not the case though.

I was distracted, and a thought came to my mind, "It's not like I'm pretty that he'd look at me instead of revising the notes. What's his problem?"

"Hey-" before I could ask him the reason for his weird behavior, he suddenly turned straight towards me and spoke, "Hey, about the multiple choice questions... can you help me with them?"

I was too stunned to speak anything because it was the first time he had spoken to me. I had never really gotten the chance to talk with him, or probably it was more like I didn't want to talk to him.

The reason was simple. Before joining St. Xander High School, I had heard some bad rumors about him, and since then, I had no intention to talk to him. I know I shouldn't have fully believed in the rumors, but he looked like someone full of attitude. This was my first impression of him.

"Yeah..." I replied to him with a nod. I still wonder till this date, why the hell did I say "yes" to him?

It was not like I was against cheating because, at a certain time, I used to cheat in exams too. But that was a long time ago! Since grade-7, I had stopped cheating from others and had refrained myself from saying answers to them too. This was a fact that my old friends clearly knew about, but no one in Xander knew about it, though.

It was weird! Alexander indeed was going to be the first person whom I was going to help to cheat in the exam at Xander. And talking about the reason why I agreed to his request was probably that I could never say "no" to people on their face. This was a major problem which lied within me.

Back then in my previous school Dagwood, whenever my friends used to ask me answers- or should I say they used to "emotionally blackmail" me to say them the answers with their puppy eyes, I used to break this "not helping others to cheat" rule of mine.

Coming back to the story, unfortunately, I was of no use to Alexander since I didn't know the answer to the question he asked me. Once our exam was over, we headed to the physics lab. There I was, sitting beside Andrew and chatting with him while completing my physics lab notebook at the same time, too.

"And the next moment, Orpheus was shouting at me with his usual pig-type face!" I laughed along with Andrew.

Orpheus was both mine and Andrew's best friend. Back in Dagwood, our trio was quite famous! But we missed his presence in Xander, though. Both I and Andrew were in one section since we had opted for computer science, while on the other hand, Orpheus was sent to a different section since he had opted for biology.

"May I come in, sir?" This voice distracted me from my conversation with Andrew. I looked towards the door and found Alexander and his friend Austin standing there. Alexander had this weird yet very attractive and husky voice.

Both of them walked in our direction and sat on the seats in front of us. They were Andrew's teammates in the physics lab while I was of a different group.

"How many marks do you think you'll score in the physics exam?" Alexander asked while looking towards me.

It was weird. From no angle, I looked like an intelligent student, so I wondered why he was asking me a question like this.

"Um, I guess around 15," I answered him back.

"What about the other subjects?" He added another question.

"All of them around 15, I guess, except English and computer science. I may be able to score around 20 in both of them," I replied.

"Oh, I see," he remarked.

That day, I didn't know that this single talk with him was the beginning of a new story in my life.

As soon as I headed back to the classroom, I was approached by Alice, Alexander's physics lab teammate.

"Hey Cassandra!" Alice called out my name.

"Yeah?" I asked with a confused look. It indeed was a weird day. The students with whom I had never really conversed were suddenly talking to me from their side.

"Can I ask you something?" She asked.

"Yeah, go ahead."

"...What were you talking about with Alexander?"

"Ah! Well, nothing much. Just assumed marks and exams y'know."

"Oh, I see. Well, actually I called out for him from 3-4 times but he didn't respond, so..."

"Yeah, I had seen that."

It indeed was a true incident. While Alexander and Austin were talking with each other, Alice had called out for Alexander from 3-4 times, but strangely, he gave no response. It was werid- actually, he was a weird mystery himself.

"Oh. Um... what do you think of Alexander?"

Now again, another weird question. Our class indeed was full of weirdos!

"I don't know. I've never really had a conversation with him. Today's conversation was the first one, though."

"Oh, I see."

"...By any chance, do you have a crush on Alexander?" I curiously asked.

It was no wonder- I mean, almost each and every girl in our class had a crush on Alexander, whether small or big. He was handsome, afterall. Alice, on the other hand, was quite pretty herself.

"Both of them will make a great match!" I remarked in my head.

"No! I don't have a crush on him. Rather, I hate Alexander," replied Alice.

"Oh. But why...?"

"Um, well, something had happened in Grade-10, and I want to get my revenge from him."

"Revenge?"

"It's something that you don't know about, and it'll be much better if you don't, though," saying this, she left.

"What exactly did Alexander do with her that she hates him up to this extent?" I murmured.

Alexander... Indeed, was a mysterious guy with so many rumors about him.

"Being famous also comes with a price," I remarked and headed back to my seat.

Within a few hours, our classes were over, and all were quite excited to head back to their homes to enjoy the completion of exams! But I was excited about something else. It was the time that I was going to spend with my crush, Payton!

He was the sole reason of me joining Xander. He was my senior, a year older than me, but was the most childish person I had ever met. He was like the sun, someone always surrounded with happiness, and I, at a certain point, wanted to become like him. I had met him when I was in grade-9, and since then, I had a huge crush on him for around 2 years.

I was in a deep sleep when I suddenly got disturbed and woke up because of the call on my phone. The screen flashed Orpheus's name. I picked up the call and could hear Orpheus shouting, "Hey Cassie! Where are you?"

"Ugh! So loud!" I said with a pissed tone.

"You didn't hear me I guess? Should I repeat it with a more loud pitch?"

"NO!" I screamed, "I heard you- I was taking a nap. What happened?"

"Did you forget about our meet on the rooftop or what?"

"Of course, I didn't! I never can!"

"Yeah, yeah..."

"Has Payton arrived there yet?"

"...Nope. He hasn't."

"Ah! Then there's no use of me going there right now. I'm going there to meet Payton anyways-"

"Cassie!" He shouted again.

"Hey, low down that voice of yours okay! Otherwise, I won't be able to hear Payton's sweet voice when I meet him. You don't even know how much excited I was the whole day to meet him! Even right now, you can feel that excitement from my voice, can't you?"

"...Yeah."

"Anyways, just call me once again when he reaches there. I gotta complete my nap!"

"Wait-" before he could even complete his full sentence, I ended the call. A few minutes had not even passed when my phone rang once again and it was Orpheus.

Answering the call I said, "Orpheus, you-"

"Payton has arrived. You should head here soon too."

"Oh! Alright, alright! I'm going there."

"Check the message" he whispered.

"What did you say?"

He ended the call. I quickly opened my message box and was shocked to read Orpheus's message. It said: "Payton heard our whole conversation just now. The phone was on the loud speaker."

I was too numb to even move an inch. I just didn't know what to do.

"How am I going to face him now?" was the only question on my mind.