Lexi

It wasn't until I was five blocks down that I finally stopped and turned down a partially quiet street to catch my breath. The tears were hemorrhaging out of me as I leaned up against the building and slowly slid down to the ground. Guess that’s it then. They’re gonna have me committed now.

I spent a few minutes calming down, keeping my head down, and taking slow breaths. As the panic and chaos in my head finally subsided, I pulled my bag close and checked my watch. I still have enough time to make it to school. Might as well give it a shot since it will be my last day of normalcy. I made an effort to push the events leading up to that moment out of my head. On the plus side, if today is an epic fail, I can tell everyone to suck it, kick over a desk and then peace out. I stood up and headed in the direction of the school, luckily already halfway there. Walking along with the wrought iron gates, I looked through the bars to check out the school's ivory exterior. Crap, this place looks a lot bigger and older than it did online. I hadn't worried about being intimidated since the original plan was for me to arrive with my mom. Hold up, where the heck is everybody? I quickened my pace up the steps and through the vacant entrance.

As the doors closed behind me, I started to reconsider if today was the day to deal with all of this. The catholic school’s brown-wood interior was a lot more daunting than it looked online. My footsteps startled me as they echoed through the empty halls. Everyone must be in class. I looked at my watch again and saw that I was technically on time. Walking farther into the school, my eyes scanned side to side as I made my way through, looking for any sign of the main office. Taking a shot in the dark, I took one corridor, followed by another, and then another with not a single sign of a main office. Realizing my options were slowly decreasing, I stopped moving and tried to remember the layout of the school from the website. The main office was definitely on the first floor. Right? Maybe it was on the second floor. Definitely not the third, I think. I'm sure they would want to keep the main office on the first two floors. Although, I haven't seen a single set of stairs. Damn it.

I looked back the way I came, shrugged my shoulders, and promptly kept moving forward. Screw it. One more corridor. I turned the corner into the next hallway and knocked right into someone coming from the opposite direction. I fell back but somewhat caught myself by landing on my butt. My embarrassment was eased when I saw that the boy I had collided with was dealing with the same situation. "I'm really, really sorry about that.” I tried to pick up some of his papers as the boy turned his face towards me. Hot damn!

He pulled himself up and quickly helped by pulling me up with just one arm. "If it makes you feel better, I only slightly bruised my tailbone. My medical bills shouldn't be too bad for you." I tried to focus on his brown eyes or even his brown hair to keep from scanning over his muscular physique.

Catching myself before I let the pause go from awkward to creepy, I reached my hand out to shake. "I guess that could've gone a lot worse. No one's bleeding, or unconscious. I'm Lexi."

He took my hand, giving it a light and gentle shake. "Lexi? Like sexy? I feel a nickname coming on."

Blood rushed to my cheeks as I rolled my eyes. "Uh, Lexi is my nickname. My full name is Alexia, Alexia Drake." I bent down to pick up my bag, but he beat me to it.

I reached out to take my bag, but instead, he slung it over his shoulder. "Alright, Alexia, Alexia Drake; I'm guessing since I've never seen you around here that this is your first day?"

I gave him a lop-sided nod as I responded. "Yeah, I was going to try my hand at finding my way to the office, but that didn't work out so well."

He took a step in the direction I had come from, using a nod to gesture me to follow him. "I'd say that your instincts let you down this time." He finished by stopping and giving me a wink. "Or did they?"

That is so freaking cheesy and off-putting, so why am I trying not to laugh.

He smirked while picking the pace up again. "I'm just messing with you. I'm happy to show you where we keep the elusive office. By the way, my name, not that you asked or anything, is Frederick Oliver Xanthopoulos."

My face involuntarily grimaced. "Yikes, that's a lot of name for one person."

He laughed a little while nodding. "You are not wrong. Everyone, and by everyone, I mean everyone who stays on my good side,” he said pointing at me, “just calls me Fox."

I gave him a withering look to keep from outright snorting. "Oh, come on."

He threw his hands up in defense, cutting me off. "I know, I know. What kind of tool goes by a nickname like Fox, but I swear it wasn't my doing. My grandparents were the ones that gave it to me. They even dressed me up as a fox for hour straight Halloweens when I was a kid."

As the comfort set in, I found myself smiling and feeling open. "That's not that bad. The kids at my elementary school used to make fun of me because everything I owned was Sailor Moon themed."

Fox stopped on the spot and placed his hand on my shoulder. "Maybe try keeping that tidbit to yourself."

I smacked his hand away, but couldn't keep myself from laughing.

“Now we’re even.” He chuckled before picking the pace up, again. After a few more minutes, Fox slowed down and pointed to a door ahead of us. "This is the main office. It's pretty easy to miss if you don't know where to look."

I scanned it over and saw exactly what he was talking about. The letters on the door were so translucent, they were practically invisible. "Thank you so much. I'd probably still be walking around aimlessly if you hadn't run into me."

Fox looked at me in disbelief. "Oh, that's how we're gonna tell the story, huh?"

I tried not to sound too smug, but my face gave me away. "It's your word against mine, and I am the girl here."

He nodded and looked away, trying unsuccessfully to hold back from laughing. “Next time try coming a little early, or at least on time."

I held up my watch to him. "I'll have you know; I was right on time when I got here."

He pulled it closer to his eyes and gave me another smirk. "Hate to burst your bubble, devious one, but your watch is fifteen minutes behind. So, congratulations. Your first day and you're already skipping your first class. Also, why would you start at a new school on a Friday?" He reached his hand over me and opened the office door.

You've got to be freaking kidding me. I took out my cellphone to make sure I wasn’t going crazy. What the hell? How can that be fifteen minutes behind too? “Officially, I was supposed to start on Monday, but I just wanted to get it over with. Plus, I’ll have the weekend to process any trauma from today.”

Walking through the door, I was hit with a wave of familiarity at the normal-looking school office. Sitting at the front desk was a woman typing away behind her pointed rim glasses. I started to form the words for a hello, but she immediately cut me off. "Fill this out and have a seat, while I finish up your paperwork." The woman slid a clipboard towards me without once looking away from her computer screen, or missing a beat from typing.

Well, isn’t she delightful.

Fox picked up the clipboard and scanned it over before handing it to me. "Miss D, your sympathy and compassion make me strive to be a better human." He pulled out papers from his backpack. "Here. Mr. Goldstein said these are all the permission slips for this semester’s field trips."

The woman didn't try to take the papers. Instead, she picked up and put down a basket on the desk, as if to insinuate where the permission slips went. Fox narrowed his eyes at the woman and slowly placed the slips into the basket. He turned and mouthed a word about the woman that would have gotten him a punch from me if he hadn't been spot on. "Alright princess, the sooner you finish that clipboard, the sooner you can start learning your way around this hell hole." Fox gestured to some chairs up against the wall. I took a seat and tried to write as fast as the woman was typing at her computer.

The moment I put the last dot on the page, the woman called to me. "Bring it to me and get your class schedule."

I looked at her surroundings trying to see if there was a mirror or camera, but Fox tapped me on the shoulder before slowly shaking his head. "Just go with it." I brushed it off and gave the woman the clipboard as she handed me my schedule. Fox got up and joined me in scanning over it. "Ouch. I hope you're good at math cause professor Caldwell is a real piece of-" The woman cleared her throat. "Work. I was going to say a piece of work." Fox convinced only me as the woman scowled and pointed to the door.

We both got out of there as fast as we could before I let out a sigh of relief. "That was all kinds of pleasant."

Fox took another glance at my schedule. "On the plus side, we have homeroom, fourth and eighth period together. Unfortunately, there is only a handful of genuinely nice teachers and you've got two of them. Professor Goldstein for homeroom and Dr. Bordeaux for third. I'm a little jealous. You can only get Dr. Bordeaux if you have an exceptionally high aptitude for science."

I let a smile of victory play across my mouth and flipped my ponytail back. "What can I say? I guess your lobe just doesn't measure up."

Fox feigned falling asleep for a second. "Oh, so sorry. I was overwhelmed by how incredibly lame that joke was. Now, if you're done with your improvisation, the bell-" A loud and obnoxious sound pulsed through the hallways, causing me to jump and scream a little. Fox yanked me from the middle of the hallway over to a nearby flight of stairs I had missed on my way in. "Quick, pretend like we've been talking about something interesting," Fox said looking behind his shoulders at the classroom doors pouring students out.

"Uh, okay. Did you know that in the 1920s, the government poisoned over 10,000 American citizens? It was the craziest thing," I said, also looking down the hallway as I started up my rant. "Around the time of prohibition, people in the black market would use denatured alcohol found in things like paints and solvents and get their chemists to make it drinkable for people. When the government found out, they didn't try to stop it but instead made some of the denaturing ingredients in industrial products lethal by adding methyl alcohol, kerosene, gasoline, carbolic acid, acetone, and a bunch of other stuff that would make it hard for the black market chemists to re-nature the alcohol. The government knew people would drink the re-natured alcohol and figured the deaths would keep people from wanting to drink."

As droves of students moved about the hallway and up the stairs, Fox looked utterly disturbed. "I said interesting. Not morbid. And you're right, my lobe doesn't measure up."

Before I could say anything else, a mammoth of a male student twice the size of Fox came up to us. "Sup Fox. Either of you see who was screaming out here?"

Fox turned to address him and the two boys engaged in a special handshake. "Nope, we were still on the second floor when we heard it."

The boy turned his attention away from Fox and gave me a once over. "Hey there," he said holding out his hand.

Fox took another quick look down the hall. "Lexi, Eli. Eli, Lexi.”

His hand almost completely covered mine as I shook it. "Nice to meet you, Eli."

Fox turned his attention back to me and Eli. "Alright, man, I'll catch up with you at fourth," he said taking my hand. "This one has zero sense of direction. I'm gonna take her over to Caldwell's."

The color drained from Eli’s face as he looked at me. "Good Luck."

Oh, that’s is not the kind of reaction that leads to anything good. As we moved down the hallway and through the slowly thinning herd of students, a feeling of panic moved into my stomach. Just breathe. No biggie. I can hold my own in math. I'm sure this professor Caldwell wouldn't try to embarrass a new student on their first day.

"Sorry to shove you over to the stairs like that," Fox said as he moved the both of us through the hallways. "But there's a particular someone I'm trying to avoid. Not to mention no one would ever let you live that scream down."

I rolled my eyes and made mental notes of all the turns to my 2nd-period class. "Seriously? I know it's a prep school, but is it that cutthroat?"

Fox stopped for a moment and whispered to me. "You seem cool enough and the last thing that should happen to you on your first day is that you become the butt of every joke for the rest of the school year."

I gave Fox a small smile. At least I know for sure one person here is genuinely nice.

"Alright, princess," He said pointing to a door to our left. "This is where I leave you." My eyes went wide for a minute as I bolstered my confidence. Fox could tell I was nervous. "Don't get paranoid. Caldwell sucks, but if you stand your ground and show him that big lobe of yours, you'll be fine."

I took a deep breath and raised my shoulders. "I got this. I'm gonna go in there and I'm not gonna be intimidated, or even pee my pants."

Fox dropped his head and let out a small laugh. "Princess, you are gonna be all kinds of entertainment for me. So, after this, head to third period. Just go up the stairs at the end of this hall and it'll be the first door on your left. When it's over, I'll meet you outside the classroom and we can go to fourth together," he finished while moving back the way we came.

"Wait a second." I managed to get Fox to stop on the spot and look at me like I had his undivided attention. "Thank you. I know you don't know me that well, but-"

Fox put his hand up to cut me off. "Don't go getting all Disney on me now, princess. Besides, I know what it's like to need a friend."

Don't tear up, don't tear up. You're a strong warrior chick. You're Sailor Moon. I gave him a soft smile, unable to form the right words. With a quick wink, Fox headed out of sight. Here goes nothing, I thought opening the classroom door and just as it closed behind me, the bell rang for class to begin.