"But I much prefer Will." The boy – Will – said to the whole class. "I play the harp and the piano, and I'm here for three months. I'm from Texas."

Will Solace had an unearthly brightness to him, like someone had turned the saturation up on him and him alone. As he talked, his eyes flickered across the room. He carried light eyebags with him, a bit blue, a tinge of red, and they were a little puffier than the average person. Up early, probably. It was a stark difference from his irises, which reflected the colour of the ocean in a beach magazine.

"Thank you, Will. Please take a seat." Mrs. Daniels hummed. Will nodded, blond curls bouncing with him, and strolled to the empty seat right next to me – a little too slow for Mrs. Daniels liking. I could see judgement flashing in her dull eyes.

"Okay, we're going to pick up where we left on Macbeth, everyone." Mrs. Daniels pulled out her copy of Macbeth along with everyone else.

Mrs. Daniels droned on in monotone, reading the pages as if the characters were one and the same. That's how I knew she hated Grade 10 English as much as I did, and I couldn't even blame her.

Will Solace fidgeted next to me. His hand spasmed, his eyes twitched, and he couldn't keep still. He kept switched between an upright posture and slouching on the chair. Occasionally, he eyed the English posters from years ago. One from three years ago, a few from five, the most from a year ago. They aged gracefully, considering how people shoved past each other, only inches from the walls. Aside from the curling edges, they seemed brand new.

"I'm Will," the boy next to me said. I ran through possible responses in the split second I had. I'm trying to focus would be an obvious lie and rude. Hi, I'm Nico invited conversation.

"I heard," I whispered, being rude and also inviting further conversation. I scolded myself in my head. It's all fun and easy when you can mentally revise conversations, but people were so unpredictable.

Will Solace smiled, his lips pulling more to his right cheek, and raised the opposite eyebrow. He tilted his head down and shook his head gently. In my years of experience, this translated either to 'I like you already' or 'I'm definitely spreading gossip about this'.

"Well, I haven't heard your name," Will leaned forward and propped his book in the table, so it covered his half his face. I doubted Mrs. Daniels would pull him up for it, but I didn't say that.

"I wonder why," I said absentmindedly. I kept my eyes on the page, but it was hard when blond hair was within my line of vision. And harder that the blond blob talked so much.

"Let me guess," Will said, scratching his chin. He squinted at me and tried to look at me from the right and left, while also avoiding attention from Mrs. Daniels. "Lucus, right?"

"What?"

"Your name, I mean," he kept his voice low, and I knew well it was because he was resisting a laugh. "It's Lucus, right?"

"Nico," I scoffed. "How on Earth did you get Lucus?"

"I have no idea. I knew a Lucus, back in Texas. He was taller than me and thought pineapples were a curse, on pizza or otherwise."

"What a strange character," I mused. Will raised his eyebrow further, and grinned, but didn't say anything. Either he found me weird or funny, and I wasn't sure if I wanted either.

Will and I kept up conversation during the class. We became less the not-so-quiet duo and more invisible as the class went on. People joined in on their own conversations, the chatter just a white noise in the background.

The bell dismissed us, Mrs. Daniels protesting grumpily in the front of the classroom. I gathered my books and pulled helped Will with his. He had brought all the English books used for the year, while I had brought my notebook and Macbeth.

I found out that Will's locker was a bit away from mine. The lockers next to mine belonged to other people in my year I hardly knew of. Aside from Silena Beaugard, a few lockers down from mine, everyone near me was a stranger.

Will and I split for our next class. Split doesn't even count, considering we weren't buddies or friends, but the sentiment remained. He waved goodbye, and I sent an awkward wave bad. I sighed softly and shook my head. If I were him, I'd be thinking all sorts of negative things. I made a note to not be so socially awkward for once.

I shared Physics with Octavian. It was a curse, truly. He wasn't any good at it either. But Mr. D liked that they shared a love for Diet Coke. Or Diet Pepsi, it depended on the day.

Mr. D was at the school for as long as I could remember. He always wore button up shirts of the same grape blueish purple and had a beer belly that he made the occasional joke about. He had long brown hair that he tied in a low ponytail, and a moustache that didn't suit him at all. It looked neat and tidy, while he looked like he woke up and was at school five minutes later.

Still, he was my favourite teacher. He had a dark sense of humour that could only cause ripples of laughter across the classroom, but I understood. We both shared a mutual dislike of our existence. Mr. D swore there was a higher being who had put a curse on him to live as a lowly mortal.

"So, Nico," Octavian grinned, and to me, his teeth were pointed and sharp, ready to bite into raw meat. I tried to imitate his expression. A chorus of laughter from behind him told me I had failed spectacularly. "Who's the new kid?"

"No idea, Octavian. He arrived today." I said with a monotone. Octavian narrowed his eyes, which was never good.

"Oh, I thought you might've known him, considering you were doing who-knows-what on those days off." Octavian turned back to his work with an evil smile. He glanced at me to make sure I was souring at his remark. I wasn't. "If you hadn't come back, I wouldn't thought you, like, did something bad. Like, bad, bad."

"Good to know."

That was apparently the wrong response. "I don't know about that Will." He stared at his friends. He leaned in closer, but I was still within earshot. "No one ever become friends with Nico, much less in the first period their with him. Something's off."

His friends let out noises of agreement, and I had to stop myself from retorting about how stupid that was. Will was as plain as you could get. Moved from Texas and was an exchange student. I looked as hard as I could and couldn't find anything else.

"Hey! I'm giving a lesson over here," Mr. D clapped, and raised his voice. He pointed his chin at Octavian. "Listen up, People. There's a test soon and you all failing will not look good for me."