1
BRIANNA
“I’m so sorry, Brianna. Things aren’t usually this chaotic,” my tutor says as she shuffles the paperwork before her, trying to find the one that relates to my new school placement.
To say I was relieved when I received my previous placement school and discovered that it wasn’t Lovell Academy would be an understatement.
That place is the pits of hell, and the stories I heard from my previous school and the lucky teachers who had managed to escape only terrified me further.
But then, I made it three freaking days at the school I was allocated before my mentor was signed off sick with stress and no one was willing to take over.
So here I am again after a week of waiting for news, sitting in my tutor’s office, praying the words ‘Lovell Academy’ don’t roll off her tongue for my final student-teacher placement.
“It’s fine. Everything happens for a reason, right? It obviously wasn’t where I was meant to be.”
“That’s a great way of thinking. Fingers crossed this new school makes your last few weeks easier. Aha,” she says, finally locating the piece of paper.
Her desk is a shitshow. How she manages to actually get any work done is a small miracle in itself.
“Okay, great.” She scans the page and her brow wrinkles.
That one move makes butterflies erupt in my belly, and not the good kind.
Shit. It’s Lovell, isn’t it?
“I’m not sure we’ve ever had a student go here before,” she says absentmindedly to herself.
“W-where is it?”
She looks up and the soft smile she gives me is anything but reassuring. It actually makes my stomach knot.
“Knight’s Ridge College.”
And I’m going to be sick.
“Brianna, are you okay?” my tutor asks, although I barely make out the words as my blood rushes past my ears and my head spins with this new reality.
Maybe Lovell wouldn’t have been so bad.
I nod, although she doesn’t look like she believes it.
“Knight’s Ridge College is a fantastic school and sixth form. They are always rated outstanding and their results are second to none. It is a very exclusive school with above average fees to attend. It should be a very interesting few weeks, especially compared to where you’ve previously been.”
You don’t fucking say.
“I’ve heard of it,” I force myself to say. “I-it should be interesting, for sure.”
One single face pops into my mind before I even have a chance to shoot it down.
Nico fucking Cirillo.
I shake my head in the hope it’ll force him out of it.
But it’s pointless.
It has been since that fateful night Jodie and I met him and Toby in The Spot all those months ago.
His dark and dangerous eyes sucked me in the second I looked into them, and I was powerless but to allow him to sweep me under his spell. And then when he pulled me into his body and rolled his hips with mine in time to the music, I just knew.