CHAPTER ONE: OPENING ASSEMBLY

Seven, three and zero. I have lived almost three-fourths of my early life dreading those three numbers. They may mean the price of a nice and comfortable shirt from the boutique that you have been eyeing on buying, or the number of checks that you may get on a ten-item pop quiz given by your Physics professor. But the most important, if not the most hateful symbolism of it is this: 7:30. In the morning. Which means it’s the start of the class�"and encountering the horrible subjects I need to ace with grace, meeting the professors with grace, juggling my colorful and long extra-curricular list with grace, mingling with the rest of the student body with grace, and forgetting that there’s a kind of life that allows an almost-adult to sleep till ten.

I allow myself to take a deep breath before giving a long, exaggerated exhale. My gray eyes slowly flutter and I stare at the reflection before me. My cheeks are flushed against my fair skin. The once-neat tresses of my auburn hair are a bit disheveled. The dark shades under my eyes�"thankfully�"are carefully covered using a nice trick with concealer. My uniform is a mess, too, and if Juana is here, she will surely give me a nice speech about it. The green badge on my breast pocket though still remains the same, stitched in place to tell the whole world that I’m a respectable twelfth grader.

Get a grip, Brianna. You’re in this world now. I take my hairbrush from my vintage Chanel and try to make myself decent. A few minutes from now, the traces of this morning’s encounter with the reporters will be deleted. I wince. Papa will get annoyed when he’ll learn about today’s events and reprimand me again about not getting a bodyguard. Then again, I don’t expect the press to be scouting outside the campus once I settle in Kenwick Hall and they will have better news to report than my bland life.

The giggles and chattering from the outside gets louder as seven-thirty is nearing. The girls’ lavatory in the ground floor of Flemings Building is rarely visited by the students by this time, so I’m probably safe of being seen in this state.

Flemings Building was built around the first half of the twentieth century, and has been renovated time and again to keep up with modern architecture. The pristine gray tiles contrasted to the white doors of empty cubicles. An automatic hand dryer is placed on the wall, and a dispenser of tissues and sanitary napkins is beside it. The sink is made with polished granite, with a fresh vase of roses to add feminine touch.

As if Fate is taunting me, the door knob twists out of the blue. My eyes widen and I try to escape, but it’s too late. The door’s open and Kate Altamirano enters my haven.

“Why, hello Covarrubias,” she says dubiously, closing the door behind her. She clears the distance between us and props herself on the sink allowing her to interrogate me upfront. “I haven’t seen you arriving in Kenwick. We’ve been waiting for you.”

Kate is a good few inches taller than me, and so her legs almost reach the floor. She has a good tan, probably obtained from her several random swims in the numerous beaches in the country, and a lean, athletic body that helps her in her job at The Leighton.

“Who’s ‘we’?”

“Stella, Victoria,” she shrugs. “Me.”

I return my brush and get my compact. Kate Altamirano in her full questioning mode is not someone I need right now. “I decided to come straight here since I’m running late, but the reporters ambushed me at the entrance of the Flemings.”

“Oh, so that’s what the noise is all about.”

 “Yup. Apparently, I’m on one of the headlines in the morning news of every possible channel in the country�"The First Daughter on Her First Day of School, Brianna Covarrubias’ First Day as First Daughter, or Montvierre’s Favorite Highschooler Walks to School . It’s like I’m a three-year-old going to a play house for the first time, with more than a set of overly supportive parents to trail me around.”

 “You already have your little fans club, I think.”

“I know.” I grunt as I apply powder evenly on my face. “Don’t want to disappoint them.”

Kate chuckles for a moment, before returning to her no-nonsense attitude. She pulls this off when she’s on a mission, like covering a story about the ‘miracles’ in the school accounting office, for instance. “No, seriously, why are you here? The opening assembly will start in�"” she glances on her wristwatch, “fifteen minutes.”

“Really?” I adjust my black tie. “You should go. I’ll just catch up.” I straighten the creases on my white dress shirt, my purple vest, and my black pleated skirt.

She looks at me sternly.

I chuckle, playfully punching her in the arm. “I promise. Just save me a seat.”

“You’re usually an hour early than the rest of us at opening assembly for the past five years, despite Headmistress Hansley’s habit of recycling her speeches.”

“I’m not going to be late.”

She sighs in exasperation. “Are you afraid of seeing Blake?”

I freeze. Catching myself, I clear my throat. “No, of course not.”

“You are afraid of seeing him,” she says smugly.

“I’m not,” I insist hotly. “I don’t even expect him to return here, after our breakup…and there’s the result of the election.”

“If you’re hoping that those s****y gossips that are circulating after his father’s defeat are true, don’t. Of course he’ll come back. He’s an Almonte. He has his grandfather’s cousin’s uncle’s name, or someone else, as one of the houses in the campus.”

“Actually, it’s his father’s uncle’s cousin,” I blurt out, before realizing my mistake. I close my eyes and breathe out in frustration. “I have a guess that that will be the case.”

“Well then, what are you going to do when you actually see him?” Kate pushes the subject, and all I want is to dash to the nearest cubicle and lock myself up.

I haven’t done that escape plan either, because (surprise, surprise) the door opens, revealing the other two people I don’t want to see. I glare at Kate, knowing too well how this is going to be. And a little reunion in a girls’ lavatory is the last thing I need.

 She grins and waves her new phone. “I may have texted them…”

“BRIANNA!”

My groan is muffled by their squeals and their bone-breaking hugs. After a nanosecond of that excruciating ritual, they release me.

“It’s been so long, Bri,” Stella Dychingco declares. “We haven’t seen much of you this summer. It’s like, you’re holed up in this tiny bubble of yours and�"”

“Duh, Stella,” Victoria Price interrupts as she shakes her head not-so-subtly.

Stella frowns. “What?”

Victoria coughs, which was obviously fake, throwing quick glances toward my direction. Finally, Stella gets it and blanches. “Oh, gosh, I’m so sorry…”

“It’s okay,” I tell her and the rest of them. “You should stop treating me like a porcelain doll. I got over it.”

“Well, you are more than a porcelain doll,” Stella says, adjusting her eyeglasses. “Your appearance at Simon Mayeux’ concert last week trended on Twitter, and they said you’re secretly stealing him from Allison Belfort behind his back, which is not really a secret anymore, since, you know, it’s been all over the web.” She narrows her eyes on me. “Are you dating him?”

“No,” I scowl. “I certainly am not. I haven’t opened my social media account for the past month because of that rubbish and more.”

“Anyway,” Victoria says, her green eyes lit in excitement, “Tammy Cheung said that Lizzie Martines and Sophia Miyoshi have seen a new boy in school.”

Kate snorts. “Vic, seventh graders? Ever heard of such species?”

“This is where it gets exciting,” Stella takes the honor of delivering the news. “He has a green badge on his breast pocket. You know what that means, right?”

“A twelfth grader,” Kate states, deadpan. “A transferee in twelfth grade. That’s new.”

“It’s a miracle,” I remark. “That has never happened before, unless he’s a Ripley or a royalty or…” I stop, seeing Victoria’s and Stella’s glowing faces. “Girls, I was kidding.”

“You know what,” Stella says, “if he’s royalty, I call dibs on him.”

Victoria shrugs. “Tammy says he’s an eye-candy, so I’ll take him if he’s not a royalty.”

I roll my eyes. “Girls, can you hear yourselves?”The four of us, despite our flawless academic records, are far from being vixens. We just fail on that effortlessly.

Stella looks at me innocently. “What? We’ll just admire him from the distance, and then indulge the other half of the day imagining what would it be if I get the guts to approach him.”

Kate stifles a laugh. “Girls, time check, 7:25.”

My stomach clenches in response. “I’ll follow you later.”

“No!” the three say in chorus, pulling me out of the lavatory.

 

*   *   *

 

“Leighton Preparatory School is a wonderful arena for future leaders…” Headmistress Hansley’s voice drowns out as I maintain my eyes open, which I do while sitting on the folding chair stiffly straight. On my right, Kate recites the speech concurrently with the headmistress as she plays with her newly curled and highlighted hair.

The gym has been converted into an assembly hall for the day. Banners with the school colors purple, white and black is flung on every post available. Seventh graders, young and innocent as they are new, are seated in front. Twelfth graders like me, on the other hand, are placed at the back.  On either side of the podium, which is currently occupied by Ms. Hansley, is the national flag of Montvierre and the flag of Leighton Prep.

“Ugh, it would have been nice if she changed her opening speech for once,” Stella say to me under her breath, as she openly sigh and check her new French tips.

“I still haven’t seen the new boy,” Victoria whines.

“Who knows? Maybe Sophia and Lizzie returned to their horrid diet and hallucinated,” I say, then pretend to listen to the willowy, English woman with graying hair and hawk-like nose that can sniff at every trick that students at Leighton has pull off for the last decades or so.

That is what everyone is doing�"pretending. We are a sea of forcedly stiff puppets in pressed uniforms and unstable hormones. The seventh graders must be bored as are we. But then again, sitting on the front rows of the opening assembly as a high school student is exhilarating. I should know, as I am them five years ago. Now, sitting on the center aisle at the back seats with the rest of the twelfth graders, all I can think is making my father proud, and not screw anything up.

 “Factis non Verbis,” even I find myself saying the school motto with her, as the rest of the old students, “by deeds not words.” I can overhear some boys snickering at the back.

My phone vibrated. It is a notification of my messenger, and see Kate’s face with her last year’s haircut. Haven’t seen Blake yet.

This time, I sigh. I tap on the screen furiously. I don’t care.

Who am I kidding? Of course I care. Then again, like everything that I do with my life, I pretend I don’t care…with grace.

“You can’t pretend not caring, Brianna,” Kate whispers. “We all know you do.”

I glance warily at my back. Harriet and Tiffany seem to be engrossed with their respective phones to eavesdrop. Jack Nakada, my fellow staff at The Leighton who’s sitting two rows down mine, waves at me wildly with a huge grin on his face. I give him the briefest of smiles and face front. Unless he has the high frequency hearing of an X-man mutant, he can’t possibly overhear our conversation.

Still, I lean slightly to the right, and whisper back, “Cut it out, Kate. And for the record, I really don’t.”

“And now,” Headmistress Hansley says with a glint on her green eyes (which might have been a reflection on the sunlight with her spectacles), “students, we have your student council president Blake Almonte to orient you with the projects that the student council will be holding this semester.”

Victoria’s jaw drops and Stella freezes in shock, while Kate gives me an I-told-you-so as she joins in the collective applause of the student body.

I bring myself to clap with them, as I should. Some cast wary glances at me. Our break-up has been a hot topic over the summer. Heck, we have been a hot topic since last semester, when his father suddenly filed for candidacy and made him my father’s opponent for the presidential election. In the eyes of the student body of The Leighton School, we�"the best tennis player in the region and Leighton’s perfect good girl�"are the star-crossed lovers Shakespeare was supposed to have written, and not some Italian tweens name Romeo and Juliet.

I pretend I haven’t noticed their unveiled curiosity and maintain my nonchalant expression. Kate is right�"I do care. I do care that he looks way older than I have last seen him, that he cropped his hair short, that he has a deeper sun tan, and that his body grew bigger (which means he exerts more time in tennis than ever).

I’m in deep sh…ark.

The applause ceases. Blake nods, acknowledging the audience. “Thank you Headmistress Hansley. Good morning everyone. I’m Blake Almonte, your student council president. As you can see on the screens…” he goes on with enumerating the programs, no doubt planned by the whole student council. Blake always has this gift of leading. He always bring the people to follow him and work with him brilliantly while he treats them as an equal, and today is one of those examples. Too bad I’m the president’s daughter.

“He looks hot,” I hear someone whisper at the back, no doubt Harriet and Tiffany. I manage to control myself in shooting daggers at them.

“S**t, I owe Victoria a few bills,” Stella says.

I shoot her a look of puzzlement. “Why?”

Victoria smiles sheepishly. “We made a bet on the enrolment of Blake this school year…”

“Ah,” I try hard to appear disinterested, “I see.”

Victoria and Stella cower at my icy exterior.

“All the programs will be, uh, held in coordination with the school newsletter, The Leighton, headed by Chief Editor Brianna Covarrubias.”  It is the first time he stutters this morning, and for good reason.

I have to work with him for the rest of the semester.

I stand up with a diplomatic smile and nod politely at the sea of nameless students as I bask at their applause, and catch his cold gaze. I smile at him, ignoring the fact that he does not smile back.

Game on, buddy.