“You're late,” was the greeting I got as I met Daniel.

“I have just been through an unwanted sermon, an old person who may or may not have insinuated that I'm crazy and a call from my father whom I miss like mad, so if you don't want me to smother you I suggest you choose your next words very carefully.”

I was very tired and suddenly depressed so the last thing I needed was smart talk from the new boy. Even though I greatly enjoyed the sound of his voice.

“All that because I said you were late? Gee, I'm sorry.”

I knew I was well and truly exhausted when tears popped into my eyes at his apology. I tended to lose my handle on my emotions whenever I was tired.

I was pretty sure Daniel noticed because he came closer with this frown on his face. “Are you ok?”

“I'm fine,” I betrayed my words by sniffling.

“You don't look fine, was it something I said?”

The concern in his voice broke what little control I had and a tear trickled down.

I caught it with my finger and shook my head. “I'm just exhausted, that's all,” I said, putting my brave face back on.

“Good, because I'd feel terrible if something I said made you cry. That'd be twice in one day I've done something out of character.”

Despite myself, I laughed. “Why are you still wearing that?” I gestured toward the infamous yellow hoodie jacket he had on over a black T-shirt with the words ‘don't ask me, do I look like Google?’.

“Well, I like it and I find that it infuriates you.”

I scoffed and rolled my eyes. “No it doesn't and you really don't want to annoy me.”

“Yes it does and I think I do,” he replied with a smirk.

“Really? And how do you know that it infuriates me?” I folded my arms.

“I'm good at reading people and if you think I'm wrong, lie and say you wouldn't like to set it on fire.”

I knew he was testing me and it would be foolish to continue whatever we were going back and forth about so I told him what he wanted to hear which also happened to be the truth. “Fine, you win. Let's just go.”

I turned around and started towards the school.

“Would you like me to carry you?”

“Shut up.”

The light from the sky was gradually draining and the lights from the school were already starting to turn on.

Brightway International was comprised of three impressive buildings structured in the form of the letter ‘U’ with a covered walkway connecting all of them. The hands of the ‘U’ faced a giant football field with a track around it we used for sports and in front of the field was the pavilion where parents observed during InterHouse Sports and the swimming arena.

We'd gotten on the walkway and we were making our way to the Senior block.

“Well, I don't know how to start other than, welcome to The Academy of Lost Souls,” I announced with a flourish of my hand.

“The what now?” Daniel chuckled.

“Oh, it's just what I call our school when no one's around to hear me.”

“And why in God's name would you need to?”

“Because that's the truth. I have this theory that this place is where people with enough money bring their recalcitrant, ne'er-do-well children or wards in an effort to buy them a second chance.”

“Really? And I suppose you've backed this theory of yours with actual evidence?”

“Of course, I have,” I said in a ‘duh’ tone.

“Of course you have,” he whispered.

“As a prime example, let's take you,” I started as we reached the Senior block that held the classes for the Senior students. The hallway was lit with white lights fixed to the ceiling. “These are the classrooms, by the way, not many rules associated with them so I'll just skip ahead. Back to my theory, why are you here?”

He shrugged. “I don't know but that's a good question though. Why are any of us here? What is the purpose of life? What are we —”

“No, no, no, you idiot,” I facepalmed myself. “I meant what are you doing here? As in, in this school, here, right now.”

“Oh,” he said in realization. “I may or may not have set my former principal's car on fire back in Florida.”

“What?” I asked, shocked to my core.

“Allegedly,” he added and winked.

This new piece of information confirmed the fact that he was trouble and I had to admit that a part of me was disappointed because to save myself I had to stay away from him just as I was growing to love the sound of his voice.

“And your parents decided to ship you down here of all places?”

“My parents? Yeah right. More like just Father.”

“And why here? Why Nigeria?”

He looked at me like I was a baby that just said her first word. “I was born here, hon, spent three years before my father moved to the States, though I don't really remember much.”

“And what would Daddy be? A politician? Former Senator? Drug baron? We have those.”

“No. No. Definitely not a drug baron, but he does own a bunch of pharmaceutical companies up and down the planet.”

“Ah! Plain old rich guy who wants the best for his kid. We haven't had plenty of children of those here in a while, it's refreshing actually.”

“Ok, wise guy, what about you? Why are you here?”

“In this school or on Earth? Because I can only answer one of those.”

By using his own line on him I had managed to coax out an actual laugh from him instead of one of his annoying smirks.

“No, you idiot, I mean in this school. Obviously.”

“Well,” I intertwined my fingers. “I've been here since the beginning of my secondary school. My dad sits on the board of the school so I guess I had no choice.”

“If there's one thing I've learned is that you always have a choice,” Daniel shot me a meaningful look.

I shook my head. “Believe me, I had no choice.”

The memory of begging my parents not to send me to a boarding school, being driven here against my will, and all the tears I'd shed on the first day at being abandoned came flooding back as we fell into a comfortable silence.

We'd reached the Administrative Building by this time. The crickets were out in full swing and their songs filled the air.

“This is the Administrative Building. It has all the offices of the teachers, the labs, and pretty much everything other than the classrooms. Let's go upstairs.”

I was about to climb the stairs when I looked beside me and found that Daniel was no longer with me. A quick glance showed he was admiring something at the far corner of the foyer-like ground floor of the Administrative Building.

Walking over I found he was admiring the painting of a mermaid with white hair, brown skin, and an iridescent tail leaning on a rock and wistfully staring at the setting sun that was illuminated under a fluorescent bulb.

“Wow! Would you look at this? I love how perfectly the scene was captured, it almost looks like a photo.”

“It's not that great and what would you know about paintings?”

Daniel turned to me with an incredulous look on his face. “Are you insane? I might not know much about paintings but I know a lot about beautiful things. Whoever painted this is wicked talented.”

Blood rushed into my cheeks and I looked away.

“Do you know who painted it?”

I nodded. “I did.”

“No way!”

I nodded again and pointed to the lower right-hand corner where I'd signed my name.

He bent over and squinted at it. “Huh. You really did paint it, huh?”

I felt like my face was on fire. I knew it was red and silently cursed my light skin. I wasn't used to people complimenting my paintings. The school had this one up for five years and no one even spared it a glance — not that I knew of anyways. But what was I expecting truthfully?

“It looks beautiful, Mara, you don't mind if I call you that, do you?”

I frowned. “It means bitterness, I mind very much.”

He looked thoughtful for a minute. “But I like it, so, Mara it is.”

I shook my head. I could never win with this guy.

He'd turned back to the painting. “You know, just looking at you one would never know you have such talent within you, what with those bug eyes of yours, no offense.”

But it was already too late. I was slightly offended.

“Offense taken,” I said and adjusted my glasses.

If I was given a chance to change one thing about myself I would change my eyes. I'd keep their light brown colour but I'd reduce their size considerably. I was pretty insecure about how big they were in addition to being hopelessly shortsighted and to hear Daniel — a total stranger no less — point it out depressed me further.

“I didn't mean anything by it. I love your eyes, honestly.”

“You have a strange way of showing it. Come on, let me finish this damn tour and go and sleep, jare.”

This time making sure that Daniel was right beside me, I took the stairs up, tracing my fingers on the sliver banister.

The second floor was divided into two long hallways with an additional two sneaking off them and provided a good view of the two blocks of classrooms.

I stood in front of one hallway and gestured down. “These are the teachers' offices. They're open to you twenty-four-seven.”

“Really?” Daniel asked like I'd just told him something immensely interesting.

“Yes, why else would I say it if it wasn't true?”

Before I could stop him, Daniel walked past me and tried one of the doors. It wouldn't budge. “I don't know, seems pretty locked to me.”

“Do you take everything literally?”

He shrugged as another smirk lit up his face.

“Well, I don't need your answer because we are officially done with this tour. Have a nice stay at Brightway International.”

His effervescive face lost some of its light at my words.

“Are you ok?”

He nodded. “I guess it's just hitting me the fact that I'm not home anymore and I can't just get up and go. I mean, I can but where would I go?”

I chuckled. “You can't just leave this place, it's kind of like a prison, except in addition to serving a sentence, you get exams too.”

There was that look from him again. Like I was the most adorable naïve human on planet Earth. “You don't know who you're talking to, hon. Yours truly ran away from military school, I'd say this is a piece of cake.”

“You ran away from military school?”

It seemed like the more I knew about this boy the more mysterious he got and the more I needed to stay away from him. Because mysterious boys with questionable pasts and dreamy voices would do nothing but wreck my plans.

“I didn't run away as much as they kicked me out. I'd say it's a bit of both but who needs technicalities, am I right?”

At this point, I had no idea what he was blabbering on about but I knew I had to help him decide to stay. If I didn't say something and he did something stupid and got hurt, I wouldn't be able to live with myself knowing that I could've helped.

“Come with me, I have something to show you.”

He only knitted his eyebrows but he did as he was told.

I lead him to the back of the buildings we were previously touring to where a squat one-story building lay alone amid a garden with scented flowers filling the cool evening air with their perfume.

“Welcome to the Quad. It's my favorite place in this entire school.”

The brown door that lead inside was never locked so it was easy to access day or night.

It was empty at this time of night because most of the students were probably getting ready for dinner and a welcome address from the house masters and mistresses.

It was the recreational center for students. There was a table tennis table, board games, and a marker board. There were comfortable sofas and tables peppered around the room and even a projector where we'd all watch appropriate movies.

“Do you know what I love most about this place?” I asked Daniel as I moved further inside.

“What?” He was pretty occupied taking the place in.

“The glass ceiling!”

The Quad's entire ceiling was made of glass so the sky was more than visible. It was a bitch in daylight because the constructors forgot this was Nigeria and the sun was always angry with us — but I'd figured out it was also a smart choice to keep students from relaxing here during the daytime when they were supposed to be in class.

At night it gave a full view of the stars and I would come here with a book in hand whenever I had a really bad nightmare. I'd never come here with anyone at night.

I lay on the red carpet in the middle of the room and grabbed a red throw pillow to support my head. I patted the space beside me and Daniel followed suit. He smelled like fresh mint.

“I come here whenever I feel like the world has let me down. The quiet is good.”

“Are you gonna give me the ‘this is what's best for you, Daniel’ speech?”

His voice was so close to my ear that it sent involuntary shivers down my body. If I'd turned my head we'd have bumped noses, I told myself I wouldn't do that but I ended up ignoring all the warnings.

Turning my head I found he was already staring at me. His deep brown eyes reflected the twinkling stars and my breath hitched at how pretty the sight was.

“Of course not. I'm in no position to give you any speech. But I will tell you that, yes, at this point I believe you can find a way to leave if you wanted to.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” he smirked.

“I'm not going to stop you from leaving but I have to ask you to give this place a chance. It's not too bad, I assure you. Just stay at least a week.”

“A week?”

I nodded. “Just a week. If by the end of that you haven't found one or two reasons to stay then you're free to find your way out.”

“I'm sure that wouldn't be too hard.”

As I stared into his eyes I felt the cord between us tighten and I realized that staying away from him would be harder than I first thought.

Whether I liked it or not, I was stuck with Daniel Wells.

And I found I liked it.