Hazel dropped her bags in front of Room 314, looking despairingly into the small room. For an elite academy, Ravenwood really didn't offer spectacular housing facilities. The room consisted of two beds, two desks, and a window with an unimpressive view of the classrooms. A girl with short, brown hair was sitting on one of the desks, facing away from Hazel.
"Hello?" Hazel called, wondering if she should go in or not. Despite it being her dorm room, she felt like she should wait for the other girl, her roommate, to notice her and invite her in.
The girl jumped up, obviously startled. "Oh!" She hurried to the door, stopping and smiling warmly at Hazel. "Hi there! You must be my roommate! Are you a senior too?" The girl's smile was so endearing, with her crooked teeth and hastily applied lipgloss, that she found herself smiling back as a reflex.
Hazel waved, albeit a little awkwardly. "Yup. I'm Hazel. Hazel Torres."
The girl stood back from the doorway, allowing Hazel to bring her luggage in. Her eyes sparkled with fun as she hoisted one of Hazel's bags up on her bed. "I'm Alexis. Call me Alex though. It's going to be so strange having a roommate. I had a single room last year."
"Oh, nice." Hazel kept her eyes on her bed, beginning to set up the sheets and blankets. She kicked a bag a little in an attempt to calm her nerves. Did that mean Alex didn't want a roommate? Was she going to think that Hazel was a pain?
Before she could torment herself with these thoughts any longer, Alex spoke up again from her place on her bed. "I think having a roommate's going to be super chill though. We can help each other with things, and I won't have to sneak out and risk being caught by a hall monitor when I need someone to help me with homework."
Hazel laughed, starting to loosen up. Alex seemed like a really easygoing and nice person. Maybe she could have some fun at Ravenwood after all.
"So what do you guys do for fun around here?" Hazel asked, gesturing to the hallway. She knelt down and started to unpack her clothes. She had brought so many clothes to the academy that she reckoned it would take at least an hour to put everything in properly. Or, she could put in everything haphazardly and it would be a pain trying to find anything for the rest of the month. That would take her less than fifteen minutes. With a shrug, she started shoving things into random drawers.
"There's a plaza down the road with a karaoke place, bowling, and a bunch of food. You'll get sick of academy food really fast, so you'll probably want to go down there in a bit. And I know the dorms look horrific, but the actual school has really nice facilities. Gym, pools, fields, lounge areas, you name it. There's also a student common room where we hold dances and things like that. It's pretty big, and it has vending machines and pool tables, so people tend to hang out there too."
Alex, Hazel noticed, had the tendency to talk really fast, like she was challenging herself to cram the most amount of words in the shortest amount of time. All her sentences sort of blended together, but Hazel understood the gist of it.
"The school's huge," Hazel replied, recalling the number of turns her taxi had taken just to get to the front of the school. "You have to show me around. I'm definitely going to get lost."
Alex perked up at that, swinging her legs over the bed and onto the floor. "You want to go now?"
"Now?" Hazel repeated.
"Yeah, why not?"
"Alright," Hazel smiled. She shoved the last few pieces of clothes into her overflowing drawer, and tried to close it. When it didn't close, she simply shrugged and kicked her suitcase under her bed. "Let's go."
Alex bounded eagerly in front of her. Even the dorm room area was huge, and Hazel resigned herself to getting lost many times before she could get used to this school. Once they were out of the dorm area, Alex took a sharp right and they found themselves in front of what Hazel presumed to be the common room.
The room was dimly lit, even in the middle of the day with bright sunlight pouring through the door. It looked small from where Hazel was standing, but a few steps forward confirmed that it was actually quite a large venue. A few students sat in small groups, huddled around pool tables or chatting around what seemed to be a small bar.
"You guys have a bar in there?" Hazel asked, trying to peer through the darkness. The group sitting there shot her a nasty look and she hastily turned away. "Are you allowed to drink?"
Alex laughed. "Technically, most seniors are eighteen, but that's not an alcohol bar. It's a nacho bar." She waved at someone she recognized in the bar, and gestured at her to come over. A tall, lanky boy around their age came over, his hair long and messy. He looked like the type of guy who would be fun to hang around with. He grinned at Hazel, nodding in acknowledgement.
"You're Alex's roommate, right?" he said, extending his hand. "I'm Noah."
Noah's grip was tight and warm. "Hazel," she said in return. "Cool common room you guys have."
"They poured all their money into this room and the gym." Noah rolled his eyes. "And now the classes are tiny and ugly."
Alex chuckled. "C'mon, I'll show you the gym. Noah, you wanna come with?"
"Sure," Noah agreed, falling into step beside them. "We can even show Hazel a quick peek of the prince of this school."
Hazel laughed. "What do you mean, 'prince'? Does he rule the school or something?"
"Just about. He's the dean's son, so he can get away with anything. No one's going to expel the dean's son, you know? Also, he's football captain. Our football team here is super good. They win all their games, so the school's really focused on them because they bring 'glory' to the school or whatever. And Sebastian Reid is also football captain, so he's a double threat. Ravenwood's board would rather bite off their own arms rather than kick out their star pupil."
"No kidding?" Hazel scoffed. "What does he get away with?"
"Parties, drugs, alcohol, you name it," Alex jumped in. "He gets caught all the time, too. Doesn't even bother hiding. A teacher will catch him and sentence him to a few weeks of detention and that's it."
"Well, is he at least… nice?"
"Nice? Dude has a freaking god complex. Probably thinks that we're scum below his feet. I don't think I've ever talked to him, much less had a whole conversation. Come to think of it, I might not even have ever made eye contact with him. When people let you get away with everything, that happens to a person." Alex gestured towards the boys locker rooms. "There's a shortcut to the bleachers through here." At Noah's disapproving glance, she clucked her tongue. "Oh, don't be such a baby Noah. It's just a locker room. No one's in there anyway, volleyball practice finished hours ago. And the football boys won't be in for ages."
"Fine," Noah conceded. The trio moved into the empty locker room, and Alex led the way to a door at the far right. "Alex, tell her about the Spring Fling disaster."
Alex giggled, her laugh echoing through the locker room. "Oh my god, Hazel, you have to hear this. Basically, a few hours after the Spring Fling party, Reid and his cronies were having their own thing in his house as usual and—"
"Wait, his house?" Hazel interrupted. "He has a whole house here?"
"Oh yeah. He lives with his father, the dean, remember? Their house is humongous and oh so gorgeous. I'll point it out on the way back. Anyways, they were throwing their own party and a bunch of people were there. I think Reid had ordered this new, totally exotic drug to try with his friends and they were all joking around and snorting the stuff when campus police arrived. They were called for a complaint of excessive noise by one of the teachers, but they discovered the drugs. Most of Reid's close friends had managed to leave the room and feign that they were sober, but everyone else in the room with Reid got expelled. Except him, obviously. I think the statement that they released was something about how one of the expelled students had gotten hold of the drugs, and Reid wasn't even involved. Utter BS," Alex barked out a laugh. "Everyone knew it was his, but no one said anything. And the king got off scot-free!"
"I hate him already," Hazel declared. "He sounds shallow."
Alex shook her head wisely. "Ah, you say that now Hazel, but just wait till you see him. He may be arrogant, but his looks make up for it. He's a pretty boy, through and through. Floppy black hair, dreamy green eyes, everything." She pointed at the door. "If we just go through here, then—"
"Hey! What are you people doing here?!"
Hazel turned around slowly, berating herself for getting in trouble already on the very first day of a new school. "I'm sorry—"
Her voice died as she found herself face to face with a boy who was most definitely Sebastian Reid.