Chapter 1: Lilli POV

“How would you like your hair styled for tonight miss?” asks Trish my maid, as she brushes my long hair with a tenderness that, allows me to relax into her touch.

I am sat at my dressing table, after a hot shower and preparing for the most nerve-racking night I have ever experienced.

“Just the usual please Trish, nothing fancy as it's going to be covered by my mask anyway, so the tighter to my head the better, oh, and probably be best to tame my fringe into it as well”.

“Very good miss”, she replies, and she studiously starts to plait my long, golden, ankle-length hair. Starting from the right and following the curve of my head, so that when fully plaited, it can be wound in a bun at the back to hide it.

While she styles my hair, I sit back and close my eyes, thinking of the night ahead.

I am going to a school reunion, that has been arranged for the people, that I went to school with between age 12 and 15, of course they would have stuck it out until 18, however, I was pulled out and sent to a finishing school for those last three years.

Thinking about those years away, from everything and everyone that was so familiar and comforting to me, still hurts.

I was angry with my parents for a long time, but at 22, I am putting it behind me and moving forward.

Receiving the invite was a huge surprise and the theme is ‘masquerade’, so realising that I would be able to mingle and not have to reveal myself immediately, has me excited.

Then, I think of ‘him’, my best and only friend in the whole world, and thinking that ‘he’ might be there tonight, my heart starts to pound in anticipation. I haven't seen him in 7 years and Drake Thorn has been on my mind every day.

We were inseparable back then and we looked out for each other too, he was picked on by the other kids a lot, so my friendship helped him build his self-confidence.

As that thought comes to my mind, I get a sudden flash of memory of my first day of school and the inevitable meeting which took place that day; 

**** Flashback ****

“Lilliana, you’re going to be late! Get down here already!”

Oh no that’s the third time mum has called me.

“I know, but I can’t find my other shoe!”

I call back to her and then realise she can’t hear me because she is using the intercom.

Oh, jeez where can it be?

It’s not under my bed or in the shoe cupboard or the bathroom. I’ve checked all around my room and it’s nowhere to be seen.

Maybe I should check under the bed again?

I kneel and stick my head under the bed.

“Miss Lilliana?” I hear Trish’s voice behind me suddenly, making me jump, and I hit my head on the underside of the bed.

“Ouch!” I exclaim, rubbing my head as I back out. “Ooh that’s going to leave a mark”.

“I’m sorry miss, I didn’t mean to startle you”.

“It’s okay Trish, I have a hard head after all.”

I smile at her and I suddenly spot what she has in her hand, “My shoe! Wherever did you find it?” I say, rushing over to her, the smile on my face now a huge grin.

“It was in the kitchen, near the back door”, she says smiling back to me and bending slightly to hand me my shoe, so I can put it on.

How on earth did it get down there?

I wonder briefly to myself.

“Thank you, Trish, you’re amazing, there was no way I could’ve gone to school without my favourite trainers on.”

I beam up at her, just as my mum calls out to me again and now, she is getting angry, I can hear it in her voice.

“Oops, I better get going, bye Trish.”

“Have a good day miss.”

She calls as I race down the hallway to the spiral stairs.

As I am in a rush and the stairs are so long, I hop onto the banister and slide down it. It's much faster than running down them all and I land at the bottom in front of my parents, just moments later.

“Lilliana honestly, you know I don’t like it when you slide down the banister like that. One of these days you could fall and hurt yourself” mum sighs, as I hug her tightly.

“I know mum, I'm sorry, but it’s so much faster”.

That gets a laugh from my dad.

“Well at least there is a logical reason, now off you go, you don’t want to be late on your first day. You begged us for so long, to be allowed to attend a public school, better be on time. We will see you later, okay”.

He pulls me in for a hug and I squeeze his waist tightly before letting go and running to meet Claude.

Claude is my driver and bodyguard, my dad hired him to look after me when I turned six and we have grown very close. He is more like my uncle, than an employee and that helps me feel more like everyone else, which is what I want.

He has pulled up in the driveway, in the cheapest car my parents own, it’s an attempt to hide the family wealth, just as I begged him to do.

I hop into the back seat and after putting on my seatbelt, I turn to wave to my parents as Claude drives out of the gates. I am so excited I can barely sit still; this will be the first time, I have been able to socialise with other kids my age. My parents would call their families working class or common, I just want to be more like them, being as rich as we are, has set me apart from everyone else and it is very lonely.

I have always been home schooled up to now, but finally my parents gave in to my pleading and I think my tutor told them I needed to socialise with kids my own age, or something like that. Either way, I don’t care why they said yes, only that they agreed.

As we pull up to the school, I grab my bag and get out before Claude can. I don't want him to open my door for me. It would be too obvious, that I come from money if he did, so I thank him through an open window, tell him I will see him when I finish and wave him on his way. He gives me a smile before he drives off, then I turn and walk onto the school grounds, taking in everything around me.

Through the large iron gates, there is a huge courtyard type area for the kids to gather on and grassy areas to sit, with a few trees for shelter. The school itself, is a middle size building, but big enough for its purpose and there are kids, everywhere I look, with a few teachers mingling amongst them.

A few look over to me, but most ignore me and carry on hanging out with their own friends. I walk until I find a quiet area to sit and observe, without getting in anyone’s way. I don’t know how I should approach them, and I don't want to embarrass myself. But, as I'm sitting there, I notice a group of about four boys, stood out of sight of the teachers.

As I watch, I notice they are standing around a fifth, smaller boy and I can see he is not happy, that they are there with him. One of the larger boys, pushes him to the ground and kicks him, making the other boys laugh, then another boy grabs his bag and empties the contents on the ground. I can’t hear them, but I can see everything, it makes me ball my hands into fists and before I can think about it, my anger drives me to run over and stop them.

I'm not exactly the type of girl you would expect to be fighting off four boys at once, they are larger and heavier than I am, but seeing them picking on a boy who is smaller, makes me forget my own weaknesses. I charge in and, as soon as I reach them, I shout.

“Hey! Leave him alone!” I then launch myself at each one, kicking at their ankles and elbowing them in the ribs.

They can’t quite get over the shock of my appearance and without fighting back they turn and run, leaving me alone with the boy. I watch them go with my back to the boy and my hands on my hips, to be sure that they don’t change their minds and come back, and then I turn to speak to the boy.

“It’s okay now they’re gone, your safe.” I make sure to smile as I hold my hand out to him. “My name is Lilli, what’s yours?”

He looks up at me from where he is sat on the floor, and I am suddenly face to face, with the most startling blue eyes I have ever seen. They are the colour of the clearest sky and have a piercing look, which has me pinned. In them I can see a mixture of fear and wariness, but there’s a great sadness too. He has dark, jet black hair, cut to a short style but still with some length on top and his fringe falls into his eyes, it hides them when he looks down. He is skinny and scrawny with a drawn look and his eyes seem to stick out, from his too thin face.

Looking at him, I remain frozen in place, I'm still smiling but I can’t seem to stop staring at him, he draws me in. I instantly feel a connection that I want to explore and understand better, my only hope, is that he wants to be friends and isn’t upset that I interfered before. I attempt to make things less awkward for us both by apologising.

“Um, sorry if I overstepped, but I had to do something. Do you wanna be friends?”

                                                ***End of Flashback***