Chapter 2
1442 Words
2: Aidan’s POV
The Headmistress’s office didn’t just smell like expensive leather; it smelled like the kind of wealth that had been sitting in the same spot for three generations.
Mrs. Crawford, the headmistress, didn’t sit down.
She stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, her silhouette sharp against the morning sun, looking out at the sprawling green campus she ruled with what I heard was an iron fist.
Auerlian heights was more than a school; it was an ecosystem of influence, and she was the apex predator.
I sat on the edge of a velvet chair.
I tucked my hands under my thighs, pressing them against the underside of the seat to hide the fact that they were now trembling.
First day here and I’m already in trouble.
How was I going to explain this to Mom?
I could see her face—the tired lines around her eyes, the way she’d spent all summer working overtime shifts just so I could have the right blazer and the right shoes.
She would have been so disappointed.
"Aidan Green," she said. Her voice didn't carry warmth; it carried the thin, stinging precision of a paper cut.
She finally turned, her movements slow and deliberate. Her eyes scanned me with a clinical kind of disgust, as if she were inspecting a smudge on a white shirt.
“Ye…yes, ma’am,” I stammered.
“I spent my morning reviewing your academic record,” she began, pacing toward her mahogany desk.
Each click of her heels on the hardwood floor sounded like a countdown.
“Yes, ma’am”
“It’s quite impressive. Top of your class at your previous institution, perfect scores in mathematics, and a personal essay that apparently moved the board to tears. They called you a 'shining light from a neglected corner of the city.'”
I swallowed hard, my throat feeling like it was lined with sandpaper.
"Thank you, ma'am."
"Don't thank me," she snapped.
I flinched, my shoulders hunching toward my ears.
I felt a familiar heat of embarrassment crawling up my neck.
What did I do this time? Being smart was supposed to be my shield, but here, it felt like it had just made me a more visible target.
“Sorry for thanking you?” I whispered, the words sounding ridiculous as soon as they left my mouth.
She didn't find it funny.
She walked around the desk, leaning over me until I was trapped in her shadow.
I could see the fine lines of age around her mouth, frozen into a permanent sneer of disapproval.
The air between us felt heavy with the weight of things left unsaid.
"Do you know how many students applied for the Aurelian Scholarship this year, Aidan?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Three thousand. Three thousand students from families who would have given everything—their homes, their legacies, their very souls to have their child sitting in that seat."
She tapped the velvet chair I was currently occupying.
"Children who understand the value of the air they breathe in these halls."
"I know, ma'am. I’m grateful for the oppor……”
"Grateful?" she interrupted, her voice dropping to a low hiss that made the hair on my arms stand up. "You’ve been on this campus for less than thirty minutes and you’ve already started a public altercation with my grandson."
Started?
What the hell did I start?
"He was the one who stepped on my notebook," I argued. The injustice of it briefly overrode my fear, a spark of stubbornness lighting up in my chest. "He was the one who insulted me. He called me…..”
“I DO NOT CARE!”
“Huh?”
"Let me be very clear with you, Aidan. You are here as a gesture of goodwill. You are a 'diversity' metric for our annual report.." She leaned in closer, "A charity case designed to make our donors feel like they are saving the world”
“But he started it,” I insisted, though my voice was becoming smaller, drowning in the sheer scale of her authority.
"Ethan is a legacy. He is the future of this institution, a bloodline that has funded these libraries and these labs for a century. You? You are a line on a tax return. If I hear your name mentioned in a disciplinary report again, your scholarship is revoked. I will personally see to it that you are back in that 'neglected corner' by sunset. Am I clear?"
All of this? Because of some arrogant i***t who couldn't help but bully me?
Because I dared to defend the only things I owned?
"Yes, ma'am," I whispered. My face was burning with a shame so hot.
It wasn't just the threat; it was the realization that I wasn't a student here.
I was a guest who was being told to stay in the basement.
"Good. Get to your classes. You’re already late, and I despise tardiness as much as I despise insolence."
“Yes, ma’am.”
I scrambled out of the chair, my legs feeling like lead.
I was halfway to the door, desperate for the oxygen of the hallway, when her voice cut through the room one last time.
“And Aidan?”
I stopped, my hand on the heavy brass handle. “Yes?”
“Stay away from Ethan. You are at the bottom of the food chain here. Try not to make yourself a target. It’s a long way down if you fall.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I practically dove out of the office, the heavy oak door clicking shut behind me with a finality that felt like a prison cell locking.
I leaned against the cool wall for a second, my lungs burning as if I’d just run a relentless marathon.
My vision blurred for a moment.
I felt small. Smaller than I’d felt when Weston dumped me but that had been a heartbreak, but this was different.
This was being told that my entire existence was a footnote in someone else's story.
"She’s a real ray of sunshine, isn't she? A regular Mary Poppins."
I jumped, nearly hitting my head against the wall. I hadn't even noticed I wasn't alone.
Leaning against a pillar across the hall was a guy who looked like he’d stepped directly off a movie poster or a high-end fashion catalog.
He had perfectly styled brown hair that caught the light from the clerestory windows, looking like it cost more to maintain than my mom’s monthly rent.
His uniform was tailored to perfection, and he wore his tie with a looseness that suggested he didn't fear the Headmistress in the slightest.
"Who are you?" I wiped my eyes quickly with the back of my hand, praying that I didn't look like I was about to cry.
I couldn't handle another witness to my humiliation.
"Damian Vae," he said, pushing off the wall with a graceful, feline movement.
He walked toward me, his hands shoved casually into his pockets. "And I saw the courtyard show. Bold move, scholarship. Nobody’s called Ethan a prick in ages. Mostly because nobody likes stating the obvious."
"I’m going to get expelled if I do that again apparently," I muttered, hugging my backpack to my chest like a shield. "She made it very clear where I stand."
"At the bottom?”
That word stung and I visibly recoiled a little.
“Yeah”
“Yeah, the old hag likes that metaphor. Sorry about that. Simply the game of elite school politics" Damian said.
He stopped right in front of me, invading my personal space in a way that was entirely different from Ethan.
Ethan had been aggressive, a physical threat.
Damian was... observant. He looked at me like I was a puzzle he was interested in solving.
“I don’t want to play any games.I just want to graduate in peace and get out of here,” I said, my voice shaking with a mix of anger and exhaustion.
Damian chuckled.
"Too late for that, scholarship. You’ve already been noticed."
“It’s Aidan,” I corrected him, trying to reclaim some small shred of my identity.
“Well, Aidan, pleasure to meet you. I’ll see you around. Try to stay alive until lunch, okay? The sharks get hungrier as the day goes on."
He turned and strolled down the hall. He walked with the easy gait of someone who owned the air he breathed.
Almost immediately, a group of girls in pleated skirts swarmed him, chirping his name, but he didn't stop.
He looked back over his shoulder one last time, winked at me and disappeared around the corner.
- Writer
