Silver Beads Bracelet

Ariella saw that boy with beguiling turquoise eyes in front of her whom she had never seen before in her school. Probably because their school had numerous students but by looking at his uniform, she guessed that he was her senior. Ariella saw him walking closer towards her.

“What happened?” She asked him, confused as to why he stopped her all of a sudden when she was already getting late for her class.

“Actually your skirt…” he sounded a bit hesitant. His words turned her more bewildered.

“Your skirt has some stains on it,” he cleared her confusion and it enlarged her gaze. Ariella immediately turned her head around and started looking at her white skirt’s back which had some deep red stains of blood on it. Probably because she continued to sit on the bathroom’s floor for more than five minutes. She didn’t even pay attention to it in her rush of getting to her class. Tears immediately invaded her eyes, both in embarrassment and panic. This had never happened to her before.

“Hey! It’s okay,” she heard that boy telling her who was still standing in front of her. Ariella looked at him through her watery eyes and found him staring at her worriedly.

“Do you want me to call someone for you?” he asked her. Ariella shook her head while wiping her eyes. 

“Then I guess, you can change your skirt. It won’t be a big deal,” he uttered but she again shook her head.

“I don’t have my extra pair of uniform with me today,” she told him. This day was really against her. She always kept an extra pair of uniform in her locker for emergencies like this but she had taken her extra uniform back home a couple of days ago to wash it and forgot to bring it back. Now what was she going to do now? Extremely paranoid and panicked, Ariella didn’t even get the idea of calling someone for help.

“If you don’t mind, I can help you,” she heard that boy telling her. His words untidy her until she saw him opening his shirt which widened her eyes. What was he doing? Ariella saw him removing his shirt and then he extended it towards her. Luckily, he was wearing an undershirt.

“You can wrap it around your waist. This will surely cover up your back,” he said to her. Ariella turned stunned.

“But you can’t roam here like this,” she said to him, pointing towards the obvious. If anyone in the school caught him roaming in his undershirt then he would surely get in serious trouble for it.

“Don’t worry. I have an extra pair of uniforms in my locker. I will wear it,” his words now made sense to her but still…how could he take such kind of risk for her? What if someone caught him like this?

“Just take it. Don’t think too much,” Ariella found him wrapping his shirt around her waist and tying it. 

“Now you are covered,” he said to her. Ariella saw a tender smile forming on his face. Her heart felt utterly grateful to him in that moment for that beautiful gesture of his.

Stepping closer to him, Ariella touched his palm in a friendly manner where she saw a bracelet, which was encrusted with some silver beads and with an initial E, wrapped around his wrist.

“Thank you very much for your help,” she said to him and then let go of his hand. 

“Thank you,” she uttered and was about to turn around when her eyes fell on his chest which was slightly visible through his undershirt where Ariella saw a white bandage on his chest but that time she didn’t pay much attention towards it as she was already getting late for her class.

“Bye,” she passed him a soft smile of hers and then twirled around to run away from there, unaware his gaze remained fixed at her retracting figure.

Taking his eyes down, he looked at his hand where she had touched him. Lifting his hand up, he pressed his lips against that same exact spot where his skin had gotten blessed with her celestial touch.

“Ella…..” he breathed out, darting his gaze back in that direction where she had faded.

Ariella reached her class while panting heavily. She swallowed, seeing professor Jace already available inside the class who was teaching. She looked at her wrist watch which told her that she was twenty minutes late for her class. Gathering her courage, she stepped forward and knocked at her classroom’s door.

“May I come in, Professor?” she asked which gained everyone’s attention, including Professor Jace who analysed her appearance and his brows furrowed, seeing that shirt which was wrapped around her waist and was looking inappropriate on her uniform.

“No, you can’t come in,” he said to her in his strict tone which turned Ariella more nervous.

“Don’t disturb my class. You can leave now,” he uttered. 

“But Professor, my assignment….” 

“Your assignment will be submitted only when you would call your parents here to meet me,” 

Ariella felt extremely embarrassed as he started scolding her in front of the entire class and didn’t even let her explain herself for coming late and didn’t even let her step inside his classroom.

“Now out. Don’t waste my and my class's time,” he spat at her and it was enough for Ariella to tear up because she was a really very introverted kind of person, so getting scolded by her teacher in front of the entire class hurt her a lot. She felt humiliated, especially when he didn’t even give her a chance to explain herself.

Turning around, Ariella stormed out of her classroom while wiping her eyes which made that person clench his fists who was standing outside the window of her classroom and had witnessed everything. His turquoise gaze filled with a lethal malice when he saw those tears emerging in her eyes. Trailing his eyes back at professor Jace, he clenched his jaw. He could never spare that person who would even think about hurting his Ella, let alone making her cry.

………..

“Ssssh…Arie, calm down, my baby. I will talk to your professor. I am coming there in an hour,” Ariella heard her mother telling her. After running out of her classroom, she came to her school’s garden and immediately called her mother to tell her everything that had happened. How her professor didn’t accept her assignment and didn’t even listen to her side of the story.

“I and your dad, we both will be there in an hour. Don’t cry please,” Ariella came from a very famous and financially strong background. Her mother, Verena Kayzon and her father, Eliseo Kay, they both ran a very successful business of jewellery designs in their entire country together. Her family was quite famous in their country but Ariella had always refused to stay in the limelight because her goals and aims were different from her family. She wanted to be a dancer and a singer as she loved doing it and her parents had always supported and respected her decisions.

“Okay, mum. Bye,” she hung up the call and then exhaled a very heavy sigh. She looked at the time on her phone and now her other class was about to begin. She even skipped her second class which was after Professor Jace’s class as she was feeling extremely down but she could not skip anymore classes.

Getting up from the garden’s bench, she felt that shirt around her waist loosening a bit. She looked down towards it and tightened its knot. Automatically her mood started lightening up when she remembered how that stranger senior of hers helped her. She didn’t even get to ask him about his name and she didn’t even know whether she was going to meet him again or not in that huge school of theirs where she didn’t even know from which discipline or from which section of class he belonged. Exhaling softly, she walked away from there to go to her classroom.

Ariella was striding towards her classroom when she suddenly heard some kind of loud whispers which were coming from the school’s main ground. She looked in that direction and saw some students gathering there. Curious, she also walked there.

“Oh…no. How did this happen?”

“Who did this?” 

Ariella heard the students panicking. She entered into the crowd and her blood ran cold, seeing that scenario in front of her. Professor Jace’s body was laying on the ground with a pool of blood around him which was coming out from different parts of his body. That scenario horrified her, like everyone else.

No student dared to get closer to his body, including Ariella who had turned into a statue, both in horror and shock. How could this be possible? She had just seen him and talked to him an hour ago then how?

Tears shimmered in her eyes but suddenly her gaze caught something on professor Jace's hand which numbed her soul. He was clutching that same exact bracelet of silver beads which she had seen in the wrist of that senior of hers and that bracelet was looking broken now, like Professor Jace had tried to snatch it from someone before he lost his life. 

Could it be possible that it was him who did this to professor Jace? That mere thought froze her soul in pure terror.