Under the Same Sky [BOYXBOY]

CHAPTER 18

Noel walked out of the headmistress's office and hang about the dark hallway. He kept casting anxious glances at the closed door as he waited for Jayden to come out.

He was worried and he couldn't help it. What could the headmistress need to talk to Jayden about? He just hoped he wasn't in trouble.

Victoria Mills soon came down the hallway and Noel quickly stepped aside for her to pass. She walked up and instead of passing by, to his surprise and nervousness, she stopped by him. Her beautiful face resembled an ice sculpture as she studied him closely and Noel was once again struck by the uncanny resemblance between Jayden and his mother.

He shifted nervously under her penetrating stare and wondered what she wanted from him.

'You are Noel?' she asked in an elegant and cool voice.

Noel nodded though he had a hunch she already knew this and much more.

Her gaze became curious as she glanced up and down at him. 'My son seems to really like you. Why?'

Noel bit his lips and shrugged. 'I really don't know. He has been there for me since the very first day and stood up for me more times than I can count. I don't even know if I deserve it.'

Her face was expressionless. 'Why?'

Noel glanced down. 'We are from different worlds. I am a scholarship kid and I'm sure he only stays with me because of charity or feels compelled to.'

Victoria frowned slightly at him and sat down in one of the chairs lining the hallway.

'Sit,' she ordered.

Noel blinked in surprise and glanced unsurely at the chair next to her. He hesitated before obeying, staring fixedly at his knees after doing so.

'I've known Jayden his whole life. He is many things but charitable is not one of them.'

Noel stared up at her.

'Have you ever known him to do anything because he was forced to? He never does anything he doesn't want to, much to my everlasting regret.'

Noel nodded slowly but frowned. 'Why are you telling me this?'

'Because,' she paused, an amused smile appearing on her face. 'I was also a scholarship kid.'

Noel's mouth parted in surprise. 'Yo...you?'

'Shocking, isn't it?'

She sighed. 'I wasn't born into wealth or a powerful family. I wasn't even born to a middle-class one. We were seven children in a little hovel in the slums of the capital. I was the middle child, always ignored and left to take care of my siblings.

'My father was a drunkard and my mother a whore, not by necessity but by choice. My father drank all night and slept all day whiles my mother was rarely home. She was out whoring herself, leaving me to take care of her children. She never used the money to feed us either, preferring to spend it on drugs. I had to beg in the streets for food and if that was unsuccessful, I would scavenge in the trash with the rats, scuffling with them for whatever little food we could find.'

She turned to Noel. 'Do you know why I am telling you this?'

He shook his head, too shocked to reply.

'To show you that our circumstances don't define us. I left home at the age of twelve because I knew that if I remained I would never be able to shake off that life, continuing that vicious cycle of poverty. I left home illiterate and uneducated. I slept on the streets, taking odd jobs here and there. I worked hard, educated myself from bits of newspapers and textbooks tossed in the trash and when I was fifteen, I applied and won a scholarship to Lumière. There I was faced with the same hate and bigotry you're facing now but I didn't let that stop me.'