I held my breath as the rest of the class held theirs. Even Kegan, who wore a constant expression of boredom on his face, was excited. He would be. After all, what brings life to the heart of any human, other than the promise of a better future?

As I was handed over this long slip of paper, I wrote on it without hesitation. It was the day we chose our subjects.

"Oh God," Kegan said as he rolled his eyes. I watched him leave black circles around business and economics.

"What?" I asked.

"We aren't going to be in any of the same classes any more, " he said.

"Well then, why don't you abandon Math and join Math Literary instead?" I said. Kegan never even took Math Literacy. He took Math, which is supposed to be a million times harder.

"And abandon my chances of getting into Rhodes, " he said smirking at me. "No way."

I suspected that when Kegan goes to bed at night, he dreams about the Rhodes University Business Program. It was all he could talk about.

"Maths Literacy is easier than Maths, " I reminded him.

"Nothing is easier than Maths," he said curving his lips to form a heavenly smirk. It was a smirk that made me erupt in explosions of happiness.

When I was with him, I never felt like crying. Melissa and her friends didn't seem so mean, Math Literacy didn't seem so hard and life was filled with the type of joy I never thought I'd feel.

As Kegan's muscular arm wrapped around me, I noticed Cyrus Van Rooyen walk past us. Aside from a wave to Kegan, Cyrus showed us no sign of acknowledgement. I guess he was too distracted. His fingers were wrapped in the safety of Sasha Prinsloo; a pretty, outgoing girl with the best hair in the entire school.

"You really like him?" Megan asked.

"No, I don't like him. I love him."

I expected Kegan to tease me about Cyrus. He didn't. He didn't even respond to my tirade about how good Cyrus looked with his newly bleached hair. Instead, he just stood there with a fallen expression on his face. God, he needs to cheer up.

I would have told him this if not for the fact that we had reached the end of our corridor. Our classes stood separated. I thought he'd wish me luck with Maths Literacy or scare me with the horrors of getting my sums wrong. No. We stood there in that hallway with only the feathers of morning light streaming through the windows.

His eyes met mine. I could have sworn that I saw something deeper in them. Something that tore apart the boundaries of friendship and concern. I thought I imagined it. Yet, there it was, a soft, longing expression on his face.

"See you later, Bianca, " he said before he disappeared among a swarm of excited students.

Maths Literacy this year was nothing other than Maths. A suffocating, tormenting kind of Maths that told me that Kegan would be tutoring me this year too.

I got all my budgeting wrong, of course. How could I even think of getting them correct when my heart wasn't in them? My heart never was. It belonged to the boy I yearned for. The boy sitting right in front of me.

I fixed my gaze on him as he flexed an enormous, tanned bicep and whispered something in Sasha's ear. She gazed at me and whispered back. So he knew. He knew that I loved him. 

I hoped that he would spare a glance at me. That he would glance back. Every cell in my body was alive when he did. His sky-blue eyes flickered onto mine as he nudged Sasha. Then came the most passionate kissing that I had ever witnessed. My heart shattered.

I felt it break like the thinnest sheet of glass. Cyrus loved Sasha. He was always sitting on the stone steps outside the school waiting for her to arrive. He always told her that she was beautiful.

I wondered what it would be like to have someone's arms slide across me. To feel their lips on mine. To be loved. It must be something that only exists in the pages of books.

As the second bell rang, I went out of class and bumped into something hard and not very fragrant.

"Oh, hi Mr Kotze, " I said to the caretaker I bumped into.

"Oh, it's you, pancake, " he said. Everybody in school called me pancake because I was so flat-chested. "Are you here to buy tickets to the Christmas Dance?"

"I'm sorry, " I say. "I've never heard of it."

"The Christmas Dance? It's been around since before you were born."

The dance boomed in my mind as all dreams do. My heart never pounded faster. I wanted to know what it was like to look into his eyes as he held my hand. I wanted to hear every emotion-drenched song as we danced. Cyrus would look hot in a tux.

"Yeah, just imagine it. The dancing, the dressing up, the shiver running through each kid's spine as they ask each other out, " Mr Kotze said.

Then he glanced at me. "Not that anyone would ask you out, " he said before giving me a sneer. Then he was gone.

His words stung. The only thing that made me hold back tears was the prospect of a much more cheerful subject; English Literature.

The class was illuminated by bright, electrical lights. Perhaps the management felt it made the whole room brighter. Yet, to me, there was something fake about this place.

Our teacher, Ms Greef, spoke about all the figures of speech Dicken's used. I never liked Dickens. There was something unfeeling in his style that made me cringe at the sight of his books.

Ms Greef, however, loved him. She spoke about Dickens like he was a God to be worshipped. And believe me, a lot of Engish Geeks did worship him.

"Don't forget that I assigned you homework, " Ms Greed said in her shrill voice. I hope you all have a pleasant day and Bianca, may I see you for a moment?"

"Sure, " I answered, thrilled to be able to talk to her. I loved literature. I loved anything to do with words or descriptions or poems. I truly did believe that language was the most powerful way of opening up one's soul.

After waiting till everyone was gone from the room she said, 'sit down Bianca." I did.

She offered me the tea she carried around in a steel mug. Milky tea. I flinched. I despised anything with milk in it. It made my insides coil with revulsion and made Kegan giggle at the sight of my face. I declined the tea as best as I could.

"Bianca, I read your paper, " she said. "I understand that you put a lot of effort into my subject."

"I do Ms Greef, " I said. Happiness surged through my veins as I looked at her. She noticed. She noticed that writing was my life. Every other painful memory was left to flee from my heart as the joy of writing took over.

"I listen to all those literary techniques and use it for my stories and....."

She cut my speech short. "It's no use, Bianca. You failed."

"What?"

"You failed. You got a U. That, I believe, is the worst kind of failure, " she said.

The tears I held back then came gushing out now. They came like the rapids as they rebelled against every effort to hold them back.

"Bianca, " Ms Greef said in a softer voice. "I'm sure you have other talents. Why not focus on something a little bit more practical, like your friend, Kegan?"

"Writing is what I want to do, " I said as a sob clawed at my throat. "It's my life."

"I'm so sorry honey, " she said genuinely sounding sorry. "But if you write like this, no publisher in their right mind would hire you. You'd better give up the idea."

She left soon after. Left me to cry on her cherry wood desk. My notebook was stained with my tears and chestnut-brown mascara. Yet, this wasn't the stain I was worried about. The stain of broken dreams was far more lethal than that of tearstains.

"That woman is a nightmare, " Kegan said, raising his voice when I told him the news. "You're writing is beautiful, Bianca, and so are you. Don't let that bitch tell you differently."

Before I could flash a smile at him, a familiar figure walked our way. She was tall and tan and as curvy as a country lane.

"What do you want, Melissa?" Kegan snapped.

"So looks like your writing got rejected, huh?" she said in a tone of casual malice. "No big surprise since the writer is a big reject herself."

"Melissa, you didn't answer my question, " Kegan said. "What do you want?"

"I want you," she replied and Kegan just rolled his eyes.

"I'm surprised your mother still kept you, " Melissa said to me. "Besides, let me guess, you don't have a date for the dance. Or a boyfriend, do you?"

I nodded. She and her friends took this as a hilarious joke and greeted it with a chorus of giggles.

"What's that?" she said. "You don't have a boyfriend? That's probably because nobody in the world will ever want you."

By this time I was tired. Tired of the bullying, tired of being ignored. I didn't want to be alone on Christmas.

This time Sasha asked me, 'Wait, so you don't have a date?"

As those words escaped her, I was so tired of all that haunted me. So I lifted my face and said the two words that shocked Melissa, all of her friends and most of all, Kegan.

I looked straight at all of them and said, "I do."