"Clary, you're still coming to mine tonight right?" my best friend, Isabelle, asked me as we were walking into our English class.

"Yeah, but I gotta go home first cause my mom…" I trailed off as I noticed the man standing at the board. He had fairly long golden hair that fell into his eyes and tan skin that seemed to glow.

He looked over at the door, where I was standing, and I noticed that he also had amazingly golden eyes. He smiled at me and I felt my breath hitch in my throat - he was seriously beautiful.

"Cause what?" Isabelle asked, trying to catch my attention. "Uh she needs me to help her with something", I managed.

"Oh okay, that's fine." I followed Izzy to two empty seats in the middle of the class and we sat down next to each other.

"Where's Simon?" I turned to answer Isabelle but was interrupted by our apparent new teacher.

"Hello class, my name is Mr Herondale and I'm going to be your new English teacher." It was the beginning of the second semester and it was odd to get a new teacher after the school year had already begun. Izzy seemed to be thinking along the same lines and whispered to me, "I wonder what happened to Mr Starkweather?" I shrugged my shoulders in response before Mr Herondale continued, "Now, would anyone like to tell me what you've learnt so far this year?"

Hands raised around the room, mostly from girls, but before Mr Herondale could pick someone to answer, Simon burst into the room. "Nice of you to turn up, Mr…?" the teacher said to him. "Sorry um Lewis, Simon Lewis. Sorry sir, new timetable, first day, you know?"

"Yes, yes. Take a seat please, Lewis, Simon Lewis," Mr Herondale directed. Simon walked over to us and took a seat in front of Izzy and I, looking flustered.

Mr Herondale continued, "Anyone?" He pointed at a girl named Kaelie, who was almost falling out of her chair in an attempt to get him to choose her. She explained to Mr Herondale that we'd just started studying Shakespeare before the end of the semester.

"Okay cool, thanks," he said, kindly. "That's okay!" Kaelie said with a little too much excitement. "How about we start with Hamlet?" Mr Herondale asked the class.

I grinned, and Simon shook his head at me with an amused look on his face, "Of course you'd be excited to study Shakespeare." I shoved his shoulder gently before reverting my attention back to the front and to the teacher.

I was a huge theatre fan and had seen a lot of Shakespeare's plays on Broadway so I was confident that I knew them well.

Mr Herondale gave some of us parts and then we read some of it as a class before answering questions on the first act.

The rest of the class passed without incident, though I kept sneaking looks at Mr Herondale. I looked up from the textbook I was reading and glanced around the class; I wasn't the only one distracted today – many of the other girls were ogling our teacher.

Soon later, the bell went and the class filed out. I walked with Simon and Izzy out of the class before Isabelle gushed, "Oh my god, did you see how hot Mr Herondale was?" I chuckled, "Of course Izzy, it was kind of hard not to." Izzy giggled, Simon rolled his eyes and I waved goodbye to the two of them as we went our separate ways.

One Month Later

Mr Herondale had been my English teacher for a month now and I could already feel a crush on him developing. He was gorgeous, funny, kind, and he always tried to help us in any way he could. It was a welcome change from our previous teacher, Mr Starkweather, who didn't appear to care and seemed to believe that if you didn't understand something, you must be stupid.

As the bell rang, everyone got up to leave. "You coming Clary?" Isabelle asked, walking towards the door. "Yeah Iz, two seconds."

I walked over to Mr Herondale's desk and handed him the essay I'd been working on for a couple of weeks. Although we were studying Shakespeare, we had to build up a portfolio of essays over the year that contributed to our grade. Mr Herondale had given us the past couple days to write a personal essay on someone we admired. I'd written mine on my older brother, Jonathan, and I was quite proud of it.

"Thank you, Clarissa," he replied, picking it up. "Call me Clary - everyone else does," I said with a smile. He gave me one of his signature smiles, causing my heart to flutter.

The next lesson, he asked me to stay behind for a minute. I was really nervous, he probably thought my essay was awful and wanted me to start again, or have him tutor me. Actually, that wouldn't be the worst thing.

I watched as he pulled a chair out in front of his desk for me to sit in, and I sat down nervously. "Your essay was brilliant," he told me smiling. Relief flooded through me and I smiled back.

"So good in fact that I'd like to enter it into an essay contest." I had thought my essay was good but not that good. "Yeah sure, that would be great!" I replied, probably a bit too enthusiastically.

"With a little bit of tweaking, I honestly think you've got a very good chance of winning." Mr Herondale told me, before adding, "It looks really good on university applications and the prize is a scholarship to NYU." It just keeps getting better - NYU is my dream school!

I smiled at him and he suggested, "If you want you could come here after school sometime and we could work on it." "Yeah, sure. Thank you so much, Mr Herondale."