Chapter Three
Indiana
I had waited all day to attend Personal Development, but my excitement had been short-lived. We had a substitute teacher; she started the lesson quite drastically.
“How many of you seventeen year olds have had sex?”
This statement had two reactions: All the boys in the class started to talk louder, putting up their hands, while the girls looked down and tried to avoid the question.
“Now look around at how the opposite sex reacted.”
The class became quiet. All eyes were looking around. A few of the boys had looked at me, unsure if I had or hadn’t.
“I am not a Personal Development teacher and don’t really think that lecturing students every year about abstinence is an effective method of getting the message across. If you don’t have this concept by now, well, you never will. Let’s take a different approach to this.” This class was quite entertaining and only got better when it seemed like we wouldn’t have Mr. Hopwood for the rest of the week. We had been given a few days to work on a debate to be conducted during class time. The class was split down the middle and sent to other ends of the school to work out our key arguments. The topic was “condom vs. no condom.” I was put on the “no condom” side and sent off to the library to research for the rest of the period. This was now becoming one of my favorite classes because it was so unpredictable.
Extremely glad that the school day was over, I made my way to the exit door and headed to our after school hang out in the park near the ice cream parlor. Connor called out my name, and I slowed so he could keep up.
“How did you pull up from the party?” I said.
Connor groaned ... no explanation needed. Pushing his blonde hair out of his face, I couldn’t help but look into his emerald green eyes. Connor was the best looking guy in our school with a carefree personality to match. The girls fawned over him constantly and he was known to break a few hearts unintentionally.
“What about you?” asked Connor.
“Yeah, not too bad, all the girls left before I got up though.”
“Brandon’s real keen on Ness and wasn’t happy when you pulled them apart while he tried to kiss her.”
“Yeah, I know, but if he’s real keen, he will wait.”
Turning the corner, I could see the park across the road; everyone was there including Brandon, and from this far away, I could tell he was sweet-talking Nessa. Hopefully Brandon would fix the wounds that our teacher had created. Corrina was standing up against the tree with a pair of hands wrapped around her, resting on her arse.
“When did Mark and Corrina hook up?” I asked.
“You know how they are; it was only a matter of time,” said Connor. The thing with Corrina is that I wasn’t really sure why she was dating Mark—it wasn’t her style. Corrina normally had fun and moved on very fast; this sort of commitment wasn’t her. Did she really like him, or were there other reasons? In my eyes, Corrina was the female equivalent to Mark and together this duo was dangerously sexy.
“Hey, what does everyone think about Hopwood’s replacement ... bit whacko, right? What questions did she ask your class, Indy and Mark?” asked Connor.
I took advanced classes of math and science, so I had Personal Development with the other geeks. Mark was a genius; well, he was many things—good looking, a great footballer, musician, and a total jerk. It was like he rebelled at everything he was gifted at. If he felt like playing a good game, he would, but if he had the shits with the coach, then he purposely gave the ball to the other team. Normally, though, he'd make it all good by the end of the game. He loved to watch Hopwood sweat throughout the game. And being the player he was, the coach would be crazy to not put him in.
Mark managed to pull his attention away from Corrina's lips for long enough to respond to my earlier question.
“She asked us about sex,” said Mark, thrusting his hips into Corrina’s, making vulgar noises. She thought it was funny. We're doing a debate about frangers. I’m against wearing them and have already worked out my killer speech. Indy is on the opposition.”
“We're doing a speech, but ours is on how the Catholic Church views sex. Corrina has to argue the point of waiting ‘til marriage, which must be a bit hard considering she banged half our senior class,” said Connor.
“Oh, shut up Connor—at least I’ve had sex,” snapped Corrina.
“Ohh, big talk, Corrina,” teased Connor.
“Bro, I have to admit she got you there,” Mark wasn’t really sticking up for her. I could tell he only wanted to get into her panties and figured this would be the fastest way.
The conversation died slowly, as it was getting late and we had to head home. Nessa strolled next to me, linking her arm in mine. She chatted wildly about the rest of her weekend after the party and how Brandon was so wonderful.
*****
I tried to work on the speech throughout the week with my half of class. There wasn’t enough time to complete the speech during school time, so we had taken a point each and researched it extensively. That morning in Personal Development, the room was rearranged and we sat in our teams. I hated public speaking and wasn’t looking forward to standing up and doing this crap.
“Let the debate commence. Can we have the first speaker for the affirmative, please?” requested our teacher.
A little Asian girl called Rennie stood up. She wore the stereotypical glasses a geek would adorn and a short tartan skirt, white socks pulled up to her knees, and black buckle shoes. Her clothing was borderline naughty. I was unsure if she did this on purpose or not. Her styling reminded me of something that belonged in a men’s magazine and should be titled, “School Girls Gone Wild.”
“We are here today to discuss the topic of “condom vs. no condom.” The definition of a condom is a thin material worn over a man’s penis to prevent pregnancy or any unwanted sexual diseases … “ And that’s when I nearly fell asleep; man, she was taking this so seriously. Mark was the next speaker. Then it was my turn to rebut any statements or facts he protested.
“Sex feels good. Why would you put a balloon on your dick to stop that feeling ... that awesome feeling.”
Then Mark started a drum roll on his desk, chanting, “Say no to the glove, so you can feel the love; say no to the glove, so you can feel the love; say no to the glove, so you can feel the love ...”
I was more than embarrassed to call him my friend.
“Settle down boys, stop that banging.”
Oh God, how am I supposed to rebut that.
I stood up and looked around the classroom, the boys were still chanting the catchy rhyme, which Mark had made up, or most likely seen on TV.
Looking down at my notes, the teacher tried to quiet the class so that I could speak. Knowing this was a lost cause I sat down. Mark was sitting there, smiling widely’ he knew he had won the debate, and there were still two more speakers left.
Later that day at our after school hang out—Mark was glorified. His little motto was now all over the school and gaining popularity on Facebook. Someone had actually recorded the debate with their phone and posted it on YouTube. He was at thirty thousand hits in four hours. His parents will ground him for life, but this only made Mark happier.
“So Indy how was the speech,” Mark teasingly asked in front of our friends.
“Get over yourself. How was I supposed to make a point after your little speech,” I said, annoyed.
Mark was mocking me; he knew how the speech went, but wanted me to admit failure.
“Oh, come on, we all know how wonderful I was—you just couldn’t compare,” said Mark.
“How about I put my foot in your face, then see how I compare?”
“On the rag, are we?” Mark said in a joking tone.
“What ...?” annoyance filled my voice.
“Are you on the blog, you know, Aunts Flo’s come to visit.” Mensuration jokes didn’t fly well with me. He was sitting on the side of the park bench waiting for me
to jump at him. He had insulted me before and only just got away before I smashed him. This time I learnt my lesson and kicked him quite hard in the shin, and he flinched in pain.
“Mark, do you not learn? Indy might look like a delicate wallflower, but in reality, she’s one of the boys, and of all things to say …” Connor knew that I wouldn’t take Mark’s crap, especially gross things like that.
Everyone else found it quite entertaining; Mark had recovered and would try to get under my skin in another way. If he realized the damage I could really unleash onto him, he wouldn’t be so cocky. I really hoped in the coming years I wouldn’t be paying him a special visit; hopefully he treated his women right.
Brandon had his skateboard in his arms and had convinced the boys to try some new tricks they had seen on some extreme sports show. Naturally, Nessa wanted to go watch Brandon, and I got roped in to keep her company.
We all started to walk down the road. We were a kilometer away and could see the biggest half pipe. There was a lone figure on the half pipe going aerial. The height he was achieving looked pretty awesome from here. The boys noticed and took off on their boards. Brandon, I had heard, was a good rider, but the other two just stuffed around. When we got there they were talking to the guy. The boys had their backs to us, except this new boy, and from where we stood, it looked like they were in a deep conversation.
This unknown person was pointing toward the jumps, then the pipes. Brandon took off down the side, attempting the half pipe. As he reached the top, he grabbed the bottom of his board and did a tiny aerial. Coming back to the boys, the stranger slapped him on the back nodding his head; now it was his turn. As he jumped down the side of the ramp, he pumped his leg on the ground over and over and up the other side, without even touching the bottom of his board. He went up into the air a good two meters then down again. His hair had fallen over his face, leaving only a glimpse of his smile, as he looked my direction. He whipped his hair back over. My knees went weak.
“Close your mouth, Indy.”
What the hell? This boy was hot—unbelievably hot. He looked to be around our age and had a killer body; I could see the ripples of a six-pack under his white shirt. It was hard not to stare at him.
“Shut your mouth, Mark.”
“Or what, you’re going to shut it for me?” suggested Mark.
“You had better believe it.”
The new boy looked quite disappointed at my remarks.
“Well, guys, I had better get going. Keep practicing, Brandon.”
As he walked off, he didn’t even look my way.
“Well, your big mouth scared him away, Indy. I don’t think he liked the way you spoke, but before you opened your mouth, he seemed to like what he was looking at,” said Mark.
Crap, he was fine. If I wasn’t an angel and didn’t like to kick the male arse, I might consider chasing him.
“Well, how about we have a Jackass marathon at my house tonight?” Nessa spun around toward Connor, quite annoyed at his suggestion.
“The last time we started to watch it, we got half way through then you boys started to act out the scenes, and we know how that ended.” Nessa had a point there. The boys had attempted planking on their bikes' handlebars—down a hill. Connor ended up falling off; how he didn’t break his neck was a miracle. But he was bruised and scraped down the whole left side of his body. I took him to the hospital to get all of the gravel out and get bandaged up. But like typical male behavior, he was hailed a legend and back to his stupid stunts in a day or two.
“No we won’t do that again,” said Connor.
“Well, you boys can do that; how about us girls have a Twilight marathon.”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Brandon nudge Connor in the side.
“How about a Big Bang Theory marathon instead,” said Connor, offering a better idea.
This idea was heaps better, and it would allow Nessa and Brandon to be together.
“I’m in boys, as long as Mark shuts the hell up. Come on Nessa, I know Casey and Corrina are in.”
“Okay, but I need to go home first; I’m going to change into trackies.”
Brandon was fast in offering a lift, and Nessa accepted just as fast.
“Indy, can you get your brother to buy us some drinks?” asked Connor.
“Nah, he’s gone away again, but I’ll see what I have at home; I think we have some bourbon cans and some vodka drinks.”
“That will do.”
Later on in the night, Brandon was snuggled on a beanbag with Nessa, Mark and Corrina were outside in the swinging chair, and I was laying on the three-seater with my feet over Connor. There was limited room in the teenagers' retreat, but we made do. Connor was a complete gentleman, suggesting that I lay down if needed, as it was getting late. In the small time we had known each other, we had created a great friendship. And who said males and females couldn’t be friends?
“Now what guys?” Brandon asked. We had just watched Season One without the boys acting out the parts, and Brandon looked like he was getting bored.
“Not much ... the girls are only seventeen,” said Connor.
“There must be something to do,” commented Brandon.
“Unless there is a party ... not really,” Connor and Brandon were commenting back and forth, trying to organize something.
“Damn, and they wonder why teen crime is so rife,” I sarcastically added, “I’m going home.”
Leaving early was a good idea. Nessa and Brandon sitting the way they were, and Mark and Corrina trying to keep their hands in socially accepted places left me thinking of the stranger at the skate park. He was so good looking it kind of hurt. I haven’t seen someone so good looking in centuries Plus, I have a womanizing, cheating scumbag three hours away I want to visit tomorrow and need some kind of beauty sleep so I can lure him in. The intel I got from AJ is quite bad, so I want to pay him a little visit. AJ passes on a lot of jobs; he is a private investigator, and many times he get jobs like this that he doesn’t want to look into, or is too busy for, so I do them for him. He normally specializes in looking for children. These cases can get downright horrible. I go along sometimes, especially when there is abuse involved—the disgusting kind. I don’t care if it’s a boy or girl being hurt, I just make sure I do as much damage to the offender as I can without killing them. I’m sure God would condemn me to Hell if I overstepped that line.
Chapter Four
Nate
As I shifted my weight to make the first half pipe, I soared through the air, feeling nothingness between the ground and me. The feeling of flying felt so right and true, I dreamed of doing it for real. Hopefully that dream would become a reality soon; after I completed my mission, I was promised my angel wings and the opportunity to see my family again. I waited for the group of teenagers to arrive, which was why I had been sent here—to investigate one of the girls in particular. This would be an easy mission. I was basically pretending to be myself, and the boys I was to befriend were also skaters. I would blend in easily waiting for further orders. I wasn't sent to make friends—this was strictly business. I can't stray from my goal, and failure is not an option. I heard their awed expressions in their loud voices as I left the ground in the build-up to performing my trick on the biggest pipe. Pulling out all of the strength and skill I had to impress, I struggled to maintain my concentration. There was an extremely strong presence in that group. That gaze bore holes in my skin; it had to be the girl. Blocking out everyone, I stared at the spot I wanted to land in and thought of nothing else. It was approaching fast. Tipping my weight, and calculating the speed I would impact the ground, I would have no room for error. My first two wheels touched, then the others. Kicking the back of the board, I caught it in my hand; the unfamiliar faces of pubescent boys swamped me.
“That was so awesome, where did you learn to skate like that," said this unknown boy.
He was my height and had the typical skater build thin frame. His hair was short and spiky blonde and
looked like it would take far too long to style. He held his board in his hand; the wheels looked very worn-out and should have been changed long ago. It got me wondering if they had any shops that sold skate supplies, otherwise it could be a problem.
Heavenly Hell (Heavenly Hell Book 1) Page 3