by Mary Martel
“Ariel?”
Crap.
“Fine,” I lied, wincing. I didn’t like lying to him. He had my mother for that, he didn’t need more lies from me, too. He was a nice person who didn’t deserve any of what he was going to get even though he’d kind of asked for it.
“You don’t seem fine.” His voice was laced with a touch of concern. No one was ever concerned for me.
I hated to do it because he was so damn nice and I knew the only reason he said anything was because he cared about me. It felt really nice having someone care about me for a change. But I had to do it. For his sake and my own.
Eyes aimed straight ahead, not daring to look at him, I huffed. “How would you know?” I asked snottily and then kept right on going just as snottily. “You don’t know me. You don’t know the first thing about me. Listen, Mr. Cole,” he hated that I wouldn’t call him by his first name which is why I never used it, “you’re not the first man to come into her life and you likely won’t be the last. They all want to get to know me,” another straight up lie, those losers before him never even looked my way, “but they never stick around long enough to do so. And, let’s be real here, we aren’t going to be around here long enough for you to get to know me either. So why bother?”
I didn’t want to be a snotty brat to him, but I didn’t think I had much of a choice.
Voice quiet, with a touch of sadness, he said, “You’re right, I don’t know you very well. You haven’t allowed for that. But I’d like the chance to get to know you. I’d very much like the chance to get to know you. But you’re also wrong, you’re not leaving any time soon. And if you want, you don’t ever have to leave at all. No matter what happens between your mother and I, you won’t ever have to leave if you want to stay. I promise.”
I believed him about wanting to get to know me, and in a different lifetime I would have really liked for him to get to know me, too. But we weren’t in a different lifetime, we were in the here and now. And all the rest? About me being able to stay with him even if he and my mother didn’t work out. That was outright laughable. He had to be crazy. If he threw my mother out on her ass there was absolutely no way I’d be able to remain in his home. That was crazy! For one, he’d known me all of two months and we’d just established he didn’t even really know me in the slightest bit. And for two, that crazy woman would get drunk and probably try to burn his house down if he tried to keep me after deciding he didn’t want her. He had no clue who he’d let into his house, into his bed.
But damn, his words felt good. So incredibly good to hear. And because of that I needed to put a stop to this immediately.
I hardened my heart, clenched my jaw and spoke through gritted teeth. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll pass. It’s not like you’re my new Daddy or anything. You’re simply one in a long line of many, even if you think you’ll be the last. You won’t. And then that will be that.”
I regretted them as soon as the words were out of my mouth. I regretted trying to hurt him, and I regretted making my mother sound like an easy whore. If this got back to her I’d never hear the end of it. God help me if he went and repeated this conversation to her.
We rode the rest of the way to school in complete silence. I guess I’d gotten my point across. Now why did that hurt so much?
A block away from the school he surprised me by slowing down and pulling off to the side of the road. What the?
Mr. Cole cleared his throat. “For whatever reason, you didn’t want to be seen with me dropping you off at school so I thought it would be best to drop you off here. If you’d like, I could pick you up here as well.”
Such a nice thing to do, especially after I’d been so nasty to him. Gah, I couldn’t take much more of it. I felt like I owed him an explanation along with a heartfelt apology.
Hey there, Marcus (I figured if it was only a conversation in my head I might as well go ahead and call him by his first name liked he wanted me to. Why not?). I’m super-duper sorry my mother is such a greedy, blood thirsty, soul sucking A-hole. If I were you I’d prepare for the worst because things are only going to go downhill from here. Oh, and also, I’m super-duper sorry about the emotional train wreck of a teenager now living under your roof and the attitude she’s been throwing at you. So sorry.
Yeah, no. Apparently, I couldn’t come up with an explanation and a heartfelt apology. The poor man.
Without a word in response, I climbed out of the car. I made sure to not slam the door, instead closing it with a soft click. As I walked the block to school I kept glancing over my shoulder. The car didn’t move until the school came into view. Making sure I got to school safe.
My insides warmed as I fought the urge to turn around and run back to the safety of Mr. Cole’s car.
I wished things could be different.
But they weren’t.
And I had another day in hell to survive. Only the second of many to come.
Chapter Five
Day two of school and a miracle had occurred. A crazy, potentially awesome miracle. I could only hope it lasted. Every single person who’d been a soul crushing A-hole to me only the day before had completely, utterly, entirely forgotten about me today. It’s like my existence didn’t even register on their radar today.
As I entered the building I did it differently than I had the day before. Today I looked up and around me, refusing to hide my eyes from anyone. My ride to school with Mr. Cole had put me in a weird mood, and for whatever reason, emboldened me. I felt terrible for treating Mr. Cole badly and was feeling the need to lash out at the next person who looked at me funny in order to take my frustration and anger out on them. Which didn’t exactly sit well with me seein’ as I’m not normally a person prone to acts of violence or giving voice to the slanderous words inside my head.
But no one looked at me funny. Heck, forget them looking at me funny, no one bothered to look at me at all. It was bizarre, I tell you. Totally freaking bizarre. To say the least. I’d think I had walked into an entirely different school or possibly even a different universe if it hadn’t been for all the whispering going on behind hands, hearing Tyson’s name dropped more than once amongst those whispered words and the fact that the Pretty Princess Barbie and her twin Ken were still very much in attendance. Perhaps bizarre wasn’t even a strong enough word to begin describing just how weird the whole thing was.
I should have rejoiced. Instead I was wary.
Could this be some sort of trick? Was there a student phone tree I hadn’t been informed of yesterday or at orientation that had been activated last night due to my arrival? Had they called each other up late last night to devise a plan where they somehow lured me into a false sense of security so they could corner me in the girl’s restroom alone after lunch in an attempt to drown me in one of the toilets?
Death by toilet, not a pretty picture.
Death by fellow crazed students, even less pretty.
Both royally sucked and toilet water would probably do some serious damage to my hair. Goodness, I’d lost my mind.
As I made my way to my first hour I glanced through the lingering students clumped together now more suspiciously than I had been when I first entered the school building. No one paid me any mind. Which made me even more suspicious.
I breezed into the classroom at the very last second and just as the bell rang. The first bell. The second one would ring in exactly sixty seconds and you were expected to have your butt in your seat by then, or so I’d been told at orientation. Breathing a heavy sigh of relief, I realized I’d made it to school just in time to avoid having to rush and possibly making a spectacle of myself. And, bonus, no one watched my awkward climb out of Mr. Cole’s sweet ride.
Very carefully, so as not to trip over some A-hole’s purposely outstretched foot, I made my way to the desk I had occupied yesterday. The desk right next to Tyson’s. The seat was empty and waiting for me. I slid my backpack off my slender shoulder and gingerly sat down in what I thought of as my seat. I was
far too paranoid to place my backpack down on the floor and out of my sight where people could potentially mess with it, so I laid it upon the top of my desk. If I needed to I’d place it on my lap, but I’d not be putting it on the floor and out of eyesight. Not in any of my classes.
A glance to the side told me Tyson had made it to class before me and had claimed the same seat he had occupied yesterday. I wanted to look at him so badly just so I could study and memorize every aspect of his handsome face. Which was insane, right?
His body shifted slightly as he moved in his seat beside me. I couldn’t not look at him. His cold, dark eyes met mine. They were a lot less cold and dark today than they had been yesterday. I didn’t know what to think about that, but I wasn’t certain sure I liked it. Due to his behavior the day before, this boy was not to be trusted. I shouldn’t concern myself with whatever it was that had slightly defrosted his eyes. Nope, definitely not. I shouldn’t be interested in this boy at all. I couldn’t seem to help myself. If I were honest with myself, I’d admit that even though he’d snarled at me he hadn’t lied to me when he said he was being nicer than others would be. That didn’t mean he’d been nice, though. I needed to remember this. It was important, first impressions were important.
A shadow fell across my desk. My entire body tensed in anticipation, expecting the worst.
When nothing happened, I made the first of many mistakes to come throughout the day. I looked up and over, meeting the dark, dark entirely defrosted gaze of my next door neighbor who was a dick, according to gossip, had no friends and never talked to anyone at school but had (for some fucked up reason) picked me to snarl at. He had been a dick and now he leaned across the aisle towards me with a non-hostile look on his face. Non-hostile, but definitely guarded. His eyes didn’t move over my face, they didn’t roam over my body as most teenage males did in order to seek out any and every inch of skin I had (or in my case didn’t have) offered up on display. No, not Tyson. His eyes stayed locked onto mine.
I held his stare, neither of us blinking.
What was this?
A challenge?
The careful guard over his eyes told me he wasn’t trying to challenge me, he was simply curious and wary.
Silently, we stared into each other’s eyes until the teacher reined in the class and forced our attention to him. I was breathless and trying really, really hard to keep my shaking from becoming obvious and visible.
What the heck had just happened? What did he think he was doing? What the heck was he doing? Not so nice one day, then silently trying to stare me down the next without words and hostility. Did he have multiple personalities and had decided to skip his meds with his breakfast today? I hoped not. Why else would he look at me in such a way? A questioning, probing way?
I was baffled.
And intrigued. God help me, I was intrigued.
The pregnant man in front of the classroom clapped his hands twice, loudly. All eyes were on him, including my own. I didn’t like my first hour teacher. He, like the majority of the students, had no problem being an A-hole. To me. He wasn’t pretty to look at but we looked at him all the same because he commanded us to do so with his strong presence and A-hole personality. I’d like to think it had to do with not wanting to be his next victim of the hour and less to do with him being an actual good teacher. The jury was still out on that one.
“If you didn’t catch it yesterday,” he turned his beady eyes my way and glared at me. What a dick! Granted, I hadn’t heard a word he said yesterday after he told me to take my seat next to Mr. Tyson but I had a damn good reason and he knew it. “My name is Mr. Franklin. Today I want you to find a partner. I want you to ask each other questions and get to know one another. Tomorrow I’ll expect each of you to hand in a paper telling me what you learned, your first impression of them, what you like or don’t like about them. Write it all down. I’ll hold onto them until the end of the semester where I’ll have you write another paper, but we won’t get into that today. Choose wisely because the partner you pick today will remain your partner for the entire semester. And I mean it, so don’t even bother to ask me later if you can’t get along. Your teenage drama and your ridiculous, superficial problems have no place inside my classroom.” Again, he glared at me. Seriously, what had I done to deserve this treatment? “If you cannot pick a partner on your own come and see me and I will help you. Now get to it.” He clapped his hands twice, like he had done to get our attention, this time to release us.
Several students groaned. I didn’t, but I wanted to. What was this, elementary school? I wanted to restart my day so I could have my Bug not start for me and be smart enough to just get my ass back to bed so I could sleep through this entire shit show of a day. And this was only first hour. I fought the urge to drop my head on top of my desk and start banging it over and over again until I blacked out from the pain.
Nobody would want to be my partner and then I’d have to approach Mr. Franklin about it so he could be a dick to me. Who’d want to get stuck with the girl labeled as the freak show. I hated those stupid jocks more by the second.
A hand smacked the top of my desk. I looked up to see Tyson leaning into me. My mouth dropped open and I stared up at him with wide, startled eyes. What now?
“You and me, girl.” His voice was rough when he wasn’t snarling at me. It washed over my skin, making me shiver. I liked it. “We’re gonna be partners.”
Oh.
Well, shit.
“Uh…” I cleared my throat and blurted the first thing that came to mind. “I don’t particularly want to be your partner.”
I cringed. Now why had I said that out loud? Good grief.
Slowly, a bright, heart stoppingly beautiful smile spread across his handsome face. He had straight, white, even teeth. He probably had them professionally bleached.
“That’s the first thing I’ll write down about you,” he told me while continuing to blind me with his smile.
And I watched as he did just that. He pulled a notebook and black ink pen out from his backpack, opened the notebook up to a blank page and in bold, angry slashes, he wrote:
Ariel Kimber is my partner for this semester in Mr. Franklin’s class even though she very much wishes not to be partnered with me. I can’t say I blame her because, along with my fellow classmates, I wasn’t very nice to her yesterday.
For a second all I wondered was how he knew my full name, but then I remembered Mr. Franklin calling me by it yesterday.
I was speechless. His written words surprised me.
“I’ll make things easier on you and go first. You don’t even have to ask me any questions if you don’t want to. I’m Tyson Alexander,” he kept smiling at me as he spoke in his sweet but rough voice. “I live in the house right next door to yours with my Uncle Quinton and two of our family friends. I’m seventeen and I spent the entire summer camping and hiking with my Uncle and our friends. We do it every summer and have since we were kids.” His voice trailed off as he tugged at the collar of his plain black t-shirt. When he started he’d sounded so confident. Now, he looked nervous.
This kid was weird. Definitely.
And why did he live with his Uncle? It wouldn’t be appropriate for me to ask that question, so I didn’t. If he wanted me to know he would have told me.
Still tugging on his shirt collar, he raised an eyebrow at me in a silent question. Shit. I’d been sitting here, stupidly staring at him when I should have been writing down the things he’d told me about himself. I knew I would remember every single word he’d said to me, but he didn’t know that. I unzipped my bookbag and pulled out a notebook and a black ink pen. Then I slid my bag off the desk and onto my lap. I flipped the notebook open to a blank page and started to write.
Tyson Alexander is not only my partner but also my next door neighbor. He’s seventeen. We’re the same age. He lives with his Uncle and they spent the summer camping with their friends (or so he claims. The gossip going around school says that he has no friends
). I believe him to have multiple personalities, and I might be slightly jealous because his hair is prettier than mine. Yesterday I would have said I didn’t think much of Tyson except to think of him as an A-hole. Today, however, I’m not sure what to think.
Laughter came from beside me. Tyson had been shamelessly reading over my shoulder as I wrote. I didn’t mind, I’d read his too and he hadn’t minded or tried to hide it from me.
“Don’t hold back on me, girl.” He smirked at me. “Let me know how you really feel.”
Yes, he definitely had multiple personalities.
“And you’ve got nothing to be jealous about because your hair is way prettier than mine.”
I blushed. Him thinking anything about me was pretty made me warm inside. Should I thank him now for the compliment? That didn’t seem right.
“What’s your favorite color?" he asked me.
“Canary yellow,” I told him. I hoped all of his questions were this easy. He got far more personal with the information he’d given me than I planned to give him. I didn’t know what this project was about but I had no intention of sharing my life story or divulging all my dirty secrets just so I could get an A.
“Bright,” he muttered more to himself than me. “Unexpected.”
I looked at him and thankfully he’d stopped trying to blind me with his handsome smile. He was looking down at his paper, writing. Belatedly, I noticed he was left handed.
“Unexpected? What do you mean by that?” I asked. Please, please don’t let him call me a freak show or turn back to the Dark Side on me. What’s unexpected about me liking a bright color? It seemed completely normal enough to me, but who knew what this weirdo would think.
He looked up at me and blinked slowly. Some of his dark hair fell forward across his left cheek. Absently, like this happened all the time and he didn’t even notice when he did it, he swiped a hand across his cheek, putting the hair back in place behind his ear.
“Girl,” he muttered in his rough voice, “day two and you’ve got nothing but black on again, so I’m thinking it’s your normal. It works for you, but I expected you to say it was your favorite color. Not something bright and cheery.” He shrugged, looking massively uncomfortable. “Unexpected. But not bad.”