She patted my shoulder sympathetically as she spoke through her laughter, “Your mom can’t be that bad. Does she work?” Her head tilted to the side questioningly causing her fiery red hair to spill over her shoulder.
“Nope,” I answered. “That’s the worst part. Since she doesn’t work she has extra time to sit at home and find more things to worry about!”
Lena and I turned down a corridor and headed into the direction of the buses. We had already gathered the items that we needed for the next day from our lockers and were ready to head home. “I know it’s normal for a mom to worry about her children, but my mom takes worrying to another level. She refuses to buy Popsicles for Lilly and me, not only because they “contain all kinds of artificial flavoring and unhealthy sugars,” but also because, “they could give us tongue splinters”.” My voice rose to a high pitch tone that closely resembled my mother’s voice.
Lena turned her head to look at me as we walked. “You can’t be serious. Please tell me you’re exaggerating.” When I shook my head she started to laugh again. “I have to meet your mom! She sounds hilarious!”
I shrugged and rolled my eyes. “I guess you could say she’s kind of funny in a crazy, nut job kind of way.”
Lena laughed but stopped abruptly as we walked through the front doors of the school building. She nudged my shoulder with her elbow and winked at me as she said, “Hottie at twelve o’clock.”
I turned my head to the direction that I assumed was twelve o’clock to see Blake sitting on a bench with his nose buried deep in a book. Smiling, I wrapped my fingers around Lena’s wrist and pulled her toward him with a smile on my face.
When I was within hearing range I called out his name to get his attention. He tilted his head up and scanned the area in front of him before his eyes landed on me. Once they did, he smiled and looked back down at his book, flipping a page as he continued to read.
Lena spoke from behind me. “You know, you two make an extremely cute couple, Forrester.”
I turned my head slightly so that I could get a good look at her smirking face. “Who told you we were dating?” I racked my brain trying to recall everything I had said to her in the last few hours during school, but I didn’t remember saying anything about Blake and me other than during gym this morning. I thought it would be funny to see how long it would take her to figure it out without me having to tell her.
Lena smiled, giving me a full view of her straight white teeth. “I could say that I’m extremely good at reading people, but that would be a lie.” She shrugged and looked tremendously proud of herself as she said, “I saw the two of you “chewing on each other's tongues” on the bus this morning.”
I laughed as I remembered how our strict and extremely inappropriate bus driver, Mrs. Gross, had reacted to Blake and me kissing on the bus in the morning.
“So that explains your so called “boy intuition”?” I shook my head, feigning disbelief.
Lena shrugged. “What can I say? I have a good imagination.”
I nodded in agreement as we continued to walk toward Blake. When we reached him, I took a seat next to him on the bench and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. I hadn’t seen him since first period and I couldn’t wait to hear about how his classes went. I was a little sad that we didn’t have any together other than gym, but I was also happy that I wasn’t put into any of his advanced placement classes so I couldn’t complain.
Blake looked up from his book and held up his pointer finger. “Let me just finish this chapter.” Before I could reply, he buried his nose back into the book and began reading intently. Lena smiled and tugged at my arm, getting me to turn toward her.
She pointed an immaculately painted finger at a horde of our classmates that were gathering off in the distance. “Is that normal after-school behavior?” she asked with wide eyes as she popped a stick of gum into her mouth, offering me some and putting it away when I declined.
I shook my head at her question, focusing on the steadily growing crowd of people and noticing the fact that a majority of the onlookers had a Y chromosome, and seemed to be synchronized as they all pumped their fists into the air and chanted. Although I was too far away from the mob to hear what they were saying, I wouldn’t have hesitated to bet my entire life savings that they were chanting the word, “Fight!” repeatedly. After I voiced my thoughts to Lena, she did something that I had not expected. Instead of shrugging and focusing her attention on something else, she hopped off of the bench, grabbing my hand in the process, and pulled me along behind her as she ran toward the rapidly growing throng of high school students.
As we got closer to the group, the shouts from the crowd that had gathered to watch were loud and distinct. Each spectator was shouting, “Girl fight!” at the top of their lungs as they pushed themselves forward to get a better view of the fight before them.
Lena pushed her way to the front of the crowd, paving a narrow path for me as I followed along. I had the back of her shirt grasped into a tight fist, and as we drew closer to the front of the crowd I began to get a little antsy at the thought of who would be dumb enough to fight on the first day of school. Even I knew that was wrong.
As I made my way past a few people I felt a hand graze my butt, and as a quick reaction, I dropped hold of Lena’s shirt and slapped the hand away. I regretted it instantly when I looked ahead of me to see that we had made it to the front of the crowd. Suddenly, a look of recognition covered Lena’s face, and to my surprise, she jumped right into the middle of the fight.
Chapter 4
I watched in shock as Lena launched herself at one of the fighters. Although her blonde hair was spilled over her face, I could tell that the girl lying beneath Lena was Brianna. She kicked her feet helplessly as Lena held both of her arms restrained above her head. Lena’s lips moved quickly and her eyebrows arched low on her forehead as she yelled at Brianna for a moment before pushing herself up from where she was sitting on Brianna’s stomach and turning toward Brianna’s opponent with a heavy scowl of disapproval lining her face.
Afterwards, she stomped over to the skinny redhead who had been fighting with Brianna. In a few quick strides, Lena was standing in front of the girl and was wagging her index finger in the girl’s face; the same way that a mother would while reprimanding a small child. Lena roughly grabbed onto the girl’s arm as she turned toward me, still frowning as she dragged the little redhead closer. I couldn’t see the girl’s face due to the fact that her head was hung low causing her straight red hair to spill over her face, but I was sure that she was Gabriella, Lena’s little sister. The crowd parted like the Red Sea as the two redheaded sisters walked toward me.
As they passed by, Lena grabbed onto my wrist, pulling me along with her and Gabriella. By the time we had gotten back to Blake he was shoving his book into his backpack and shrugging it over his shoulder as he looked at me with a confused expression etched onto his face.
Before I could fill him in on what had just happened, Lena said, “Don't ask.” She shoved Gabriella into the empty space on the bench next to Blake before she continued. “Let's just get on to the bus, and forget that it ever happened. Our parents have enough to worry about right now.” Lena threw a pointed look in her sister's direction.
Gabriella glanced down and rubbed the back of her neck as she slouched deeper into her seat as if she was trying to disappear.
Lena seemed oblivious to her sister’s obvious discomfort. She cleared her throat before adding, “Guys, this is my little sister, Gabriella. Gabriella, meet Violet and Blake.” Lena gestured to us and smiled.
Raising an eyebrow, she looked from me to Blake and then crossed her arms haughtily. “It’s Ella. Besides, we’ve met already,” she said with a scowl lining her delicate face.
Blake glanced at me to see if I knew what she was talking about. Although her face looked kind of familiar, I didn’t remember meeting her before. Noticing our puzzled expressions, Ella spoke again to clear up our bewilderment. “I saw you th
is morning...” She waved both of her hands in small circles as if she was trying to jog our memory. “I was with Brianna and the other girls when you guys were being rude to her. It was uncalled for really. She did nothing to you.” Ella tossed a glare in my direction before she popped a stick of gum into her mouth. The whole time her eyes stayed focused on mine.
“You and Brianna seem like good friends.” My words dripped with sarcasm. “It was obvious from the way she was pulling your hair back there.”
Lena shook her head. “I hope this isn’t going to be a repeat of last year. Can’t you just find some normal friends to hang out with?”
Ella finally looked away from me. Instead, she focused her glaring eyes at her sister. “Shut up. You don’t even know what you’re talking about.” Her words came out in a low growl. “Brianna is nice. We just had a misunderstanding. And besides,” she shrugged her shoulders and smirked, “we have two different definitions of normal. You refer to these losers as normal? Brianna told me all about Violet. She’s a freak. Always has been and always will be.”
Her words may have hurt if I was the type of person to give a damn what others thought. The only thing I was mad about was that she was judging me based on someone else’s perception. I was about to voice my thoughts when Ella pushed up off of the bench and repositioned her skirt, smoothing out the wrinkles in the material, before walking off. She sauntered over to where Brianna and two of her lap dogs were standing around Brianna’s little red hatchback. When Ella was in their vicinity, she walked straight up to Brianna and—from the look of it—was apologizing to her. In response, Brianna smiled smugly and patted Ella on the shoulder before she climbed behind the wheel of her car while her followers, Ella included, climbed into the remaining seats.
My attention returned to Lena as she began talking. “Ignore her. She likes to…speak her mind. Although she doesn’t always know what she’s talking about.”
“The buses are boarding.” Leave it to Blake to change the subject. He was so quiet that I had almost forgotten he was here.
Blake stood up and wrapped his arm around my waist as the three of us trudged over to our bus. Lena smiled sweetly at Mrs. Gross as she climbed the bus stairs while I pretended to ignore the glare that she tossed at me as I passed her. I followed Lena to the back of the bus and took a seat next to her, smiling apologetically at Blake as he sat in the seat across the aisle from us.
The whole way home we talked about our classes and which teachers seemed to be the easiest. Blake got off at his stop and gave me a soft kiss on the cheek saying that he would call me after dinner. By the time the bus got to my stop Lena and I were two of the few students left on the bus. Standing, I pulled my backpack over my shoulder as I stood into the aisle.
Lena stood up as well, following me to the front of the bus, and getting off.
“Are you following me home?” I questioned, only half joking.
She laughed. “What? No, this is my stop. I live about a block up the street, but this is the nearest stop to my house.”
“Sure you do,” I said slowly, earning an eye roll.
She shook her head at me before turning to head off. “See you tomorrow, Forrester,” she called out behind her.
Chapter 5
For the rest of the week school was uneventful. It was as if with each passing day my classes became more and more boring; if that was even possible. My workload so far had been manageable, but I knew for certain that that was going to change with the next week. So far, all we had done was go over the syllabus for each class, play dumb introduction games, and take placement tests so that our teachers knew what we remembered in the course from last year.
I was so grateful for the sound of the dismissal bell to ring on Friday afternoon. The bell not only signified my freedom for the next two days, but it also meant that I had a break from early mornings, dull lectures, and people in general. I was convinced that every single one of my peers was intentionally trying to be obnoxious and immature just to tick me off. If they were, then it was definitely working.
Lena and Blake were the only two exceptions to that statement. I didn’t see Blake a lot during the school day, but Lena and I had grown inseparable throughout the week. I was happy that I had made friends with someone who was in a majority of my classes, because it made life easier. We had a partner in each of the classes we shared in case group work came up, and when our homework began, we would be able to work on it together for the most part.
“What are you doing this weekend,” Lena questioned as we stopped at her locker.
“Probably the same thing I do every weekend, lay around watching movies, avoid my mom, spend time with Lilly, and hang out with Blake. Why?” I leaned my shoulder against the locker near hers, regarding her expression as she put in her combination.
“I was just wondering. Gabri—I mean Ella,” she corrected herself, “and I haven’t been getting along at all, and I was just hoping that you had a fun weekend planned so that I could tag-along and get out of the house.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to disappoint.”
She shrugged, slamming her locker shut. It rattled noisily as it closed. “It’s fine. I’ll probably just use my time to explore the neighborhood, you know? See if there’s anything that I haven’t seen yet besides my walk home from the bus stop.”
“There’s not really much to see around here. I bet your exploration would have been better in Cali. There isn’t really much to see on foot in this area.” I bit my bottom lip in thought as we began walking toward the front of the school to get on the bus. “If you want to, you can come over today and we can just hang out. You can stay for dinner,” I suggested, earning a smile from Lena.
“Would that be okay with your parents?”
“I’m sure my mom won’t care if you come over. She could probably give you a ride home tonight too. I’ll just have to ask her to be sure.”
Lena smile hard, pushing a few curly strands of hair out of her face and behind her ear. “That would be great. I’m sure my parents won’t even notice that I’m not there.”
“I doubt that,” I responded, pushing through the front door of the school. We headed outside, walking toward the buses where students were piling on in streams.
We boarded our bus, and took our seats just in time before the doors closed and it took off.
Blake, who had already been on the bus, leaned into the aisle from his seat diagonal from me and poked me in my side gently. “How was your day?’ he questioned, his pale blue eyes bright in the sunlight that streamed through the bus windows.
I sighed in exasperation. “It was long, tiring, and unnecessary because I didn’t learn anything.”
He scoffed. “That’s not possible. You learn something every day, even if you’re unaware of it.”
“Yeah, well I didn’t learn anything today.”
Blake shook his head, furrowing his brows. “If you say so.”
“I do say so,” I replied snarkily. Then, changing the subject I asked, “What are you doing tonight?”
Flicking his eyes away, he looked a little uncomfortable. He was silent for a moment before he finally answered with, “I don’t know. I’ll probably just hang out at home and start my homework. My math teacher passed out our textbooks, and assigned reading and questions for the weekend. So I guess I’ll get that done tonight so my weekend is free.”
I nodded. “Smart. Lena is coming to my house for dinner,” I said with a smile.
Hearing her name, Lena leaned around me from her place near the window and said, “I finally get to meet the infamous Mrs. Forrester.”
Blake smiled. “Mrs. Forrester is great, you’ll love her.”
Just then, the bus pulled to a stop, and Blake stood. “Have fun. I’ll talk to you later, Vi.” Then he trudged off of the bus.
It wasn’t long until Lena and I were getting off of the bus too. Together we walked up my driveway and into my house. As soon as I pushed the door shut behind us, I heard my mom’s voice fro
m the kitchen. “Violet? Is that you sweetheart?”
“Yes mom, who else would it be?” I questioned, rolling my eyes playfully, making Lena laugh. “I brought my friend, Lena, over,” I called out again. “Is it all right if she stays for dinner?”
A few seconds later, Rose Forrester came speed walking out of the kitchen—since she doesn’t allow running in the house—wiping her wet hands on the front of one of her many aprons with a huge smile on her face. “You made a friend?”
She looked genuinely shocked at the fact that I had a friend other than my boyfriend. You know you’re a loser when your own mother thinks that you’re incapable of making friends.
“It’s so nice to meet you! I’m Rose, and it would be an honor to have you for dinner.”
Lena looked flustered as my mom shook her hand roughly. Way to go mom. First she’s surprised by my ability to make a friend, and now she’s trying to scare her off? Of course I’ve had friends before, I’m not a loner. It’s just that whenever I find a friend, we hang out once or twice before we notice that we have nothing in common. It’s a sad chain of events.
“Do you have any food allergies that I should be aware of?” My mom asked, absentmindedly stroking my hair.
I leaned away from her reach as Lena said, “No allergies here.”
“Great!” my mom responded before she turned and spoke to me. “Violet, why don’t you take Lena upstairs and I’ll call you down when dinner’s ready? It should be done by the time your father gets home, so about an hour and a half.”
I nodded, turning to head toward the steps with Lena in tow, but stopped when she continued talking, adding, “And please wake Lilly up from her nap. I don’t want her to be up all night. It’s not healthy for a child of her age. I read online the other day that a child her age should be getting about ten hours of sleep at the very least. When you were her age you only got around eight hours of sleep each night. Do you think that could be why you’re iron deficient?” Her brown eyes widened in horror and from the corner of my eye I saw Lena stifle a laugh.
Crush: A YA Romance Collection Page 27