Where We Left Off (Phoenix Falls Series Book 1)

Music is basically a free period. We’ve had a subbie teacher since the start of term, so giving us a textbook and telling us “have at it” is the extent of his pedagogical capacities.

I’m a good student but I’m not a drip, so after fifteen minutes of shuffling and reshuffling the papers in my bag I ask if I can go to the bathroom. Like a godsend he says yes without even thinking about giving me a toilet pass. I grab my bags with ninja agility and whip out of the doors, ready to get some actual studying done in the library.

I take the stairs on the left up to the second floor and round the corner of the Computer wing because the library is up past English and the detainment rooms, right at the other end of the school. Outside is a miserable grey colour and my heart swells with joy. I love this weather. The rain trickles down the panes in a never ending cascade and, if we’re lucky, in a minute or two we’ll get a rumble of thunder crackling in the distance.

I’m walking quickly past the next stairwell junction between the Lit classes when I see them. One of the science teachers is walking with purpose to the Detention Office, and filing behind him is a trail of three smug-looking jocks. They’re slowly swaggering like they’re just going for a mid-afternoon stroll and, from the state of the white shirts that are clinging wetly to their sophomore swim-team muscles, it looks as though that’s what they were just caught doing. Outside. During fourth period.

It’s the guy with the black hair who notices me first. Shoulders, I do recall. He’s wearing his tie around his head for the full I hate school effect and his canines flash blindingly white with every arrogant guffaw. If I had to pigeonhole him in the yearbook I would rank him as “Most Likely To Secretly Be A Vampire”.

In order to avoid them I would stop and pretend that I was about to open up a locker but, after last week, there’s the potential that they’ll remember that my locker isn’t actually on this hallway, so instead I fiddle with my bag, buckling and unbuckling the fastening, whilst trying to not pass out at the sight of Tate Coleson.

Tate gets a nudge on the arm and he looks up at me mid-laugh.

I’m so dazzled that I can’t breathe. I consider unbuckling my bag again so that I can take a gasp on my inhaler.

The amazing thing is, he doesn’t stop smiling. He’s still laughing from somewhere deep in that unbelievably broad chest of his, and he’s grinning in that sexy-cocky way. He has a badly behaved twinkle in his eye and I feel it pulse brighter the closer I get.

Dirty Blond snaps me out of it.

“Jeeeeee-sussssss,” he groans loudly, rolling his eyes like this is the most annoying moment of his entire life. “Give me a fucking break, already.”

Tate glances over at him, still laughing, and puts him into a rough headlock. The other boy snorts and they disappear into the naughty boys’ pen, shaking the rainwater out of their hair like a pack of wolves.

The teacher who was accompanying them waits outside of the room and barely spares me a glance. A small female student, wearing glasses and a skirt from Goodwill? No way would she be ditching class.

I slow my pace before I turn for the library and I risk a glance in the direction of detainment room. Through the porthole window I see the three of them, hands behind their backs as they listen to their slap on the wrist scolding. Two of them are facing forward, struggling to keep their smirks at bay. The other one has his head ducked towards the door, eyes alight and molten, with a grin tugging at his lips.

My heart shivers with pleasure as I rush towards the library.

Tate Coleson just smiled at me.

*

I feel like I’m on a sugar high. Tate Coleson is a chocolate caramel sundae injected straight into my bloodstream. I have so much energy during my hour in the library that not only do I finish tomorrow’s Math practice paper, I also finish my French assignment for next month.

I’m a junkie. Gimme, gimme, gimme.

When the bell for last period sounds I consider skipping another class. I could easily be ill and in the bathroom – my disappearance from Music would match the alibi. I want to mill around the Detention Office and see if he’s still in there. I want him to grin at me again. I want to be so close to him that I can see all of the colours in his eyes.

I also want to push that dirty blond friend of his out of the window.

Why is Tate friends with him? He seems like a jerk.

I go to my Design and Technology class and end up making a mock-up poster for the Homecoming dance. It’s mainly dark navy except for the text, and in the centre I overlaid an in-motion shot of a girl twirling so fast that all you can make out is her waistline and the lifted hem of her baby pink dress. Cliché but cute. It probably won’t get picked anyway.

My good mood exceeds the final bell and I’m still a little shimmery when I’m cleaning up the dishes after dinner with my mom.

I hear the door slam outside from across the street, but I’m so zoned into my History notes that I don’t go to the window and check. Okay, the main reason why I don’t check is because I’m scared that one of these days I’m going to see him with a girl. It’s a fully-fleshed out nightmare that I sometimes traumatise myself with for about an hour and a half before I go to sleep.

I am truly insane.

Once I finish highlighting and annotating my History notes I stuff the work into its binder and kick back my chair. I’m just stretching my neck, hair cascading down my shoulders and my arms lifted over my head, when I notice him.

It’s literally eight p.m. and I swear that Tate left his house at around half six. I leave my lamp on, because I don’t want him to notice the change, but I sink down further in my chair so that he’s less likely to catch me as I stare.

He’s sat on the top of his porch steps in his hoodie and track shorts, and with what looks like a homework binder and paper pad laid out behind him, under the shield of the porch roof. His elbows are bent up on top of his large tan knees and he has his hands splayed over his ears on the outside of his hood. His eyes are shut tight and his fringe is falling over his face, dripping a little from where the rain has caught him.

What. The. Hell.

I thought that after his sports practices he came home to eat and then left again to hang out with his friends.

Has he been sitting out there alone every night?

Cautiously I stand up and reaching out slowly I turn off my lamp. Tate senses the change like an animal and his eyes shoot up to my bedroom window. I wonder if he can see me. As I contemplate this I remember that I didn’t change out of my uniform tonight and, suddenly impish, I decide that maybe now is as good a time as any.

I slip my fingers into the knot of my school tie, gently ease the length through the loop, and then I throw it onto the floor next to my school bag.

Tate sits upright.

So you can see me, Tate.

I’m feeling bold and I like it. I tug my sweater vest up at the sides, slide my fingers beneath the hem, and then I pull it over my head, before dropping it to the floor with the tie.

He’s really on the edge of his seat now. Shirt? Skirt? What could possibly be next?

I move over to the ledge so that I can see him clearly through the rain that’s streaking my window. We’re watching each other like two primates in the wild. Neither of us has blinked in the past thirty seconds.

I’m going to be sneaky this week. Every day that I hear the slam of the door I’m going to wait for ten minutes and then see if he’s still outside. Then I’ll wait an hour and check again. By Friday, if I realise that he’s been sitting outside of his house every single night, I’m going to do something about it.

But for now?

I flick the top button of my shirt through the hole and then I whip my curtains shut.