Until I Met You (COMPLETE)

Prologue

         "Halex?" She breathed a shallow breath and looked up at him.

          He looked down into her eyes pushing her back, "We can't-do this!  Angel, your special, and you're going places." He swept lose hairs up into her cover, "you are going further than most of these idiots here. You're putting Magnolia in the rearview mirror and never looking back." He kissed her cheek softly and cupped her chin again, lifting her downward glance up into his eyes again a serious look on his face, "go to prom with me. Mom will get you a dress. A pretty one in your favorite color. Flowers... everything."

          Angel just stared at him dumbfounded and stuttered her answer, "I-I can't I'm on the committee for the dinner and dance. I'll be there but you'll find me by the punch bowl." She was suddenly very confused and panicked her heart gave a sudden drop in her stomach and catapulted to wedge in her throat and she did what she did best at the time, she ran. She ran into the metal building that housed their ROTC unit, grabbed her bag and ran back out and up the hill, across the English classrooms and went to sit in the band room waiting for Band to start, quietly plucking out a song on the piano to calm her nerves. The Band Director, Mr. Scott, heard her plucking out the song and opened the door flicking on the light as he looked at her, "What happened now Angel?" She was like a daughter to him, someone had to guide her, and Lord knew her mother didn't.

          "Halex asked me to the prom and I told him no," She hiccupped as her tears subsided and she turned to the man beside her. All her life she had been in his music classes, he was a role model to her and she bucked up and tried to stop shaking, "I don't know what to do. I thought for sure he'd already asked one of his girlfriends? Why me?" Mr. Scott sat down on the extra chair and closed the lid over the keys.

          "It's been my experience throughout the years that there are these guys that have a following of girls behind him, pretty, airheads as you call them... But what he's after is the smart girl in the shadows. Go tell him yes, you will feel a hundred times better. I won't mark you tardy. Hurry up and get going before he does ask one of those girls." Her eyes brightened, "You really think so?" He nodded and watched her stand up and leave and he walked out of the band room and down the hall to the auditorium.

          She left her bag running for the science wing. Halex would be heading to or be in, Mr. Davidson's Chemistry's class sitting at the front, stretched out in a dramatic slouch, but the bell hadn't rung yet and she opened the door when she got to it, shivering as she looked inside and walked up to his slouched form, tripping over his feet from the front of the lab table. "Yes," She told him staring at him and ignoring the rest of the class.

          Halex looked at her, his dark brown eyes narrowed on her and he sat up, "Yes what?" He covered her cold hands with his and rubbed them to warm them up, "Yes you'll go?" A smile covered his stern face and he strokes her hands after warming them, "This is good news. Thank you for saying yes."

Angel nodded her frizzy redhead, Mr. Davidson was in the back of the class set up at the projector where he lay a typed page on the glass and smiled, "Miss. High, as I recall you tested out of this class and I'm about to begin, why don't you head on out and you two can continue your life numbing conversation after school."

          Angel blushed, her cheeks turning a fiery red almost as red as her hair as he shoved her off, "Meet me at my truck when you get out of English, mom has a lot to plan for in a few short days. I expect it will include a drive to the outlet malls. Now go get or Mr. Scott will be tearing your head off." Her blush flooded down her neck and across her chest as she fumbled to apologize and Halex kept his eyes narrowed on her as a couple of the boys in the back started teasing her and he sighed throwing a wadded up paper ball at the closest one, "Shut up you! She's a good kid." He turned back around after getting some ribbing from Mike Playhe and Mr. Davidson cleared his throat, "If some of you may not have noticed we have a test today." Halex groaned, put away his book and workbook and sat up looking at Sara who just smiled and shook her head, "You are full of surprises Mr. Adler." Halex just grinned and got out a pencil watching Angel run across the Math wing and back up toward the auditorium and to the band room in the corner.