Bad Timing

Prologo

Noah Callaway.

Many citizens of Beaufort, North Carolina feared his name alone. In their eyes, he was the epitome of the perfect criminal. Parents warned their kids to stay away from him. Females gossiped when he walked by. Males wanted to beat the living daylights out of him.

It wasn’t a complete shock that Noah walked the halls of East Carteret High Monday morning. After all, it was hard not to hear of the return of the infamous bad boy, especially if you had a big mouthed best friend who kept talking about it.

“Oh, Dios mío!” Paige Valentine yelped, digging her manicured fingers into my arm painfully. “It’s true! He is back!”

I simply rolled my eyes at her over exaggeration and watched as students skittered away from him like birds. Noah simply looked down, his eyebrows drawn together in obvious irritation.

“I can’t believe Campbell is still hanging around him,” Leon Palmer said, leaning against the red lockers. He ran his hand over his black buzz cut, shaking his head. “If you guys were killers, I’d stay away from you like you carried the black plague.”

I looked away from Noah and his best friend, Callum Campbell, with a sigh. Unlike my best friends, I simply didn’t care about this situation. In fact, I was bored of all the rumors that circulated and was repetitively whispered into my ear.

Three months ago, Nick Callaway was found dead in the football field with multiple bruises, cuts, and a smashed up face. Lying next to him was Noah Callaway, passed out, with a bat in his arms. Nobody knew anything more besides the fact that Noah was accused of killing his own brother.

“Emma, aren’t you scared?” Paige asked in horror. She shook her head slowly, her silky brown hair moving perfectly around her. “Girl, you’re crazy! He killed his own brother!”

“He didn’t kill his brother,” I deadpanned, rolling my eyes again. “That was a rumor.”

“Rumors could be true, you know,” Leon stated.

“Yeah and freeing a murderer is legitimate,” I replied sarcastically.

Paige rolled her brown eyes. “Being a conniving criminal, I wouldn’t be surprised if he found a way to get out of this horrible situation. You never knew if he was sexually active with the judge. All females could agree that looking at Noah Callaway will give you an eye-gasm.”

Despite having a bad reputation and a cantankerous attitude, I could agree with Paige that Noah Callaway was really handsome. Extremely tall, neatly kept dark hair, a perfectly structured face, and sun-kissed skin taut over lean muscles, he was pleasing to the eyes. And speaking of eyes …

His eyes were beautiful. In the tenth grade, I accidently bumped into him in the hallway. Looking up, I noticed it was Noah, but I couldn’t bring myself to say anything because all I could do was stare at his pretty steel blue eyes. Without saying anything, he shook his head and walked away after I stuttered a lame apology.

“Oh diablos no!” Paige whispered. “You’re biting your lip. Are you having dirty thoughts about Noah?”

“I am not,” I defended, crossing my arms over my chest. “I just wished I had pretty eyes like him.”

When the bell rang for first period, Paige and I bid our goodbye to Leon and headed to Psychology Education. Paige hooked her arm around my own before diving into her rant again.

“You do have pretty eyes! In fact, I’m jealous of your damn hazel eyes. You need to get over that weird infatuation for Noah Callaway. He’s trouble,” Paige said loudly as we entered the classroom. The two girls sitting in front looked at us in disgust before joining their heads together to gossip.

I tugged on Paige’s arm and gave her a look. “Can you shut your big mouth? You’re going to start a whole new set of rumors,” I warned taking my seat at the back near the teacher’s desk. “And I don’t like him.”

“Good, because I would’ve smacked you until you come to your senses. I’d rather you lick the bottom of our gum infested cafeteria tables than hold hands with that criminal.” 

As more students filed in and the tardy bell rang, I lowered my voice into a whisper. “Let’s stop talking about this. We shouldn’t even intrude on Noah’s personal – “

“Ah, Mr. Callaway, it’s nice for you to finally join us,” Ms. Brayer, the young and slightly OCD teacher, had announced. All heads snapped up from their journaling notebooks to look at Noah, including my own. “Please take a seat wherever you like.”

“Fuck no, I am not sitting next to a psycho murderer,” Sawyer said from the front of the class.

“I don’t feel comfortable, Ms. Brayer,” Keera whimpered.

“Are you sure he’s not carrying a knife around, Ms. Brayer?”

“Get the fuck out of here.”

Soon, the whole class was complaining, subtle and rude insults coming from every direction. Noah looked impassive. It was as if he was already expecting this outcome. He stood there, with his hands stuffed in his dark washed jeans.

Slamming a couple of books on top of her desk, she yelled, “Enough!” The whole class went dead silent, eyes widened at Ms. Brayer’s outburst. It was rare that she ever yelled at her kids. She sighed, making sure the books she slammed on top of her desk were straight. “I will not allow those kinds of judgments and foul language to be spoken in my class. One more time and I will report you to Principal Leroy for bullying.” She turned to Noah with genuine sympathy. “I’m so sorry, Noah. Please, take a seat.”

I was more than shocked when Noah plopped down in the seat next to me. After ten long minutes, everyone seemed to ignore Noah and go back to their journals. I, however, wasn’t over the fact that he sat next to me. I felt like I had to say something. Looking at his now distressed face and knitted eyebrows, I felt like it was my obligation to apologize for my inconsiderate classmates.

Before I could say anything, his steel blue eyes looked straight at me. When he noticed me staring, he sighed and looked back down at his paper. “You still have that fucking annoying staring problem.”

 Because I had a natural white complexion, I was certain that my face was the color of a tomato.