Weathered Love

CALEB

Junior year. It started off really sad. Leah had moved at the end of sophomore year. Her parents had gotten a divorce and she moved with her dad to Africa to do mission work. She knew that staying here wouldn't give her as great of an opportunity to support her causes as actually going and doing the physical work herself.

I stood in front of the school and sighed. On the bright side, I drove to school this morning. The advantage to having an early birthday was being able to get my license early and being able to drive to school on my first day of junior year.

"What's the matter?" Mackenzie asked, coming up behind me. "I was only kidding about the whole meeting my Maker comment in the car," she said a little rudely. She didn't like it when people took her jokes seriously.

"It's not that," I said, sighing again. "It's just weird with Leah gone. Who's gonna talk our ears off about world issues we couldn't care less about? She added something to the group, you know?"

"I know," Mackenzie replied, also a little sad. Leah may not have been one of my best friends, but she was a great friend. And even though we tried to talk every week, with the time difference and the reduced internet capacity where she was, it was hard to keep in touch. I hadn't spoken to her for a month now.

"Well, time to face the music," I said.

"Talk about antiquated slang," Mackenzie teased. We went inside and walked up to the front table that was set up in the front hall. It was only there on the first day of school every year. We had to go to the representative that represented our year and get our schedules, locker assignments, and lucky me, a parking space too.

We got our schedules and Mackenzie and I left the queue to compare them. I was about to start walking to my locker when someone knocked me over.

"Oh, hey, sorry about that," came an unfamiliar voice. I looked up, about to give whoever knocked me down a piece of my mind, when my voice got caught in my throat. Towering over me was an extremely tall, sexy, god. He had long blond hair that fell around his face, soft grey eyes, and a face that looked like it was chiseled from stone. He held out his hand for me to take, but I snapped out of it. Tomboy mode was back on.

"Watch where you're going bro," I said, getting up by myself but giving him a smile so he knew I wasn't actually angry.

"Sorry, new here," he said. "I guess it's easier to find my locker if my face is not glued to the paper though," he continued, flashing me a brilliant smile. My heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest. But I couldn't let him know how he was making me feel. It was a rare moment I was happy about my honey skin. It rarely gave away my blushing. And I prayed, in that moment, that my summer tan wouldn't let me down.

"What locker number?" I asked, trying to come off nonchalant but helpful. I was sure my voice squeaked at the end. Keep it together, Ivy, I silently scolded to myself.

He handed me his paper and I nearly jumped for joy. His locker was next to mine. And, he and I had first period English together. "Follow me," I said, nodding at Mackenzie. She kept pace with me while the sexy stranger followed closely behind us. She knew the game I was playing. Pretend to be cool, maybe he'll find it endearing.

"I'm Caleb, by the way," he said as he walked behind us. Mackenzie and I had been talking about our summers, partly as part of my playing it cool game, partly because I was genuinely curious about her summer travels.

We stopped walking and turned around in unison. "I'm Ivy, this is Mackenzie," I responded.

"Are you two twins?" he asked. A lot of people asked us that, although I never saw it. Where Mackenzie was thin and gorgeous and could probably stop traffic, I had a cute face at best and was struggling not to go from the overweight to obese category. I laughed.