He's Mine

If I'd known the day was going to end like this, I may have stayed home. Looking back now, I should have been better prepared, but nothing like this had ever happened to me before.

My best friend, Allody, stopped by in the morning, just like any other school day. We got in her raggedy Chevy Nova, and headed to the donut shop to get our sugar fix. Today she had her shoulder-length, brown hair twisted in knots all over her head, and there was mischief in her green eyes.

I could see a pair of gym shorts peeking from under the requisite school uniform skirt, and a Death Kull t-shirt was visible under her white button-down. That usually spelled trouble, and I wondered what was up, but didn't ask yet; she needed a little jolt before any kind of serious conversation.

Our favorite spot was still vacant in the school lot, and there were still twenty minutes before first bell, which was usually enough time to eat our donuts, and gulp down our frappes while we caught up on what happened between our last texts at 10PM and now.

I let her get a huge gulp of caffeine down, before asking, "What's with the shorts? You don't have gym first period."

A guilty look crept into her eyes, "Crap! I'd hoped you wouldn't notice."

"Spill!" I told her.

She made me wait until she'd sucked down half her drink and eaten half her donut before answering.

When ready, she leaned her back against the door, facing me, and played with the straw in her nearly empty cup. "Jenna, and her gang are going to skip and head over to the boy's school. They have a sanitation day and everyone'll be outside picking up trash, and her boyfriend and a couple other guys are gonna meet us in the woods."

I stared at her for two breaths. "Why am I just hearing about it now? Weren't you gonna let me know? You don't want me to come?"

She had the decency to blush at being caught, "It's not that! I just know how you feel about Jenna and her friends. I didn't think you'd want to go."

"So why are you going?" I didn't know she even knew Jenna Hastings well enough to be invited to skip school with her.

"I heard her talking in the bathroom yesterday during fifth, and asked if I could come. There's a guy I've been eyeing, and I thought this might be the perfect time to, you know, introduce myself."

Allody Carmichael has always been boy crazy, but I thought she'd gotten over all that last year when she caught her last boyfriend cheating. All summer she'd avoided boys like they had plague, and all of a sudden, she's willing to skip school to meet one?

"Do I know him?" I wondered who had captured her attention.

"I don't know. He's a senior, but he was held back a year, so he's older."

"Name?" She was going to make me pull the information out of her like I was pulling teeth.

"Kane Randall." The words were spoken softly, probably in an effort to keep me from actually hearing them.

All I could do was stare at her. She was interested in Kane Randall? The only boy in the boy's school that actually had a police record? This was definitely going to be trouble.

"Where'd you see him?" She never mentioned being interested in him before.

"Well, he was working at the garage my dad took his car to when it broke down near the end of summer." She got a faraway look in her eyes.

School had been in session for three months, and this was the first time I'd heard his name cross her lips. What else was she keeping from me?

"And?" I pressed for more details.