Going to school had become even more of a nightmare. Seeing her first thing in the morning, looking for her in the hall, hoping to catch her around every corner – only to be shut down, ignored, avoided at all costs. Juliet Taylor hated my guts, and she was never going to speak to me again.
It didn't matter that I thought about her every waking moment and dreamed about her every night. She turned and ran in the other direction when she saw me coming, never allowing me to explain. And God, had I tried. For three months, I tried.
It was January, and I had backed off for the time being in order to clear my head and pull my shit together. The problem was I had no idea where to begin. I knew I wanted – needed – her, but I didn't know how to get her. The guys all thought I was a hero, that I had finally participated in their sick game. They would ruin me if they ever found out I actually had feelings for her. Even Harrison was under the impression – or so he said – that our one-night-stand had been enough for me to get her out of my system. Damn was he wrong.
"So, Dash," Katia cooed in my ear as we stood in the hall one morning, her claw-like nails digging into my good shoulder, pressing her chest flush against me. "I was thinking about you the other night."
I perked up, spotting a petite, pixie-like girl with dark hair enter the hall from the stairwell. I had been on high alert since the incident, always looking for her everywhere I went, even outside school. I was a total wreck.
"Oh yeah?" I murmured, vaguely noting the suggestive tone to her low, seductive voice. Katia had been doing this a lot lately, stopping me in the hall to drop explicit, dirty innuendos in my ear. She'd been after me ever since the party, but I'd yet to give in, and she'd yet to take the hint.
"I was lying in bed," Katia whispered, breathing on my neck as she played with the collar of my t-shirt.
Juliet put in her locker combination with her delicate fingers, twisting carefully so as not to miss a number, and swung the door open to retrieve her books. Her dark hair was pinned up in her distinctive ballerina bun at the back of her head, and she was dressed in pair of fraying jeans and a grey sweater, not a hint of color anywhere. It broke my heart to see her so broken. Though she didn't show it so obviously, I knew she was. I could see it in the way she moved a little slower, spoke a little softer, hung her head a little lower. It hurt even more knowing there was nothing I could do to fix it, even though I was the cause.
I had completely tuned out Katia's dirty story of how she'd pleasured herself the night before, ignoring her finger tracing circles on my chest.
"So, what do you say?" she asked me, pursing her lips.
It was then that Juliet had looked up, her eyes automatically drawn to mine as if by some magnetic force between us. She paled visibly, looking from me to Katia, and then spun around on her heels, making a beeline through the crowded hall.
"I have to go," I muttered, having no clue what Katia had asked about.
She tried to grab my arm and stop me, but I slipped away and put plenty of distance between us. I headed straight for my History classroom, having lost sight of Juliet in the sea of taller students. We had only two minutes until the bell would ring, so she couldn't have gone anywhere else. It was the first time we had done so much as make eye contact in weeks, and she had stormed off after seeing me with another girl. It had to mean something.
When I turned down the next hallway, I spotted her, steps away from the classroom. I bolted down the crowded corridor, grabbing her arm and pulling her to the side just before she got to the door.
"Wha–oomph!" Juliet stumbled towards me, falling into my chest before she could catch herself. It was the closest we had been in months. I could smell her fruity shampoo, feel her soft, thick sweater brush against my skin. I wished I could hold her there forever, kiss the top of her head and never let her go. But the thought was instantly shattered when she realized what had happened and broke from my grasp.
"Please, don't leave," I said desperately, catching her wrist as she whipped around. "We need to talk, Juliet."
"I don't want to talk to you," she mumbled, avoiding my gaze.
"I need to explain –"
"There's nothing to explain," Juliet cut in, her voice thick with impatience. She then turned her back to me and began walking again.
"Katia's been after me for months," I said hastily, following behind as she entered the classroom. "I told her I'm not interested, but she won't leave me alone."
"Why are you telling me this?" Juliet whispered over her shoulder, keeping her voice low so no one else would hear.
I sighed, searching for an answer. "I don't know. I just – I thought you might want to know."
"I don't care if you see anyone," Juliet replied, looking up at me with a sad glint in her glittering blue eyes. She no longer beamed up at me like I was the greatest thing to walk the planet. Now, she only looked at me with disappointment. Every forlorn glance broke my heart a little more.
"I'm not seeing anyone," I retorted, hiding my frustration. "I haven't since–"
"Don't," Juliet warned, taking her seat and lowering her head. "Please, just leave me alone."
Straightening up, I nodded and swallowed the heavy lump in my throat, deciding to be mature about the situation. The more I pushed, the more distance she put between us. She needed time, and I could respect that.
"Alright. As you wish." I waited a second more, hoping, praying that she would stop me and tell me that she cared, but nothing, just a nod and a brief sideways glance. Feeling like I'd been punched in the gut, I trudged to my seat in the back of the room.
It was ridiculous, really, the power she had over me. Any other girl would have killed to have such a spell on me, but Juliet would have killed to get rid of it. The only girl I'd ever truly wanted, and she wanted nothing to do with me. Never in my life had I fucked up so monumentally, and I'd fucked up pretty bad before.
My eyes were glued to the back of her head the whole period, nothing swaying my thoughts for fifty minutes straight. I was pathetic.
The bell rang, and Juliet was up and out in a flash before I could even stand. The second I did, however, my shot at catching her was trashed.
"Dash, may I speak to you?"
I stopped short, looking up to the front of the room where Mrs. Torres stood with her hands on her hips. Oh, God, I thought, my stomach twisting.
"Yes, ma'am," I replied uneasily, hanging my head as I approached her desk.
She stared at me silently for a minute, boring holes into my skull with her deep brown eyes. Then she sighed, unable to hold up her glare.
"Something's wrong, Dash," she stated in a matter-of-fact tone.
"What?" I asked, trying to play dumb. The last person I was going to talk to about my issues was a teacher.
"At the beginning of the year, you were doing great, which surprised me given the reputation you've made for yourself at this school. Even when you were in and out of the principal's office last year, you maintained A's and B's as if nothing was going on."
"How do you know that?" I unintentionally snapped, incapable of biting my tongue. But Torres didn't flinch.
"I took a look at your record and compared it with your report cards from last year," Torres explained honestly, tapping a manila folder with my name scrawled across the tab.
I felt betrayed, violated, like she had crossed a boundary of some kind. Teachers shouldn't be able to have access to whatever the fuck they wanted any time they wanted. It seemed wrong.
"So, what's the point?" I grumbled bitterly, not even bothering to be polite anymore. Luckily for me, she was surprisingly patient that day.
"The point is that you've been sent to the office only three times this year," she answered calmly, drumming her fingernails on top of the desk. "But ever since your scuffle with Mr. Priest back in October, your performance in class and your grades have steadily dropped. You barely got a C-plus last quarter."
"Last I checked a C-plus wasn't something to cry over," I rebuked, straightening up and matching her sharp stare. I was basically asking for another week-long detention, but I didn't give a shit anymore. Spending lunch in silence for a week didn't sound too bad compared to what I was doing now.
"No, not for an average student," Torres allowed, though austerely. "But you've always gotten A's in my class with no sign of difficulty or even much effort. It was actually irritating that you were able to breeze through like that. You were second in the class, Dash."
Second, I thought sadly. There was only one who could be first...
"Then you should be glad I'm not doing well," I told her, my temper beginning to get away from me.
Torres huffed angrily. "No, I'm not glad, especially if your performance in my class is any indication of your performance in all your classes. I know you're not playing football anymore, so all you have are your grades. You need to be that straight-A student again if you want to go to a good college."
That did it for me. She had hit a sore spot, and I couldn't stand there and take her lecturing any longer. "I'm late for class," I muttered, slipping past her.
"Let me write you a note," Torres said, relenting in defeat. She quickly jotted down an excuse on a piece of stationary with her initials written in curvy lettering across the top and handed it to me before I stormed out of the room.
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I walked into History the next day to find that Juliet was already there. We made eye-contact briefly when I stepped through the door, but she instantly looked down, as if looking at me for too long would cause one of us to explode. Gritting my teeth in determination, I powered forward and walked right up to her.
"We need to talk," I stated adamantly, hoping to show that I wasn't going to give up on her – I wasn't going to give up on us.
But goddammit was she stubborn. I thought I knew everything about her – personality wise, at least – but I never pegged her as the stubborn type. She flat out ignored me, didn't look up, nod, shake her head. Instead, Juliet, like always, went about her usual, everyday routine as I had watched her do for months.
I paused in front of her desk, watching as she leaned over to pick up a piece of paper that had slid off to the floor. As she did this, her backpack sagged by her feet, tipping over onto its side and causing her small pink "pencil pouch" to fall below her chair. Juliet turned then, yanking her backpack up by its handle and resting it against the leg of her desk. But she had already taken a pen out of her case. She didn't realize that it had fallen out, and it was now lying neglected and out of her sight. This was it, the opportunity I had been awaiting for months.
I shoved my hands in my pockets, forcing a disappointed expression, and began to shuffle past her. But as I left, I stuck out my foot and kicked her pencil case away from her desk and across the floor. Glancing back to make sure Juliet hadn't seen my sneaky maneuver, I bent down and picked up the girly little bag, tucking it under my arm and making my way to the back of the room.
The bell rang shortly after. A nervous rock formed in the pit of my stomach, anticipating the moment that Juliet looked down and realized her pouch was gone. But class was starting, and she hadn't gone to retrieve it yet. All I could do was hope and pray that her pen would hold out for the next fifty minutes, and she would leave class without thinking to put it back in its place. Of course, this was Juliet I was referring to, and she was the kind of person who always put things back in their place. She was too organized for her own good sometimes.
Mrs. Torres began taking attendance, sliding her wire-framed glasses up her thin nose to get a clearer view of her computer screen. When she called my name, I grumbled out a response, barely resembling the word "here," but working well enough for her.
"Juliet Taylor," Torres said with a pleasant lilt in her voice. No one could say her sweet name without a smile.
"Here," Juliet replied, a slight waver in her high voice that near startled me. My eyes shot up to see if something was wrong, something of which I might have been the cause. Her head was hung low, her hands clasped in her lap below her desk, her shoulders hunched. A pang of guilt rushed through me.
Juliet remained silent all throughout class, which was unnerving. She knew every answer – I knew she did – but she refused to offer her input. Was it me? Did our brief encounter make her sad, wistful, reminiscent of old times? Could it be possible that she missed me just as much as I missed her? It had to be true. I believed it was true. She was angry at me for hurting her and angry at herself for betraying that anger. She wanted to give in to her heart, but her mind was telling her no.
So maybe it was wishful thinking on my part, and maybe she was just upset that I dared to remind her of that night, but I didn't care. If I was going to win her back, then I had to believe she wanted it, too. That was what was going through my mind when I was with her that night, and it was plenty of motivation for me then.
Juliet must have been just that eager to get out of the room when class ended. She must have been so eager that she didn't bother to put her pen back in its home, for she hastily shoved her books in her backpack and barely zipped it up before she darted out of the room.
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I felt like I had a diamond ring in my possession, a valuable piece of jewelry that I had stolen from an unsuspecting victim. I was remorseful, but I also felt justified, for it wasn't just for my gain. It was like stealing money to feed your family rather than taking it to buy booze. Well, maybe not that dire, but that was how I felt in the moment.
My mind buzzed, trying to figure out when, where, how I would return the pencil case to her. The whole point of taking it was so I would have another excuse – a valid excuse – to talk to her. She would have no choice but to respond, and she couldn't not give some sort of thanks. It was manipulative and selfish, but I had to do it. I was going to give her time, but that didn't mean I couldn't remind her every once in a while, right?
I searched for her as I made my way through the halls, weaving past the masses of students headed for the cafeteria like a salmon swimming upstream. When I turned the corner, entering the senior hallway, my eyes fell on Juliet's locker only to find that she wasn't there. I was actually a little relieved. The longer I held onto the pouch, the longer I held onto her.
So, I swiveled around and headed back in the other direction, following the crowd to the lunchroom. Begrudgingly, I crossed through the sea of round tables and came to the one I had been sitting at for the past four years.
"Sup, Dash," Gordon greeted me with a lazy nod.
Nodding back, I took my rightful position at Harrison's left side as his second in command. I hated it. I hated being back there since November. I had no choice but to return if I wanted to convince the others that I had totally and completely gotten over Juliet, as I had told them. I had to suffer through weeks of cruel jokes targeted at her. All I could do was sit in silence as they laughed at us both.
"So, Dash, how was History?" Harrison asked as soon as I sat down.
He wasn't exactly interested in hearing about the Seven Years' War, I was certain. He knew very well that History was my one class with Juliet, and he just wanted to see if I would somehow blow my lie. But he seemed to have forgotten that I'd been lying since I could talk, and I'd become quite good at it.
"Boring as fuck," I grumbled, taking a massive bite out of my sandwich. I kept my head down, refusing to give Harrison the satisfaction of hitting a soft spot by pretending I didn't realize what he was really getting at.
He clapped a hand on my shoulder – my bad shoulder, which he continued to use as physical leverage – and shook me a little, seemingly pleased with my response. Now, I wasn't an idiot. I knew that Harrison still had his suspicions. But the longer I lied to him, the longer he went along with it, too. Anything was better than his relentless accusations three months ago.
I drowned out the usual lunchtime conversation, which no longer involved me as much as it used to. I felt Harrison's eyes on me continually, but I remained stoic, not daring to look off to the left, where Juliet was sitting with her nose in a book as always. All I could do was think about the pencil case, and how I had at least one more conversation with her waiting for me.
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A/N: Hello! If you're enjoying the story, please leave a comment to let me know what you think. Thanks for reading!