IT WAS A CHILLY September day. I had just reached West High and stuffed my hands into my pockets. That's when I saw him, Jamie Thompson. My blood went cold and my heart nearly stopped. I could feel the butterflies in my stomach flutter around as they woke up one by one. I didn't understand why I still felt this way six years later. Maybe it was his dark and brown wavy hair. Maybe it was those eyes that you could get lost in, because you couldn't tell if they were black, or just a mind-blowing deep brown.
Suddenly, I was 12 again and back in Owen's home with Jamie. I could feel my face flush with embarrassment as I dwelled on such a stupid memory.
Jamie and I hadn't talked since that night and I didn't think we ever would again. If anything, boys like that didn't talk to girls like me. And no, I didn't mean that in a self-deprecating way, I meant it in a way that that's just how it was, because Jamie and I hardly knew each other. Even in middle school we rarely ever talked, but now this was high school and everything was different.
Jamie was the school's star quarterback, a man nearly everyone knew of like some infamous celebrity. Me, I was in the robotics club, a girl too smart for her own good with an early acceptance to MIT. We couldn't be any more opposite.
I watched as he furrowed his brows and stopped where he was. He scratched his head and looked around in his black folder. I heard a loud "Shit!" and wondered what was going on. Though, I shrugged my shoulders and adjusted my backpack, focusing on the entrance to the school.
"Hey!" Someone yelled from behind.
I didn't realize the "hey" was directed towards me, until I heard them come racing after me. I quickly turned around and must've scared whomever it was, because they tripped and rammed straight into me. My body met the cold concrete with a loud thump. I was completely thrown off guard. I shook my head and slowly sat up, blinking my eyes as I saw a million, tiny floaters cover my vision.
"Are you okay?" The person was clearly a male. His voice was deep, but there was a slight raspiness to it. Also, he was not American.
"Um, yeah, I think so," I chuckled and looked up, meeting light blue eyes and the friendliest face I'd ever seen. He offered his hand and I took it, springing me back up to my feet.
"I'm awfully sorry 'bout that," he apologized and smiled just a tad, his dimples barely noticeable.
"It's okay," I brushed it off.
We both stood there in an awkward silence that lulled for a while until he turned to me again and said, "I was meaning to ask you a question."
"Mmhm," I was trying to figure out where he was from, but I couldn't put my finger on it. He sounded British, but his accent was slightly different than a British person's accent. It was strange. Maybe he was faking?
"Well, my name's Collins, and I'm the new transfer student from British Guiana, or South America. I was hoping you could show me to the main office?" He asked, with a lop-sided grin.
His eyes were huge.
"Mm what?" I but my cheek to stop myself from blushing as I realized I had been staring at his eyes. Not because they were blue (my favorite color) but because they were so huge. I didn't think it was possible for a person to have such big eyes. Did they see a lot more of the world because of it...? Finnley, that is by far the stupidest thing you have ever thought.
"The...main office? Can you show me?" He repeated.
"Oh! Yes! Of course I can direct yo—"
"Collins Wagner?" That voice. I knew that voice.
Jamie Thompson walked up to Collins and I with his ridiculous smile that made my heart pound. The two suddenly hugged, slapping each other's backs, expressing how obvious it was that they knew one another. They started to talk about random things, due to the fact that I wasn't exactly paying attention anymore. Starting to make my way back to the entrance, Collins stopped me. He reached out and tugged on my jacket, pulling my attention back to them.
"Oh, um, Jamie, this is..." Collins pointed at me and arched his eyebrows. It took me a while to get what he was trying to say. I opened my mouth to speak but Jamie spoke up instead, "Finnley."
I was frozen in place. He remembered me? After all those years of not talking to me or even noticing me, he still knew my name?
"McGowan," I stated my last name and made quick eye contact with Jamie. It was weird to hear him say it, but I guess it was nice that he still knew it.
"Well, Finnley was going to show me to the main office, but now that I've found you, maybe you could take me instead?" Collins turned to talk to Jamie and I bit my lower lip, now seeing that I wasn't needed anymore. I left the two to catch up and walked up the steps to the school. So much for making a new friend.
I sighed and opened the heavy doors, ready to start the school day with the same old boring eight hour routine of classes that I didn't care about. I just hoped that Monica, my best friend, would be here today. She was recently out of school for being sick with the flu. She's been gone for quite some time, but today she told me she'd be back. If Monica was here, I could tell her all about my exciting morning and how Jamie talked to me. She'd flip at the news of that. Monica had always told me to just take my chance and tell Jamie how I felt, but it just wasn't that easy. It's true that you never forget your first kiss, but I hadn't been able to stop thinking about the boy who took my first kiss away. I knew it was cheesy, I knew, but a boy who looked like that wasn't exactly easy to get over.
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"By the grace of God!" I exclaimed as I spotted Monica making her way over to me in the commons. I hadn't seen her in so long! I wanted to visit her while she was gone, but she insisted that I stay away, because she didn't want me to get sick too.
I threw my hands around her and squeezed her tightly, swaying back and forth. I didn't think it was possible that Monica could hug me back even harder, but it was. "Monica...I can't...breathe," I sputtered out and she quickly let me go.
"Sorry Finnley!" She apologized and laughed a little, her smile beaming like the warm sunshine.
Monica was by far the most beautiful person I had ever met. She was naturally beautiful. She never wore makeup, her skin was clear, and she just had this smile that could lighten up the whole room. Her curly hair was always voluminous, styled just right, every ringlet framing her face like it was professionally done.
"So what did I miss?" She nudged my shoulder and raised her eyebrows.
"Well, you have two projects to make up."
Monica groaned and let her face fall into a pout. She hated making up projects and I felt bad that she had two of them.
The teachers here at West High were understanding and Monica was able to do most of her homework at home, but it was those darn projects she would need to make up. That was going to be hard for her.
"So, anything interesting happen while I was gone?" She asked.
I was silent for a while as I decided whether or not I should tell her what happened this morning. I bit my lip and slowly shook my head no, but Monica caught my lie.
"Finnley James McGowan, tell me what happened," she grabbed my arms. Monica loved getting the dirt. Plus, she always knew when I was lying since I wasn't very good at it anyway.
"Well, you know I don't get involved with school drama, but this morning I did run into Jamie..."
Monica's eyes widened and there was a spark I had never seen before. A huge smile spread across her face and she bounced a little.
"What did you say to him?!" She practically screamed.
"Nothing, he just knew the transfer student that just arrived."
"Transfer student?" Monica furrowed her brows and let go of me, tilting her head up as she scanned through her brain to retain any information about the transfer student.
"Is his name Collins?" She looked back at me and I nodded my head.
"I heard about him coming," Monica smiled and then furrowed her brows, stepping closer to me and I knew exactly what she wanted to know.
"Yes, he's very cute," I smiled as I rolled my eyes, seeing her eyes brighten at that with excitement. There was nothing Monica wouldn't do when it came to cute boys. I had to admit, she was a bit of a flirt, one who never wanted to settle down.
"Accent?"
"South American, raspy, deep," I listed off what I remembered and she took a breath in, linking her arm through mine as we walked down the hallway.
"Men with accents are so beautiful," she stressed, as I could tell she was in wonderland by the look of her dreamy expression.
"You're ridiculous," I laughed and unlinked my arm as we reached our lockers. She kept talking about her love of men while I switched out my books, partly paying attention.
The other half of me was thinking about how Jamie remembered my name. I didn't think the star quarterback would remember me after 6 years, but I guess if I still knew him (despite is celebrity-like status) he could still know me, right?
Ring!
The students started to head to class, freshmen practically running down the hallway. "See you at lunch!" Monica winked at me before she disappeared into the crowd, leaving me all alone to brace the obstacles. Honestly, sometimes I felt like I was drowning when I walked through the crowd.
As I darted and dodged my way through the students to reach my math class, I went over all the formulas in my head. I kind of forgot we had a quiz today but I wasn't too worried about it. AP Calculus was basically second nature to me. I knew that a lot of kids struggled with math, but it was never hard for me. My dad was the one who really got me into it, and it was kind of the only thing left that made me still feel connected with him.
Once inside Mrs. Franzelli's classroom, I set my backpack and stuff up in the front, remembering to grab a pencil and calculator. She had this thing where we had to put all of our stuff up in the front of the classroom for tests and quizzes so we wouldn't cheat.
I walked down to the back row and sat down in my desk by the window. I began to murmur all the formulas, praying that I wouldn't forget anything.
"What are you doing?"
I froze.
I turned to the left of me and there, in all his godly glory, was Jamie Thompson, sitting in the back row next to me.
"...Going over equations," I responded casually but felt myself staring at him, confused. Why was he even in this class? He didn't have AP Calculus first period.
"Didn't you study?" He pestered.
"Yes."
"Mm, doesn't seem like it."
With irritation, I cocked my brow up at him, narrowing my gaze, itching to wipe that smug expression off his face.
"And how would you know?" I asked.
"You're nervous. You're bobbing your leg, murmuring equations, fidgeting with your hands, etc," I think this was some lame excuse for him to check me out. I wasn't sure. But that was a pretty bold statement for me to even think about in the first place.
"And?" I asked, daring him to go on.
"Relax, Mrs. Franzelli always psychs her students out. You should know that."
"Why thank you, you're so kind and sweet to say that," I replied sarcastically and rolled my eyes.
There was some silence between us for a while and I side glanced him a little bit before saying, "Did you study?"
Jamie cleared his throat and I could hear him fidget in his desk.
"No."
I turned to look at him with my lips pursed.
"So you're telling me that you didn't study either?"
Jamie shrugged and leaned back in his seat. "It's just a quiz."
Just a quiz? It couldn't be that way for me. I still needed to graduate high school with a 4.0 to keep my MIT scholarship. If not, I wouldn't be able to go there.
I just looked at him and nodded my head, turning back to face the front of the class. I wanted to ask him what he was doing here, but before I could, Mrs. Franzelli clapped her hands together and started class.
Jamie was right, the quiz wasn't that hard. When Mrs. Franzelli handed it to me it was only one side. I was sort of surprised because she never made her quizzes one-sided, but this chapter was the easiest chapter we'd been learning all year. I just hoped it wasn't one of those quizzes where you knew everything and felt like you aced it, when in reality you actually failed the crap out of it.
There were five minutes of class left and Mrs. Franzelli usually gave us this time to talk. I was quiet though since I didn't have any friends in this class. So instead, I usually took this time to doodle in my notebook. I'm not sure what I was trying to make, but it looked like a cat riding a chicken. It wasn't going very well.
"Whatcha doing?" I stopped drawing and immediately shut my notebook.
"Uh, nothing," I replied and looked over at Jamie, jumping to see that he was crouching down by my desk.
"Didn't look like nothing,"
I couldn't bare it any longer, I had to know why he was in this class. "Why are you here? You don't have this class first period," I stared at him with a curious expression, wondering if he would even tell me. We never had any classes together, until now.
"I switched my schedule," he shrugged and stood up, leaning back against his desk.
We were still early on in the first semester of our final year here at West High, so that made sense. But I didn't know he was in AP calculus, that part did surprise me.
"You got into AP calc?" I asked as I stood up, getting ready to head to the front of the room.
"Duh and harsh by the way," he drawled and made my cheeks flush in embarrassment. I didn't mean to sound so rude, but I guess I had believed in the jock stereotypes a little too much.
"So why'd you switch schedules?" For some reason I kept pestering, but I had an idea of who the other AP calculus teacher was, and for that, I did feel sorry for him. I would've switched too.
"Reasons that you don't need to know because you're a complete stranger," Jamie had leaned towards me, smiling that charming and wicked grin that would have usually made me blush, but nothing happened.
I was about to say something in reply but the bell interrupted our conversation. We both headed up to the front to grab our things, and before I could reach for mine, he swiped it up and held it out for me.
"Thanks," I said flatly and took it from him, slipping it on and heading for the door. Though, he grabbed the top handle on my backpack, pulling me back. I practically fell backwards and twisted myself around to glare at him.
"What?" I forgot how annoying he was. Jamie might've been handsome, but God was he cocky.
"You coming to the game tonight?" He asked, his brown eyes amused.
"No."
"No?" He almost seemed taken aback by that and I snorted.
"Jamie, if you remembered anything about me, you would remember that I'm not a girl who plays games," I pointed out, and I could see his brows furrow at that, the gears in his brain trying to discover what I was talking about.
I let out a sigh and walked out of Mrs. Franzelli's room, heading mindlessly to my next class. He might've remembered my name, but he didn't remember who I was. And that hurt more than anything else.