by Beth Reekles
Josh walks off behind me.
I’m tempted to catch up with Todd. Ask him what he was staring at. Ask him how his first day is going. But all I can do for the moment is stand there and wonder why he was looking at me like that. And . . . was that hurt in his eyes, or something else? What if he overheard Josh talking about him?
The bell goes, jerking me out of my thoughts as people move around me to their classes, and I head off to chemistry.
Todd meets me back at my car after school. I’m already there, sat in the driver’s seat. He climbs in the passenger seat, shoves his backpack between his knees and says, ‘Hey.’
I start up the engine. ‘How’d your first day go?’
He shrugs. ‘Well, apparently I’m some kid who went to boarding school in North Dakota – and New York, or maybe it was Vermont? – and got kicked out of my old school, wherever it was, for blowing up a science lab, taking and/or selling drugs, depending on who you talk to . . .’ He shakes his head and lets out a breath of laughter. ‘Gotta love high school.’
My mouth twists up in a smile. ‘Really? I heard that you’d been in juvie in Florida. Or maybe that was North Dakota, now I think about it . . .’
‘Is that so?’ He gives that same skeptical laugh again. ‘Well, you learn something new about yourself every day, huh?’
There’s a couple of minutes silence.
‘So you found somebody to sit with at lunch?’
He nods. ‘Yeah. Some guys from my French class. They seemed all right.’ He doesn’t expand, tell me their names, ask me about them. He does have something more to say to me though, something that I didn’t expect him to come out with: ‘I saw you and your boyfriend. Josh, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah.’ Where’s this going? ‘I saw you looking at me.’
‘I just couldn’t help noticing. You weren’t exactly secreted away behind a closed door.’
I wait a second or so to see if he’ll go on. ‘What about it?’ I ask when he doesn’t.
‘Do you always let him treat you like that?’
A frown pulls at my forehead, scrunching my eyebrows together. I would turn and look at him, but I’m driving. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
And Todd says, ‘Never mind. Sorry. Forget I said anything. It’s not my place.’
And we don’t speak the rest of the way home.
Ah, damn it, I curse to myself as the tardy bell rings, quickening my pace. I don’t get detentions. And I don’t plan to start on the second day of the semester.
I don’t know what this new teacher is like, but hopefully they’ll believe my excuse that my locker’s a bit busted and I couldn’t get into it. It’s true; I need to remember to stop by the front office after school and ask them to get it fixed.
I burst into the classroom – after knocking, of course; I don’t want to give this teacher – Ms Langstone, according to my schedule – any cause to dislike me.
‘I’m sorry I’m late,’ I say, a little breathless. ‘I had some trouble with my locker . . .’
‘Miss Bennett, is it?’ She looks over her glasses at the computer screen, where I can see her class register. ‘Ashley?’
‘Yes.’
‘Mm. Well, take a seat, Miss Bennett, we were just about to get started.’
She starts talking about how we shouldn’t expect this to be an ‘easy-breezy’ class, even though everyone knows it will be, and I scan the room for a seat. The classroom’s only small, because Creative Writing has never been a popular elective here at Greendale High, and there are only two seats left. One of those seats is right at the front – so that’s out of the equation immediately.
The second seat is in the back corner.
And, naturally, it’s right next to him. I curse under my breath.
Once I get to the seat in the back, I let my satchel drop to the ground and I fall into the seat beside Todd, crossing my arms. He was doing something – doodling, maybe – in a notebook, but as I sit down he closes it shut smoothly, which draws my attention to it. The midnight blue cover is faded, and it looks like it’s real leather. The book is thick, and I can see other bits of paper and what look to be Post-It notes sticking out, making it thick and swollen.
We all stay quiet while Ms Langstone drones on and on, until finally, she shuts up and sits at her desk, handing a pile of file paper to some girl in the front row, telling her to pass it around the class.
We’re supposed to write a poem from one of the themes on the board. God, how boring.
As if it weren’t bad enough already . . . I sigh and run a hand through my hair.
‘What’s got your panties in a twist?’ Todd mumbles next to me, and I look at him to see his eyes trained calmly on me. They look blue today. Powder blue, and a little bloodshot in the corners, like he had a sleepless night. And now, up close, I can see how long and thick his eyelashes are . . . I know girls who would kill for eyelashes like that. Myself included, I’ll admit.
‘Don’t tell me you chose Creative Writing of your own free will?’ I say, trying not to think about his eyelashes.
‘I thought that was the point of an elective.’
‘Yeah, but nobody likes Creative Writing. It’s always so wishy-washy.’
‘Then why are you here?’
‘It was either this or choir,’ I tell him bluntly. ‘They stopped Latin classes this year because not enough people were signing up.’
I snap my mouth shut. Why was I telling him that? I wasn’t supposed to go telling anybody that. Latin was the class ranked even lower in likeability than Creative Writing. Last year, only four people signed up. I didn’t think they’d stop running it as an elective altogether, though. And by the time I realized that, the only class I could take that wasn’t full yet was Creative Writing.
I’d planned on telling Josh and the others that everywhere else was full, that Latin had been the only thing left. They’d have bought it, too – because what kind of loser would actually choose Latin?
I don’t miss the look of surprise flitting across Todd’s face under all that hair. My cheeks burn and I duck my head, hoping my hair hides how humiliated I am.
‘I didn’t pin you for someone who’d take Latin. I thought the cool kids didn’t go for classes like that.’
I shrug. I don’t want to reply that I thought it would be a really cool class, that I’d love to learn it. Anybody might overhear.
Some guy on the desk next to us clears his throat. ‘Hey, Ashley.’ I look over and he’s holding out the wad of file paper. I take a sheet and give another one to Todd before passing it on to the desk in front of me.
Todd taps his fingers on his blue notebook in a rhythm I don’t recognize.
‘What’s that?’
He looks at me in confusion, so I point to the book by way of explanation.
‘Oh. It’s . . .’ He clears his throat and lowers his voice a little. ‘Do you remember I said to you I write songs?’
‘Sure,’ I reply. ‘So that’s where you keep all your songs, huh? That’s cool.’ He shrugs. ‘Can I see?’
His hand flattens possessively over the book, a gesture that I don’t miss. ‘I don’t really like to show people what I write.’
I nod. ‘That’s okay. I didn’t mean to pry.’
‘You didn’t know.’ The corner of his mouth moves up in a smile and then he sits back in his seat, digging his hands into his pocket. A moment later, while I’m thinking which theme will be easiest to write a poem about – fall, or nostalgia, or thunder – I see the flash of that dark gray guitar pick moving around his fingers as he twirls it around.
I wonder if it’s a nervous movement, or just more of a habit – like me when I dog-ear books – but I think it might be rude to ask that, in case he’s self-conscious, so I say nothing, and we don’t really talk much for the rest of the lesson.
Todd gets up as soon as the bell goes, grabbing his blue book and tucking it securely into his bulky backpack. ‘See you later,’ he says to me, and then he�
�s weaving his way around the tables and out of the door.
I get up, too, but I’m in no particular rush. I have English Literature next, which is only a few rooms away. But as I stand, I see a pink Post-It note on the floor. It’s upside down, but I can see there’s writing on it.
Curious, I pick it up. There are a few random letters scribbled down and a couple of lines of writing. It must have fallen out of Todd’s notebook.
I don’t read it. Instead, I fold it over and tuck it in the back pocket of my jeans to give it to him later.
I’m tempted to read it; partly out of simple curiosity, and partly because he was so protective of his book and its contents. And he wouldn’t know if I had read it or not . . .
No – it wouldn’t be fair on him. He wants it kept private, and who am I to disrespect that?
So I don’t read it.
My mind continues to drift and think about the pink note in my back pocket, and consequently about Todd O’Connor. News has gotten out that he plays guitar, and the amount of girls I hear talking about how he’s ‘so hot, with that tortured musician attitude’ makes me want to hit my head against a wall. Or vomit. Or both.
At lunch, Eliza says to me, ‘Hey, Ashley, I heard someone say that new guy, Todd, was in your Creative Writing class?’
‘Oh, yeah.’ I snap a block of chocolate off the end of my candy bar, a little startled at the sound of my name. ‘He is.’
‘What’s he like, really?’ Naomi asks me. ‘He is totally hot.’
‘Oh, man, not you guys, too,’ Neil groans as he drops into his seat at our lunch table with Danielle. ‘It’s not like he was all that Dan was talking about last period.’
‘Guilty as charged,’ she jokes, and looks between me and the other girls, waiting for us to continue.
‘He’s . . . quiet,’ I decide to say. For some reason I don’t want to use words like ‘standoffish’ and ‘snobby’ like I did to my mom. I shift in my seat, uncomfortable with being the center of attention all of a sudden. ‘I don’t know, really. It’s not like he’s divulged his life story—’
‘You didn’t tell me he was in your class,’ Josh interrupts.
‘I didn’t think it was very important.’
‘Right.’
I smile at him again and lean in to kiss his cheek. Josh turns his head at the last minute, though, so I catch his lips instead – a gambit I was mostly expecting anyway – and he only pulls away when Naomi says, ‘Jeez, you guys, get a freaking room already.’
Later, after school, Todd is already waiting by my car when I get there. He hadn’t texted to ask where I was – but then again, I couldn’t have been far; my car was still here, after all.
The journey home is pretty quiet. We talk a little about classes.
I start to think maybe Callum was being entirely honest when he told my mom that Todd was shy. Because I’m no longer getting the impression from his quietness that he thinks he’s too good to grace me with his conversation; it’s more like he doesn’t have an awful lot he wants to say, or he doesn’t know what to say.
‘Thanks,’ he says, unclipping his seatbelt when I pull onto the driveway outside my house. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘Yeah.’ As we get out of the car, I remember about the Post-It note. ‘Oh, hey, wait a second!’ I call, and he stops partway down the driveway, turning back to me. I walk up to him, fishing the paper out of my pocket. It’s a bit crumpled, so I smooth it out as best I can.
‘You dropped this, earlier,’ I tell him. ‘In class. I haven’t read it. I swear.’
His eyes drop from my face to my outstretched hand, and he takes the paper, smoothing it between his long fingers and unfolding it. Then, when he looks back at me, his expression is dubious: he thinks that I read it.
‘I haven’t read it,’ I reiterate. ‘You said you didn’t like people reading your songs and whatever, so I didn’t.’
Todd’s eyes search my face for a long moment, and I stare right back at him.
‘You could be lying,’ he says. ‘How would I know if you had read it or not?’
‘You don’t have to trust me, that’s up to you. But I haven’t read it. I wouldn’t want people to read my private things.’ I bite my lip, realizing that I actually do want him to trust me. ‘You don’t have to believe me.’
He looks at me for what feels like a very long time.
‘Thank you.’ He’s blushing a little bit, but he smiles. One of his teeth is a little crooked. I didn’t notice before.
I smile back. ‘You’re welcome.’
I’m unlocking the front door when I hear him call, ‘Ashley,’ and I look over my shoulder. Todd gestures awkwardly with the pink Post-It. ‘I believe you, that you didn’t read it.’
And then he walks away, leaving me standing on the doorstep, key frozen in the lock, wondering what goes on in that mind of his. Sighing, I shake my head, and go into the house.
Maybe those girls at school are right when they say he’s mysterious.
Chapter Four
‘I don’t mind driving myself to school next week,’ Todd says, when I’m taking us home on Friday. ‘I mean, you said you’d just drive me for this first week. And I can remember the way.’
But I find myself saying, ‘We’ll split it. You drive next week, and I’ll drive the week after. Makes sense, right? We live next door to each other.’
‘I thought you said your boyfriend drives you sometimes?’
I shrug. ‘Only sometimes. Just thinking about reducing my carbon footprint here.’
‘Of course. And gas money.’
‘Exactly.’ I pull up on my driveway and kill the engine, smiling at the fuel gauge pointing to ‘full’ (thank you, Mom). I lean around to the backseat to fumble for the strap of my bag before climbing out of the car. Todd stands just outside the car when I get out.
‘I’ll pick you up at eight, then, bright and early Monday morning,’ he says. Then he offers up a smile. ‘See you around, Ashley.’
I don’t expect to see much more of Todd that weekend. At least, I don’t expect to see anything other than a glimpse by chance through my bedroom window.
At dinner that night, though, Mom announces, ‘We’re going over to Callum’s tomorrow. He’s invited us all to dinner.’
Dad says, ‘That’s good of him.’
And I say, unable to keep the whine out of my voice, ‘But I was supposed to go to the movies with Josh tomorrow.’ Mom gives me one of her looks, the kind I bet closes business deals, and I sigh. ‘Fine. I’ll call him later to cancel.’
‘Thank you.’
I can tell Josh is not exactly very happy that I’m ditching him for dinner with another guy.
‘It’s a family thing,’ I say, for what feels like the billionth time. I rub a hand over my forehead, wondering if the headache I have is from trying hard not to argue with him, or if I’m just really tired. ‘I can’t get out of it.’
‘Sure you can’t,’ he says, but he doesn’t sound very convincing. ‘I guess we can always go to the movies another time. It’s not like we haven’t been planning on this for a couple of weeks, or anything . . .’
I turn the phone away to sigh. I want to yell at him for acting like a child, but I don’t – after all, I’ve just cancelled our date, so how can I blame him for being annoyed at me? I know I would be. And he’s been wanting to see this movie since the commercials came out a few weeks back.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Sure you are,’ he says, but not in a mean way or anything. ‘Have fun at your family dinner.’
‘It won’t be as fun as going to the movies with you.’
‘I know it won’t.’ He sounds irritated now. I gnaw my lip, wondering if he’s really mad at me, or if he’s being overdramatic. I hope it’s the latter.
‘I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?’
‘Love you, babe.’
‘Love you, too,’ I say, and I smile as I hang up the phone.
Todd opens the door for us, off
ering up a polite smile, and an equally polite, ‘Come on in.’ My parents go in before me, and Todd tells them to go on through to the dining room, just down the hallway, dinner is only going to be a couple of minutes. Callum yells from the kitchen to say, ‘Hello! Take a seat in the dining room; and Todd, get some drinks.’
‘We brought some wine,’ Dad says.
‘Todd, pour the wine!’ his dad shouts then, and my parents laugh. I close the door behind me, and Todd glances back at me with a small half-smile, which I return. After the episode with the Post-It note, he seems to be a little more comfortable around me. Not talkative, exactly, but more willing to talk.
Dinner actually isn’t so bad. It’s relaxed and easygoing, and everyone’s laughing and smiling. Callum’s gone the whole hog: a bread basket of warm rolls, and then a homemade beef casserole; and dessert is the most delectable strawberry cheesecake I’ve ever seen (again, made from scratch) and coffee or tea where appropriate. The bottle of wine disappeared during the main course. They poured a glass for me and Todd, too.
I’d pulled a face at my first taste of the wine; it was red, and I’d only ever had white before at Christmas or Thanksgiving when my parents poured me a small glass. Todd noticed and snorted, which sent us both into a fit of giggles.
‘Todd tells me you’ve got a boyfriend, Ashley,’ says Callum shortly after he’s put dessert in front of us all.
‘Um, yes . . .’ It sounds a little like a question. I don’t mean it to; I just wonder what Todd’s said about Josh.
‘He’s on the baseball team,’ Mom says.
‘Although they nearly kicked him off because his grades were slipping,’ Dad pitches in.
‘It was the end of the season anyway,’ I point out, ‘so it didn’t really matter. Besides, he didn’t get kicked off. And he’s joined the football team this year. He’s like on their reserve squad, or whatever they call it.’
‘How about you, Todd?’ Mom moves the conversation swiftly and expertly onwards. ‘Any girls caught your eye here in Greendale yet?’
