by Reed, Zoe
The snowy blonde head of my fraternal twin, Luna, bobbed up from her plate of breakfast for the first time since I’d entered the house, hazel eyes wide with curiosity. “That’s a first. Where’d you go?”
I skillfully swiped a few pieces of toast off of her huge plate before making a thoughtful face. “Hm, none of your business.” I smirked at the disappointed look on her face. “I went nowhere.”
“Yeah well it’s seven o’clock. We’re leaving in thirty minutes,” another of my brothers, Niko, said walking into the kitchen. He shook out his sandy-beige curls before smoothing them forward with his hands, then gave a sneaky side-glance at Luna’s plate and reached for a piece of toast.
Prepared and not wanting another piece stolen, Luna grabbed her fork with lighting speed and thrust it at his hand, getting him hard enough to almost break skin. “Paws off,” she mumbled under her breath and grabbed every piece of toast on her plate, licking it possessively.
“Where are Mom and Dad?” I asked anyone who was listening as I held back a delighted laugh. At five foot two Luna may have been the smallest of us, but she certainly ate the most.
“In town running some errands with Sky and Michael,” Carter answered and set his empty coffee cup in the sink. He glanced at his watch and then waved as he made his way out the door. “See ya guys.”
Niko made a show of checking his own watch, and then pointed to his wrist hurriedly as he chased me out of the kitchen. “Thirty minutes, Cami, let’s go.”
“I’m going! I’m going!” I exclaimed, jogging toward the stairs.
When I reached the bathroom next-door to my bedroom, I quickly grabbed a towel and jumped in the shower. The hot water was relaxing as it ran down my dirtied body, and I almost wished I had time to make a bath to rest and think in. There was something in the air that made me feel new, refreshed. Something that made me excited about the day. About school?
Yeah, it was that damn smell. The girl that I knew couldn’t be much older or younger than me. Which meant if she were here for good she’d likely be attending school. The thought that I might get to bask in the mystery of that honey-like essence made my stomach flutter with excitement. Stop it Camille, I told myself as I turned off the water. Humans are trouble. With the towel wrapped around me I walked to my bedroom, kicking the door shut behind me.
“You got ten minutes!” I heard Niko yell from downstairs.
Why he was so obsessed with time I would never understand. It’s not like life was too short for us since we aged at a tenth the rate of a normal person. Besides, school didn’t even start until eight and we lived ten minutes away. Just to appease him I got dressed and brushed my teeth with urgency. After putting on what little makeup I wore, I brushed my long, curly blonde hair, and then hearing a horn from outside hurriedly finished the process and ran down the stairs. I grabbed my near-empty backpack on the way out the door and jumped into the front of Niko’s yellow jeep.
The new girl already back on my mind, I waited as patiently as I could until Niko had gotten onto the main road to ask, “Did you guys know there are some people staying at Rob Walters’ place?”
“Is there?” Luna asked, leaning forward from the back seat to better hear over the roar of the engine and the wind that whipped through the open-topped vehicle. “I haven’t been by there in a few days. They must’ve just got here.”
I nodded, turning sideways in my seat so I could hear her better too. “Yeah, there was a girl there last night. I think she was around our age.”
“Oh is that where you were?” Niko teased, looking over at me out of the corner of his eye. “That explains it.” Luna giggled her agreement.
“Shut up, Niko.” I ruffled his finely smoothed hair and he shrugged me off, sourly raising a hand to fix it. “I don’t even know who she is.”
“You know, I saw Rob in town last week buying some blankets and stuff,” Niko informed me after he’d checked and smoothed his hair in the rearview mirror. “He said his brother’s family was coming to live with him. That was probably his niece or something.”
“We’ll probably see them at school today then,” Luna said, but I had already turned back around and zoned out. The girl was here to stay.
Not wanting to pay for a parking pass, Niko parked across the street from the school lot and we walked in together. Our class schedules had been mailed to us a couple weeks earlier, and I had my first class, economics, with Luna. We sat in the back together, but I was too preoccupied to pay any attention. First and second period were spent pondering all the possibilities. Maybe I would see the new girl during school. What if we had a class together? Or maybe I’d never see her at all. In any event, I would be satisfied passing her in the halls. Or would I? I wanted so badly to see her, to put a face, a voice, to that wonderful smell. To connect her with hobbies, likes and dislikes. A sudden fear struck through me. I hadn’t even met this girl and I was already obsessing over the only part of her that I knew.
That fear turned to anger as the bell for the end of second period rang, and I was practically fuming. I didn’t even say goodbye to my sister as I veered in the direction of my locker. Nobody in the past could even make me bat an eye, let alone lose control over what I was feeling. But here this girl that I hadn’t even met sent every thought, every instinct spiraling out of control. Her scent tapped into the untamed animal I worked so hard to master – that I made damn sure to master – and it poked at that animal as though it were trapped in a cage.
As I stopped at my locker to unload a few of my books, I had the sense to admit that my anger was somewhat misdirected. It wasn’t like she was doing it on purpose. She was completely unaware of the fact that I even existed. So I crossed my fingers, hoping that whoever she was, she wasn’t at all my type. Or that she had a terrible personality or some repulsive physical feature.
As that very thought crossed my mind, my heart dropped, reacting to the scent that filled my nose quicker than my brain could. It skipped a beat, then sped up, and then skipped another. I was about to look up and greet the full-blown aroma with a friendly smile, but before I could a searing pain shot through my toes as the corner of one of the thickest textbooks in the school dropped right on my foot.
“Ah fu–” I stopped mid-obscenity, lightly shaking my foot in the air as I took a deep breath to calm myself. My first urge was to punch the owner of the book, or a locker, but I was torn between pain and the desire to make a good impression on the owner of that intoxicating scent, which meant trading clenching my teeth for telling off whoever dropped the book.
“Oh my God, I am so sorry!” The southern drawl of the person who’d dropped the textbook was new, and just like that scent, her voice was sweet as honey.
I looked up to the most beautiful brunette I’d ever seen staring at me, eyes full of worry but cheeks so flushed red with embarrassment I imagined she wanted to bury her head in her locker. My eyes scanned the girl in front of me, taking in every detail of the face I could finally put with the nameless scent. Her skin was smooth, and the sun had darkened it to a bronze tan. Her blushing cheeks were adorably round, and an apologetic smile flashed straight pearly whites and put a single dimple in her right cheek. I finally noticed her lips were moving. I knew she was talking to me, but that smooth voice and those dark, sparkly green eyes had put me in a trance.
A hand waved in front of my face. “Are you okay?” the girl asked, giggling shyly at my incoherence.
“Oh sorry um, yeah, I’m okay don’t worry about it.” Any anger I’d felt seconds earlier had melted away, and it took every bit of energy I could muster to spit out that single sentence. The girl finished opening her locker and switched out a few books for the ones she was carrying in her overloaded arms. I picked the large chemistry book up off the floor and handed it to her.
“Oh, thanks.” She put the book in her backpack and then turned to me as she shut her own locker. “I know it’s a little much to ask after almost breaking your foot, but do you know where I might find�
�” She studied the class schedule she had shoved into the clear front of her binder. “Room one oh four, American lit?”
I thought about it for a second, a detailed map of the school flashing in my mind like a scattered thousand-piece puzzle I was struggling to put together. It was hard to do anything, period, let alone think, with my heart pounding in my chest the way it was.
“Downstairs,” I paused, squinting toward the ceiling thoughtfully. “A few doors down from the auditorium.” She raised an eyebrow at me confusedly, and I immediately dreaded that I’d made myself sound dumb. Was I stuttering? I couldn’t be sure, but it was highly possible. It took me a few more seconds to finally understand the look. “Oh, you um, you want me to take you there?”
She smiled, that same dimple creasing her cheek, and shrugged her shoulders, obviously grateful that she didn’t actually have to ask. “Only if you’ve got enough time, I don’t want to be a bother.”
I nodded my head and waved for her to follow as I started walking. While she took stride beside me I inhaled a deep breath, calming my mind before speaking. “It’s still break, I have plenty of time. You’re Rob Walters’ niece right?”
The brunette nodded slowly. I tried not to stare, making sure I glanced away every couple seconds, but she wouldn’t have noticed if I was staring anyway. While she was listening to me her eyes wandered all over the halls, taking in every new detail and remembering where she was going. “Yeah, how’d you know?”
Nice going, creep, I scolded myself. So maybe I was a little more brain-dead than I thought. “My brother talked to him the other day and he mentioned some family was moving in with him, and your accent sort of screams out-of-towner.”
“Oh, I see.” She finally stopped scanning the halls to smile at me. Every time she smiled I had to really keep myself from staring, had to stop my hands from shaking with nervousness, with tension. “Well I’m Kyla – Walters of course.”
“Nice to meet you, Kyla.” I tested her name. I liked the way it sounded, the way it felt on my tongue. Though, it sounded cuter when she said it. The way her accent made her drag out the ‘y’ so it sort of rolled into the ‘l’. “So, where you from?”
“Texas.” Kyla said it with a simple shrug, but her eyes grew distant, perhaps the sign of an undesired move. “Just got here yesterday.”
“Texas,” I repeated thoughtfully. “An original cowgirl huh?”
She giggled the sweetest, softest laugh I had ever heard, and nodded with a cheerful shrug. “Country as a churn.”
That slow, silky voice made me smile goofily. I resisted laughing out loud though, lest it should make her feel out of place because her accent drew attention. I was terrible with accents, and while it was clear she was southern, if she hadn’t told me that she was from Texas I wouldn’t have had the slightest clue. I wished I’d had the nerve to make another friendly joke, to act more inviting, but in the silence that followed I could feel the heat radiating off of the brunette’s body. It was distracting, and not to mention her scent flooded my nostrils with every breath, putting me back into that same drunken state from last night. It made even the simplest thought difficult. I’d just Phased the night before, but something about Kyla made me fear for my self-control.
Luckily for me, we arrived at room one oh four. “This is your class here. Those big doors right there are the auditorium.” I pointed to a set of blue double doors on the opposite side of the hall so she’d know the place I was referring to in my earlier directions.
“Thanks for the help. Hopefully I’ll see you around again?” Kyla never stopped smiling, and in turn I couldn’t stop staring. I felt like such a moron as I stood, riveted, and wondered if she was nervous or if she always smiled so much. If her personality was truly as sweet as her scent, I figured she just always smiled so much.
I noticed I’d gotten lost in thought and created an awkward silence, so I gave a brisk nod and said bye. The nerves in my stomach left me brain-dead again as I turned and just walked away, mentally kicking myself for acting like such an idiot. Kyla probably thought I felt bothered at having to escort her around the school, or she didn’t like me. My heart dropped. I was starting to panic. What if I’d just ruined my only chance at getting to know her, at getting close to her?
I turned around to get a final glimpse and saw that she was already talking to a guy who was waiting with her for the bell to ring. Irrational jealousy raged inside of me, and I turned around and practically stomped up the stairs to my next class. I didn’t know who that guy was, but I hated him. Hated him for having a class with Kyla. Hated him for being able to keep a conversation with her. Hated him for existing and taking even the slightest bit of attention that I wished could be mine.
The first day excitement had worn off after third period, and now that it was fifth period the day couldn’t be going by any slower. Every class was the same. The teachers introduced themselves, laid out the syllabus for the entire semester, and told us what we could and couldn’t do. Some of them had us play a ‘get to know each other’ game, which the other students groaned about every time. I guess it was because Tranquility was a small town and they already knew each other, but so far those games had been my favorite parts of the day. People in Tranquility were friendly enough, and to my surprise I’d easily found people to eat lunch with, courtesy of ‘getting to know each other’. Now it was just going through the motions of first day bore until the end of school.
“So, what’s your next class?” a girl I’d been talking to earlier, Maggie, leaned over and whispered to me quietly.
I looked down at the schedule that I’d shoved into the cover pocket of my binder. “Um, film studies, with Kline.”
“I’m headed there too.” She grinned excitedly, ducking her head as she eyed the teacher and hoping he hadn’t heard her raise her voice with the sudden enthusiasm. “You can walk with me if you want.”
“Sure, that sounds good.” I smiled gratefully.
So far it appeared that because Tranquility High School was so small and everybody seemed to know each other, there was a surprising lack of sectioning off. Of course groups of students were better friends with their own small clique, but the cliques seemed broad and fluid, which also made it easier for me to have been making friends already.
It was another five minutes of boring silence before the bell rang as this time we filled out a questionnaire so the teacher could get to know us. Then the students hurriedly picked up their books and shuffled out of the classroom, eager to finish the day. I followed my new friend to our next class, answering an abundance of questions along the way. I’d been slightly worried my accent would make me stick out and cause me to feel out of place. It had the opposite affect though as my peers seemed drawn to the fact that I wasn’t from around there, and it was a good enough icebreaker.
Maggie and I arrived quickly to our film studies class and sat near the back of the room, waiting patiently for the bell to ring again. She spotted a friend that walked in and waved him to the empty desk next to hers so they could chat, and I took the opportunity of distraction to study the kids that entered the room. Most of them looked like seniors taking the classes they thought would be the easiest A’s for their last year. A select few looked like freshmen that probably couldn’t get their first choice of electives.
As the bell rang for the start of class, a spark of nervousness shot through me as the tall, curly-haired blonde I’d dropped my book on earlier walked in and took the last available seat in the middle of the room. The second she and the last remaining student sat down the teacher began his introduction, so I dismissed the spur in order to focus. It only took a few minutes before my attention failed, and my eyes wandered back to the blonde in the center of the room. Her exact features weren’t embedded in my memory because I’d been too embarrassed about dropping the book on her foot to even look her in the eye for too long. I didn’t even catch her name, but knew she was attractive well above average. I couldn’t help but stare at the blonde’s
back as she twirled her pen between her fingers, obviously not listening to a word the teacher said.
It made me wonder what she was thinking about, and then why I was even wondering about it in the first place. Maybe it was jealousy? I did wish I could be half as beautiful. Only, I wanted to know her. Like the way someone will want to be best friends with the most attractive or popular people to make them feel better about themselves. That made the most sense to me, even though the blonde didn’t seem entirely popular. When I’d been walking with other students I met they cheerfully waved at friends they hadn’t seen all summer, sometimes stopping to talk and introduce me. The blonde, on the other hand, didn’t so much as show a slight interest in anyone we passed. Which was especially curious for such a small town.
I tried to remember certain features about her. Her eyes were definitely brown. Her curly blonde hair fell to the middle of her back, and had it been straight it probably would have reached her hips. I considered myself average height, but she was an inch or two taller, maybe five foot seven. Then I started remembering her lips. The perfect shade of pink, thin but not nonexistent, and they had looked soft. A sharp pain in my own lip distracted me, and I realized I’d been biting it in the depth of my thought.
I massaged out the spot with my tongue, continuing to stare for another minute before the blonde shifted in her seat. She turned to the side just a little, enough to peek over her shoulder and so her eyes could meet mine. At first I was shocked that I’d been caught looking. Then I was shocked she’d zeroed in on me, as if she could feel me watching her. So, like a deer in the headlights I just kept staring, wide-eyed and unsure of what to do. Fortunately my moment of stupidity only lasted a few seconds before she smiled at me and turned back around.
“I’m going to put you guys in pairs according to alphabetical order by last name. This person is going to be your partner for the rest of the semester, so I want you to spend the rest of the period getting to know each other,” Mr. Kline announced as he picked up his roll sheet, finally finished with his introduction.
