“Elena?” Mr. Whitmore called my name.
“Huh?” I asked, making the entire class laugh, as I did not know what he said. I was still trying to decipher Blake’s comment from this morning.
“What is the answer?” Mr. Whitmore asked, with his dark eyebrow raised.
“Sorry, I had a lot on my mind, didn’t sleep well last night,” I said fast.
“Pay attention, it’s going to be in the finals this year.” The stocky teacher, with a belly that stretched against his pleated shirt and jeans, glared at me.
“Sorry,” I mumbled as I found Meg’s eyes on me. I discovered that was the girl who came to my rescue yesterday’s name, and she also showed me yesterday afternoon who Chloë was. She was gorgeous with her long wavy hair, legs for days and not to mention the right curves.
Meg’s lips thinned as her dimple showed. I was sure everyone knew what Blake said to me this morning.
What the hell was wrong with him? I told him yesterday to leave me alone. In three months, my dad was going to move again, and I was probably never going to see him again. He made it twenty times worse, when he told me that, this morning.
“Elena?” Mr. Whitmore asked me again, and I closed my eyes really tight.
Not again.
More laughter came.
“Quiet,” Mr. Whitmore yelled.
I opened my eyes slowly and found Blake standing next to Mr. Whitmore. The girls in the front row rested their heads on their hands, staring at him. He turned around and walked to the door.
“My classes are important, Mr. Leaf.”
“I’m just the messenger. Take it up with the principle.”
“Principle?” I practically yelled, which caused another fit of laughter.
Blake smiled as he walked out of the classroom.
I picked up my bag as Mr. Whitmore held out my note. Why did the principal have to send it with Blake? I’d never been to a principal’s office before. Was Dad okay?
My mind reeled with scenarios when I took the note out of Mr. Whitmore’s hand and walked out the door.
I’d been to the office. I knew more or less where it was.
I jumped when the door of the classroom behind me clicked and Blake’s laughter came softly from my left.
He was leaning against the wall like an Adonis.
“It’s not funny. I still need to figure out where his office is?”
“Relax, would you?” He grabbed the note out of my hand, rolled it up into a ball, and aimed for the trash can a few feet away from us against the opposite wall.
It plopped inside. Was there anything this guy couldn’t do?
“Why would you do that?” I asked as I saw him picking up his backpack and walked fast to the doors of the school.
“The principal isn’t looking for you, okay. Let’s go.”
I stopped as he carried on walking.
“If you will not hurry, the principal will find you, Elena.”
I didn’t know why I ran to catch up with him. What was this idiot getting me into?
He pushed the school doors open that had to be locked and stepped outside.
I followed him, basically running behind him.
“That was you?” I grabbed his arm and pulled him to the side of the building as we made it out. “You trying to get me into shit?”
“I told you I enjoy hanging out with you.”
“I don’t care. I don’t do crap like this, Blake. If my dad finds out about this, finds out about you, he would ground me for life.”
Blake chuckled.
“It’s not funny.”
“It’s a bit funny?” He showed with his two fingers apart.
“No, it’s not. Your parents might be lenient, but mine isn’t.”
“Oh, mine beats the living crap out of me,” he mumbled.
“Exactly… what?”
He laughed again. “Just joking. Let’s go.”
He walked with huge strides. His backpack hung over his shoulder. I should’ve gone back. But for the love of blueberries, I couldn’t. I really, really wanted to know what the deal was with this guy.
He could have anyone in this school, including Chloë Bishop, but he chose me. Why?
We walked to the nearby forest, and my heart skipped a beat. The ground was still soggy, but thank heaven it stopped raining.
“Are you planning on killing me?”
He stopped and turned around, frowning at me. “What?”
“Where are you taking me, Blake?”
“The woods, Elena. I love trees.”
“I’m telling you now. If you have any funny ideas in that mind of yours.”
He laughed. “Relax, will you? It’s just trees.”
“I told you, I’ve never done this before.”
“What, go to the woods?”
“No, skipping class with a guy I barely knew.”
“Well, I told you I want to fix that.”
“You do not know the amount of shit we are going to be in when we get caught?”
“Relax, nobody will catch us.”
“Was the famous last words of anyone before they got caught.”
He chuckled and carried on walking.
Everything in my being was yelling at me to turn around and go back to school, but like I said before, he was a magnet and pulled me right in, so I followed.
The path was slightly muddy, and my feet kept on skidding. Please, don’t let me fall and make an ass of myself. Not now?
He led me through weathered trees rising out of the earth to brush the sky. Sun-dappled leaves creating flickering shadows made the setting really creepy.
Why was I doing this to myself? I was smarter than this. My dad didn’t raise an idiot and yet, I found myself alone in the woods with hotness on legs, like Megan called him yesterday.
My heart thumbed behind my ribcage as we walked further into the woods and in my mind’s eye, I could see the guy that greeted me this morning, waiting somewhere with a few of this idiot’s friends.
Dead leaves and pine needles caught in furred clumps of moss and their slosh reached my ears with every step we took.
I skidded on the mud and grabbed his coat.
His feet were planted firmly, and he laughed as he tried to keep me on my feet.
“Sorry,” I apologized when I got my balance back. “Thanks for not letting me fall on my butt.”
Another chuckle escaped his lips. “You want me to carry you or are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m sure I’ll manage now.”
A fear yards later, we reached a clearing with cedar logs and enormous boulders forming a small clearing.
Blake put his bag down on a flat rock below a giant tree with moss climbing up the trunk. The wind shudder through the branches made me take a deep breath and the scent of pine and rotting wood filled my nostrils. I let it out slowly.
Blake took out a flask.
“Please, don’t tell me that is what I think it is?”
His lips curved. “What? It’s coffee.”
“Yeah, whatever,” I said and grabbed the silver flask. I knew the difference between a coffee and a whisky flask.
I took a sip as the liquid burned down my tongue and throat and coughed. “You are going to hell, Blake Leaf. Why would you bring this even to school?” I shoved the flask back in his hands.
“It’s boring?”
I looked around. Pinecones and acorns scattered over the ground, but apart from that, nothing else was in sight but the two of us. The woods were too quiet.
“Will you relax?”
I sat down on the boulder as Blake planted his ass on the boulder against the giant tree. The rough ridges and the hard surface pressed into my legs.
“Okay, so what? Why are we here?”
“I told you, I would like to get to know you better.”
“In what way?” I folded my arms to cover my chest.
“Relax, Elena,” he said. “Take another sip of my coffee.” He mumbled something softly, and I sighed.
“It’s not coffee. You do not know how grounded I am if my dad is going to find out about this?”
“He won’t.”
I kept looking around, past trees, to see if guys weren’t hiding behind them. “So how did you find this place?”
“I told you before, school is boring.”
My gaze flickered to him. “How many classes are you skipping?”
“A few. What does it matter?”
“You will not graduate,” I said and chuckled, as I clearly didn’t sum up this guy well at all.
“I told you before. I’m smart.”
“I bet you are?” I squinted at him and kept looking past the trees for any late visitors. My heart still stammered, as this was the dumbest decision I’ve ever made. He can be a serial killer, Elena.
Blake leaned forward and looked in the direction I was staring at. “What are you staring at?”
“I don’t know. The principle I suppose.” I didn’t want to own up to my real thoughts.
He chuckled again. “Okay, so tell me anything you told no one before?”
“My mother left when I was two.” Why the hell did I tell him that?
“She just left?” He frowned.
“Yes, my dad doesn’t speak about her. Now you?” My eyes darted past the trees again.
“I’m not from here,” he said.
“Not a difficult one, Freud.”
His lips curved as he lifted his bum and took out a packet of cigarettes.
He lit up one.
“Of course you smoke, too. My dad is going to kill me.” I spoke that statement to myself as I looked up at the trees.
“Relax. Your dad will be happy when he meets me. I’m actually great with dads.”
“Sure you are. I figured you would be excellent at winning over moms.”
“Too bad that we would never find out.”
I squinted at him. “Haha. So where are you from?”
“The other side of the wall?”
“What wall?”
“The wall that this side doesn’t know about?”
“Are you smoking weed too?” I was way too serious, and he laughed.
“Relax, I’m only pulling your leg. I’m sure if I tell you I’m a dragon you would believe that too.”
“A what?”
He laughed. He was so weird. Beautiful but weird.
“I’m from a small town called Tith.”
“Tith? Where is that?”
“Opposite side from here?”
“In Boston?” My eyebrows knitted.
“You’ve been?”
“No, not really, but I’m sure it’s on my dad’s bucket list.”
He chuckled again.
“Do you miss it?”
“I do. My sister and mother are still there, and for some odd reason I do not know, I really miss my sister. You will like her, you are more or less the same age as her.”
“You have a sister?” I smiled, feeling a bit at ease.
“I do. Her name is Samantha. We call her Sammy.”
“So, why are they not with you?”
“My dad.”
“Oh, man. They divorced and what, he got you and your mom got her?”
He laughed again. “Something like that, but not entirely.”
“Explain it then?”
“My dad begged me to come with him. He is here for a few months too, so I came.”
“Your mother was okay with that?”
“Yes, she trusts my father.”
“You really are odd, Blake Leaf.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because the families I get to know are usually the opposite. They do not let their children out of their sight.”
“They don’t trust their children?”
“No.” I shook my head as laughter bubbled out of me. “And I’m sure you can guess why, if they pull crap like this.”
“Oh, come on. It’s nice. I don’t care what you say.” He took another drag from his cigarette. He even made that look hot.
“You need to explain something to me. Why me? I mean, Chloë is throwing heavy dynamite at you, and yet you go with the person who is showing you the least.”
He shrugged.
“I need a better answer than just a lift from your shoulders.”
“I told you, I enjoy hanging out with you. Why is it so hard for you to understand?”
“Because you look like that and I look like this.”
His expression slacked. “Just when I liked you, Elena, you had to say that.”
“I’m sorry, but it’s the truth. Really, it’s easy to believe that there is another side of the wall if you look like that, Blake.”
Stop speaking, you sound like an idiot.
He laughed again. He mumbled something about his father, and he killed his cigarette on the ground.
“Elena, I like you a lot. Does there have to be any other reason to spend some time with you?”
I did not know what to say, so I took a deep breath, which he found funny too.
“Do I make you nervous?”
“Very, and I can’t believe I’m skipping art for this, Blake.”
My father was so going to kill me, but Blake found my skipping art comment hilarious.
For the love of blueberries, this guy was going to become the end of me in two months from now.
