Evan
in the hallway getting ready for a run when I hear the taxi pull up outside. I wrench the door open. Sophie is out of uniform today, and it completely throws me off.
It’s not even like she’s dressed particularly provocatively. If anything, it’s the opposite.
She’s wearing a big, ugly, baggy jumper, like someone’s grandad would wear, a short black skirt, black tights, old black boots. Her hair is loose around her shoulders and a little wind-ruffled.
When she sees me, her face immediately scrunches into a frown.
“I like your jumper,” I call out from the doorway against which I’m leaning. “The boomer vibe is a good look on you. Really suits your miserable personality.”
“I’m not here to get fashion commentary from a guy wearing shorts in this weather,” she says.
I glance down at myself. I’m wearing a long-sleeved top and loose shorts. It’s not so much an outfit designed to be stylish—I’m only wearing what’s comfortable for running. In reality, I could go running in a tank top and hot pants and still not be cold. I spent a big portion of my childhood winters in Cape Cod; British autumn doesn’t even come close.
“Don’t know why you’re complaining,” I say. “You get to check out my legs.”
“A gift I never hoped for,” she deadpans. “You might even say a gift I never wished for.”
“Please, Sutton, everyone in Spearcrest knows you want me.”
She rolls her eyes. “A rumour invented by you and spread by you. Bit embarrassing, if you ask me.”
“Don’t they say there’s an atom of truth to every rumour?”
“Not this one. But well done for knowing what an atom is. You’re not as dumb as you look.”
I give her my most charming grin. “I never said you wanted me for my brain, Sutton.”
She sighs, walks up to stand at the foot of the steps leading up the door, stretching her hand out.
“Talking of things I don’t want, do you know what else I don’t want?” she says. “Your homework. But here I am.”
If I’m honest with myself, I completely forgot about asking her to do my homework. My mind got a little sidetracked after she left.
I definitely expected a lot more of a fight on that issue, and I’m not about to pass up the opportunity to get Sophie Sutton to do my schoolwork for me.
“Alright, come in!” I call, then run inside to go grab my backpack where I dropped it in the atrium, by the 17th century Greek statue my dad won last year at Sotheby’s.
“It’s in here somewhere,” I call over my shoulder when I hear Sophie approach.
She doesn’t reply, and I end up pulling out every notebook, booklet and handout I stuffed into my bag throughout the week. I hand them over to Sophie, who looks at the messy pile with open disgust.
“What on earth am I looking at?”
“My Lit homework.”
“That’s not homework,” she snaps. “That’s just a big pile of… stuff!”
“Well, I don’t fucking know!” I say, dumping the pile on the floor where I’m kneeling. “Mr Houghton is always giving us stuff. I have no idea what half this shit is. You sort it out, since you’re so fucking smart.”
Sophie gives me a look of barely repressed exasperation but kneels next to me, setting her bag aside.
Now she’s so close, I can smell her, that warm vanilla scent that makes me think she must taste sweet as caramel. She tucks her hair behind her ears and pushes her glasses up on her nose, leaning down to sift through the pile. With that serious look and those thick black frames, she looks almost like a teacher.
The kind of young, hot teacher you want to bend over your desk and fuck from behind.
“Right.” Her tone is crisp and business-like, startling me back to reality as surely as a slap to the face. “I’ve roughly sorted it into three piles: the poetry comparison material, the Shakespeare material and your research project. Have you picked a topic for that yet?”
I already know she’s going to be mad, so there’s no point in delaying the inevitable. “No. I don’t even know what I have to do for it.”
She rolls her eyes and sighs. “Right, right. Well, the deadline for that isn’t until Spring Term, so let’s leave it for now. What essay do you have due first?”
“An essay on Hamlet in a couple of weeks.”
“You guys are doing Hamlet for your Shakespeare?” she asks with a frown.
“Uh… aren’t we meant to?”
“Of course you are, don’t be stupid. Your teacher’s probably selected a different text from our teacher. I’m doing Othello, which means I can’t even use my notes. Do you have any notes on the Hamlet lectures?”
I hand her a notebook, knowing full well she’s going to be displeased by its contents. As expected, she flicks through the pages with the tips of her fingers and her face twists into a grimace of disgust. “Most of this is doodles.”
“Not just doodles,” I say, grabbing the notebook and flipping proudly to one of the last pages. “I also got Grace’s number, look. She even drew a heart.”
Sophie gives me a withering look but doesn’t comment.
“So you have a Hamlet essay and no notes. That’s all I have to go off?”
“I have those handouts,” I say, pointing at the essay booklet Mr Houghton gave us.
She sighs and picks it up. “Well, actually that’s probably going to be of some help.” She puts the Shakespeare pile she made into her bag, making sure none of the papers bend and then looks back up at me. “How on earth can you be failing Lit with Mr Houghton as your teacher? He’s incredible.”
I shrug. “Sure, but he’s pretty boring.”
“He’s not—” she interrupts herself and takes a deep breath. “I suppose everything is boring to someone like you,” she ends up saying, voice dripping with disdain.
She stands and I quickly follow suit. “And I suppose everything must be interesting to someone as boring as you.”
Even though I said it to get a reaction out of her, it’s a bare-faced lie. I’ve never found Sophie boring. I don’t find her boring when she’s nagging, or judgemental, or doing some impossibly snooty prefect stuff.
She wasn’t even boring when she was going through my Lit stuff, and I find Lit depressingly boring.
But she completely ignores the insult and instead, she gestures at the piles still on the floor. “Keep all this somewhere safe and tidy for when we get to the next assignment. I’ll take the Shakespeare stuff and sort out the essay.”
Then she turns around and strides away. I scramble to catch up with her and all but throw myself against the door when she reaches for the door handle, stopping her exit.
“You’re leaving?”
“I got what I came for,” she says. “Now I’m off. That’s our deal, remember?”
“You’re going into town?”
She sighs. “Yes. I am. And you’re in my way.”
“Want me to drop you off?”
“You drive?” she asks with a frown.
I grin. “Of course. And all my dad’s cars are here.”
“Oh my god, a joyride with the cutest boy in the year?” she says, her voice and expression completely blank. “What more could I ever want?”
I stand a little closer to her, and that familiar heat in the pit of my stomach is back. She’s not giving me a lot, but she’s giving me enough for the excitement and adrenaline to rush through me.
“The cutest boy in the year, Sutton?” I ask, watching her face closely for the smallest reaction. “Is that so?”
She nods. “Totally. My only dream is that you’ll take me to prom.”
Her words unleash a flood of images through my mind.
Sophie in a prom dress, probably something edgy and black because she’s too cool for jewel tones and crystals.
Sophie in the passenger’s seat of my car, filling the air with the sweet vanilla perfume of her. My hand resting on her thigh as I drive, slowly moving up, her skirt gathering in the crook of my elbow.
Walking into the party with Sophie on my arm, fetching her cups of spiked punch, dancing tipsily with her under the glittering lights of cheesy disco balls.
Kissing Sophie, hard and breathlessly, outside against the hood of my car. Pushing her into the backseat to kiss my way up her legs, to taste her pretty pussy and take her, hard and rough in the darkness.
Not because I like her and she likes me.
But because Sophie is so closed in on herself that touching her is an act of conquest, of victory.
“Really?” I breathe, my throat suddenly tight.
“No,” she snaps. “Obviously not. Spearcrest doesn’t even have a prom. Nor do I want you to drive me anywhere. I want you to honour our deal and get out of my way.”
I move away from the door and let her through.
She doesn’t bother to say goodbye. She simply stomps away like the uptight, cocky little fucker she is, disappearing around the bend in the drive. I remain standing in the doorway for a long time, the adrenaline ebbing and fading.
And when it’s gone, all that’s left is the aching, hungry thought of touching Sophie Sutton.
The First Time Evan Touched Sophie
I was becoming friends with Sophie while it happened. I didn’t realise until one day when Sophie and I were walking from our English classroom to the Science building, talking about our plans for the weekend.
“My parents are away but my sister is flying in from New York, so we’re going to spend the weekend in London. She’ll probably make me carry all her shopping bags around like she normally does.” I turn to Sophie. “What about you?”
She shrugs. “Stuck here again. My parents are refusing to let me come home from Spearcrest until I make friends.”
I grin at her. “Well, can’t you tell them you’re made a friend? I count, don’t I?”
She stops in her tracks and looks at me. I really like the way Sophie looks at me: direct and serious. Often, looking at Sophie feels like looking at an adult, a young woman who is already miles ahead of me. It’s a little intimidating, and totally captivating.
But today, she is more serious than usual.
Her voice comes out low and earnest. “Are we friends, then?”
My heart is a little too light in my chest, like the flutter of nerves before a rugby match. I bite the inside of my cheek, then shrug.
“Yeah—right?”
She looks at me, and I can’t read her expression at all. Then she gives a slow nod. “Yes.”
After that, it was like I had blurry eyesight and was now wearing glasses. Everything came into focus. Our friendship was very different from my friendship with Zach, with the other boys in the circle, Luca, Iakov and Sev.
And it was different from my friendship with girls, too. Every girl at school appeared to me in the form of a potential girlfriend.
But not Sophie.
Our friendship existed in a sort of in-between state. I didn’t view her the way I viewed my friends, but I didn’t view her the way I viewed girls, either. Our friendship filled the gaps, then grew.
We would sit together in English at first, then in our other classes too. At the time, Sophie had just arrived, and she had been placed in all middle sets. I knew she would soon outgrow me and end up in all the top sets where the Spearcrest geniuses, like Zachary and Theodora, ended up.
But in the meantime, I wanted to enjoy sitting with her, listening to her explain things to me. We’d walk together from one lesson to the next, even when we didn’t share lessons or classrooms.
Bit by bit, we started hanging out outside of lessons. Sometimes, I’d spot her alone in the quad and I’d go sit with her. After school, if I didn’t have rugby practice, I’d sometimes trail her to chess club and watch her while she played. Looking at her serious eyes, her frown, her spotty face, all still like undisturbed water, no expression rippling the surface.
Then, everything changed.
It was a late October afternoon. Sophie was doing homework in the study and I was sitting at her side, pretty much copying her answers. After we finished, she sat back and gave me a disapproving look that belonged more on the face of a sixty-year-old librarian than a fourteen-year-old girl.
“You can’t keep doing this. At some point, you’re going to need to start studying.”
“If you help me with my homework this year, then I’ll work so hard for my GCSEs I’ll be in all top sets with Zachary.”
She gave a little laugh—a Sophie laugh. Dry and low and with a mocking edge to it. “Hah, is that a promise?”
And then I extended my hand to her. “It’s a promise.”
And then she put her hand in mine and we shook.
It was my first time touching Sophie, skin on skin.
The warmth of her seeped from her skin into mine, and shot right into my veins. In that moment, something strange and irreversible happened. Everything seemed to dull and darken and soften around us, until there was nothing else but Sophie in the dim lights of the desk lamps.
Sophie, and her dark eyes, and thick eyelashes, and the dark curtains of her hair parting around her face. Sophie’s acne-ridden cheeks and the way the corners of her lips lifted in a slight smirk.
Sophie’s hand in mine, and the warmth of her skin against mine.
And that was the first time I touched Sophie. When I did, her presence burst into flames in my life. She has been a burning beacon ever since, drawing me to her like a moth to a flame.
But I have no intention of being the one to burn.
