––––––––
The next morning, I woke up before the sun in the worst way possible. My mind had decided to jolt me awake by making me dream about snakes. I hated snakes. I’d gotten bit by a snake once, back in North Carolina, while walking across a field to retrieve a forgotten bucket. It wasn’t a poisonous snake or anything, and it scared me more than hurt me, but that one moment did cement my fears.
So, I laid in bed, the snake dream fading, and my worries and insecurities replacing it.
Yesterday had been a complete bust. Jake didn’t even look at me, even though I was standing right in front of him.
Was I that easily ignored?
I planted my feet on the floor, clicked on my bedside lamp, and walked over to the mirror that hung behind my door.
I examined myself closely. My wide, almond shaped eyes. The dark brown pupils. My ever-tanned skin, and full lips.
Was I ugly? Was I too plain? Was that why Jake didn’t see me?
The girls who Jake normally dated didn’t look like me at all. They were all pale and thin with big boobs and designer clothes. I’d inherited some of my mother’s melanin, my body was more hour glass than slim, and my boobs were two cups short from being Ds.
Still, I wasn’t terrible looking. I definitely was not a ninja turtle like Cole said. Maybe all I needed was a little more makeup? A shorter skirt? Some waves to my hair? Maybe if I just tried a little bit harder, I could raise from the realms of invisibility in to the stratosphere of Jake’s sexy arms.
I squared my shoulders and marched in to the bathroom. On the way, I turned on Pandora on my radio. I needed some get ready music.
Katie Perry’s Roar came on, and I smiled.
Okay, Jake. You didn’t see me yesterday. Today, you won’t be able to ignore me.
This is a bad idea.
I stood next to Jake’s locker, yanking down the uncomfortably tight and whorishly short skirt.
I’d scoured my wardrobe and had come up with an outfit that resembled something like the popular girls wore. A black skirt that showed lots of thigh (because it was too small), a plain, pink blouse that I tied in the back to more perfectly show off my belly button (and because it was too big), and four-inch, black heels. The heels were a size too small and pinched my toes, but, hey, beauty is pain, right?
I’d slathered on some red lipstick and an obscene amount of mascara, and snuck out of my apartment before my dad saw me and freaked out. He still thought of me as the innocent six-year-old girl who clung to her favorite teddy bear and wore pigtails tied with yellow ribbons. If he saw the sixteen-year-old girl in her pinchy heels and exposed midriff, he might have a heart attack.
No. Daddy didn’t know this other girl. Heck. I barely knew her. I wasn’t the type to go seducing boys. I’d never even kissed a boy. Well, there was Ralph Mooch, but he didn’t count. First of all, it was a dare. Plus, his retainer fell out five seconds in to it when he tried to shove his tongue down my throat. I nearly puked at the grossness of it. So, no. Officially, I have never been kissed. I was more the bookworm type. A quiet thinker who lived her life between the pages of Poe, Shakespeare, and Whitman.
Then came along Jake Winsted. He’d always been wrapped around Dana Rich’s finger. And what boy wouldn’t? Dana was the prettiest girl in the school. One of those model types with long blonde hair and big boobs who always looked like they’d just stepped out of a magazine. It was so annoying! Even when she was sweating in gym class, she looked perfect, like she was posing for an action shot in a magazine. How could life be so unfair!
Or was it? Dana was out of the picture now. She’d dumped poor Jake about a week ago, and had started dating Dustin Rodriguez. Dustin was a downgrade, if you asked me. But that didn’t matter now, because her loss was my gain. After two years, Jake would finally notice me. And, if I played my cards right, he would ask me out and we’d have an epic romance to end all epic romances. Better than The Notebook, or even Twilight. They would write books about our love for generations to come, and it would all start with me leaning against his locker, trying on my best come hither glance.
God. Please don’t let me embarrass myself.
Jake rounded the corner, just as I knew he would. He was beautiful. A sexy angel with his short blond hair, blue eyes, and fantastic physique.
He was a king without a queen. It was a vacancy that I desperately wanted to fill.
Jake threw back his head and laughed at something his friend, Eric Shipman, said. Even his laugh was beautiful. It was loud and deep. One of those laughs that desperately made you want to think of something funny so that you could make him laugh again.
I imagined how our meeting would go. He would see me standing by his locker and our eyes would meet in that intense way that lovers’ eyes do. Then I’d tell him how handsome he was and casually repeat the football joke I’d read in Cosmopolitan magazine yesterday—you know, so that he could see that I was funny and in to sports—and he’d laugh and ask me on a date and kiss me. We would be so happy together, and all because I found the courage to lean against his locker.
He was closer now. In a few more seconds, he’d see me. My heartbeat picked up, and I slid my now wavy brown hair behind my ear and readjusted myself on his locker, attempting to casually cross my legs.
And then ... snap!
I heard the sound a second before my heel slid beneath me, sending my left hip hurling toward the floor.
Rip.
Cool air whooshed against the top of my thigh. The cheap fabric ripped in half clear up to the waistband as I landed with a dull thud on the hallway floor.
Oh. My. God.
Mortified, and half naked, I tried to scramble upward, my hip bone throbbing where it had struck the ground.
Oomph.
The toe of someone’s sneaker caught on my semi-upright back. Someone swore. Arms, legs, glasses, and wood flew over me, then landed with a crash. I covered my face as splinters of wood flew in all directions.
God, if you’re there, please kill me now.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you there.”
The voice belonged to Phineas Stone. We were in chemistry together. He had the third highest GPA in the school.
I yanked on my skirt, attempting to pull the pieces back together. My plan was ruined. Jake couldn’t see me now. Not with a broken shoe, a ripped skirt, and a sneaker print on my back. I had to get out of this hallway. I had to get to my gym locker. Even the threat of wearing gym clothes all day was better than being exposed like this!
A small crowd gathered around Phineas and me. Not to help me up, or offer me their jacket to cover up my naked thigh, or even to pick up Phineas’s ruined shop project. They simply pointed and laughed.
High school kids were douche bags.
“Are you all right?” Phineas asked, his shaky hand sliding his glasses back in place.
“I’m fine!” I cried back. I didn’t mean to yell at him, but my manners had flown the coop along with the stitches to my skirt. I scrambled to my feet, fully intending on ditching my shoes and sprinting barefoot to my gym locker when the last voice that I wanted to hear came up behind me.
“Hey, Jake!”
Cole stood behind me. Jake turned around from where he stood by his locker. Eric’s attention turned to me. My ruined skirt. My out of place hair. My eyes full of tears.
I had never been so embarrassed in my life!
“Have you met Bella?”
My heart stopped.
Jake’s eyes fell from his brother’s and found mine.
I couldn’t breathe.
He looked me up and down, his gaze staying on my barely covered thigh for a few seconds too long. One side of his mouth ticked up in a half smile, making my heart re-animate and start to pound.
“What’s up?” he asked.
He saw me. He spoke to me.
My knees felt weak, and, gathering all my will and pride, I stood upright.
“Hi.” My voice was so soft and weak that I wasn’t sure that he heard me. He gave no indication that he did.
“Bella wants to know if you need an English tutor.”
Note to self: Kill Cole. Slowly. Painfully.
My cheeks felt like they were on fire.
Jake’s brows furrowed, and he laughed a little, though nothing seemed funny.
“No thanks. If I need help, I’ll just cheat off my brother.” His eyes fell again to my exposed legs.
“Nice skirt.”
Eric tapped him on the chest, and Jake was gone, walking with Eric down the hall, leaving me alone with his brother.
My plans. My dreams. They all stuttered to a stop. Jake did not want me. He would never want me. I was a nobody.
A nobody with a ripped skirt and a broken shoe.
My hand slid down my face, currently wet, red, and burning.
Slowly, I kicked off my intact heel, and turned to Cole, my eyes hard, my spirits low, my eyes filling with embarrassed, angry tears.
“Why would you do that?” I whispered. Cole caught sight of my tears, and his smug face softened. “Why would you embarrass me in front of him?”
“I think the falling and ripped clothes did that for you.”
“Why are you so mean?”
The edges of his mouth dropped into a frown.
“I’m not mean.”
“Then why would you ruin my life like that?”
“Because it’s time to get Jake out of your system,” he snapped. The fury and anger in his words surprised me, and I stiffened. “You have been pinning after him since forever, and I’m sick of it. You’ve spoken to him, you had your shot, and now you have your answer. Jake doesn’t want you.”
Each word was like a dagger to my heart. A deep cut dripping with blood, gore, and misery.
I shook my head and angrily wiped the tears away.
“I never want to speak to you again, Cole,” I growled. “Ever.”
He shrugged. “Fine.”
I glared at Cole, the boy I hated most in the world, and turned and picked up my shoes. They was gone. Phineas, too. The only evidence that we’d been here at all were a few pieces of broken wood.
“Looking for this?”
My breath left my body. One, long exhausted breath.
I turned back to Cole and, sure enough, he was holding my shoes. His expression was strange. Smug and victorious ... and sad. God. I hated him.
“Why do you care?” I asked. “You’re mean to me. We’re not friends. Why do you care if I like Jake or not?”
“Because...” His voice trailed off into oblivion. He crossed his arms and looked away from me.
I decided that I didn’t care. Cole could jump off a bridge and I wouldn’t care. I was completely and utterly done with Cole Winsted. Forever!
I snatched my shoe out of his hand, turned, and fled to the gym lockers, leaving a trail of tears behind me.