Prologue
996 Words
Prologue
ELSIE
SEVEN YEARS AGOI never wanted anything more than I wanted Brett James Jackson.
And when you were sixteen and lonely, stuck in the middle of your parents’ lengthy and very public divorce, you wanted lots of things. Normalcy, being number one. A friend, maybe–if you were lucky. And I had two of the very best ones.
But it took more than two amazing friends to mend a broken heart. Obviously. But more than those, you wanted–no, hoped–that your tomorrow would be better, that your parents would magically wake up and discover that they loved each other (and maybe you, by extension). And maybe–just maybe–you hoped you would have the family you always dreamed about, the family your friends had, the life you knew could never be yours.
You certainly didn’t wish for this. A massive red stain on your favorite white shorts, split down the middle where the rest of the school could see.
The other thing you wanted most on a day like today?
To disappear. And pretend that this week, the day, this period (no pun intended) had never happened. I close my eyes and squeeze the rest of the tears out. My fists squeeze with them as my best friend Kayla shoves her phone into my face, the picture on the screen in front of me morphing as the salty water behind my eyes blurs my vision. I blink them back.
“Kool-Aid on white pants,” Kay shakes her head. “Oldest trick in the book.”
I shrug, falling back on her weighty mattress as I reflect back on the fourth period incident that ruined my day. I flash a watery smile as I lay. “Really? Because I thought the oldest trick in the book was Becca Hamilton. She’s the only beast I know capable of doing something like this.”
My best friend closes her closet door with a thwack. She sighs heavily from the other side of the room. “I told you not to leave your gym locker unlocked.”
“My bad. I thought this was Riverside High, not the ‘Wilds of the Serengeti.’”
Kay raises a chestnut-colored eyebrow. “With that teased ponytail of Becca’s, who would be able to tell the difference?”
I glance back at the picture on Kayla’s phone, the sting behind my eyes returning with a vengeance. I scoff out loud, whispering. “Only one person I can think of.”
And as if he knows I’m thinking of him, he appears around the corner, as if created out of thin air. I suspect that he has been. No person born from a basic uterus could look that good.
Brett Jackson, to me, is a bad decision walking.
Even in high school, my best friend’s older brother is a man amongst boys. Beautiful and built, his shoulders broad, his head always held high. Now naked from the waist up, a small towel wrapped between his lengthy fingers, he walks along the cream-colored carpet on the second floor of Kayla’s family mansion with the grace of a lion and the tousled hair to match, grinning like a Greek god. In the midst of mortals, his body inked in large black strokes, he is the king of his jungle and a mystery to all who know him.
Including me.
Not that I ever really knew Brett. I’d never gotten close enough. Not until recently.
Countless sleepovers at Kay’s and several years as best friends have done nothing to ease my curiosity…or the severity of my crush, and as I glance at him, my eyes going wide as he passes in the gigantic hallway, stepping into Kayla’s room, I watch as he ruffles her wavy auburn hair with one large hand, his gaze bouncing quickly in my direction.
“What’s up, squirt?” he throws at her. He nods at me. “What’s up, Ellie?”
“Elsie,” Kayla corrects him.
I don’t care. I’m just happy enough that he notices me. With his blue eye open, he winks at me, flashing the green-colored one in a way that’s almost imperceptible, and just like that, he’s gone just as quickly as he came, taking his cinnamon-y scent and most of my breath with him. I inhale deeply the second he’s out of sight.
Kayla rolls her baby-blue eyes. “He always does that. Messes up my hair.”
I want to tell Kay that most women would pay for Brett to touch them like that. I glance at the mop of hair on my own head, the crazy blonde curls reflected in the mirror atop her dresser just to my right. Kayla freaks when she has a hair out of place; I’ve had a mess on top of my scalp for a decade. I shrug.
“Forget about him,” I say. Funny. Because that’s exactly what I wish I could do. Forget about Brett Jackson. And Becca Hamilton, bad pranks, and the stupid high school of mine that seems to love them so much.
And just when I resolve myself to temporary amnesia, an incoming message makes my cell phone buzz. I fish my cell phone from my front pocket, my fingers shaking as they scroll over the words on the screen:
Greek God: Come to the bathroom. Now.
In that instant, it isn’t hard to forget. Forget about my family, about my parents’ divorce, about being Elsie Carpenter. And in those seven minutes after I leave Kayla’s side and head towards the bathroom just outside of her oversized bedroom, I wish I could forget about something else, too.
I wish I could forget that I was lying to my best friend.
I wish I could forget that the boy standing in the open bathroom in front of me—the gorgeous, dark-haired, now gloriously naked boy dropping trou as I stare—isn't the worst mistake in the world. Forget that a week ago, in a fit of insanity, I happened to lose my heart, head and virginity to the best bad decision I'd ever made. And in this bathroom, on this most desperate day, I make a vow to Brett because earlier I’d broken the first vow I’d ever made to myself…
I let them see me cry.
- Writer
