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Soon I’d apply for my backup schools, including HHU. Hade Harbor University was a great school, but it was too close to home. If I went there, I knew for a fact that my parents would expect me to live at home, and I couldn’t take it. This time next year, I wanted to be out of this house, this town, just out. I wanted to be gone. I wanted – no, needed – some freedom in my life. I loved my parents, but their attention was stifling. I needed to make some mistakes, to strike out on my own. I was desperate to escape the pressure of being Lillian Williams, straight-A student, Coach’s daughter.
Balancing a green apple on top of a jar of peanut butter and a chocolate bar, I headed through the house toward my bedroom.
“How was the test?”
My mother’s unexpected voice startled me, and I nearly dropped everything. I whirled around and found her sitting in the corner of the living room, a magazine open on her lap.
“It was okay. Good.” I replied breathlessly, my heart still pounding from the fright.
She smiled at me. My mother, Sandra, was still a beautiful woman, and she took great pains to ensure everyone knew it. Sometimes it was like she knew my school schedule better than I did.
“I knew you could do it. HHU will be begging you to attend, you’ll see.”
I often suspected my mom could read my mind. Despite how occupied she was with her real estate career, she seemed to see inside my head with such precision, it was eerie. I dropped my gaze.
Can she tell I’m hiding something from her?
“Yeah, we’ll see.”
She gave me an encouraging smile. “Don’t worry about it, honey. You’re a shoo-in.”
“Yeah, but it’s really competitive, you know.” I fidgeted.
“Trust me, keep acing your tests and you have nothing to worry about. Go and eat your snack,” she said after a moment, turning back to her magazine.
Inside my bedroom, I shut the door and set my snack down.
My heart shuddered. I hated lying to my mom, but I had no idea how to tell my well-meaning parents that they were suffocating me. I had no idea how to tell them that at seventeen years old, I’d never even been kissed. I wanted to date, I wanted to stay out late, and I wanted to obsess over some guy who asked me out. I wanted to be normal and not the test acer for once. My mom would never understand. She’d had me young and married my father when they’d both just gotten out of high school. She saw in me all the potential that she’d lost when she’d become a mom at nineteen. I didn’t have it in me to break her heart.
I sliced my apple carefully, spread peanut butter on each slice, and added a square of chocolate to the top. The methodical action of preparing it perfectly calmed me. Once I had my plate all set up, with the apple slices arranged in a pleasing circle—appeasing my OCD tendencies—I reached for my laptop.
After my test today and nonstop cramming, my brain was fried, but I had another test at the end of the week I should really start preparing for. First, I dug my diary out from under my pillow and chose a light-blue pen to write in it. I always needed to write things out to process them. My newest diary had a cute little keypad lock, though I never really worried about anyone reading it in my house and had lost the key months ago. My parents trusted me far too much to suspect that there was anything interesting or wild going on between the pages of my journal. Sadly, they were right.
Today, however, that changed. I stared at the name I’d written in blue across the white page.
Cayden West.
I rarely wrote about anything but my family, classes, and future aspirations. Cayden had really gotten under my skin. He was like a hurricane, slamming into my life without warning and shaking everything free from its tethers. Most of all, he’d noticed me, and that made me uncomfortable. I was such an expert in not being noticed that it was unsettling to have caught someone’s eye. The fact that it was someone so crazy only made it worse.
Still, it was something new, an unknown variable to introduce into the system of my life. I didn’t like unknowns. They were scary. The very best thing I could do to get rid of this particular unknown was to stay out his way, keep my head down, and wait until Cayden West forgot about me and my silly insults. It was sure to happen any day now. He was a soon-to-be Ice God, if the guys he’d been hanging out with at Beckett’s party were anything to go by, and I – well, I was just Bug. Science nerd, Coach Williams’ dorky daughter. A girl with the weight of the world on her shoulders.
I’d be off his radar as soon as girls like Selena sunk their claws into him. Given his outrageous good looks and bad-boy aura, that was sure to happen sooner rather than later.
Yep, Cayden West would forget about the weird, rude girl who’d shouted at him in a parking lot, and I’d forget what it felt like to be noticed by someone new. Life would go back to normal soon enough.
* * *
Hours later at dinner, however, it seemed my father wasn’t ready to let Cayden West be forgotten any time soon.
“This kid, you should see him skate. I mean, you will, if I have anything to say about it.”
“But is he allowed to play for Hade Harbor if he doesn’t live here?” My mother was on her third glass of wine.
My father, Eric, blew out a derisive snort. “Let them try and stop him. The Hellions need him, and the school board wants to win Nationals just as badly as I do.”
“Why this year?” I wondered aloud.
My father turned his eyes to me. “This year, with Beckett, Marcus, and Asher, we have a real chance. They need a killer center though, and that person is Cayden. You should have seen them skating together after school today. It’s like they were born to be a team.”
