Page 3 of Grace

Nikky elbowed me in the side to get a reaction, but her bony elbow felt like nothing more than a mosquito bite. I looked at her, and her eyes were a warning: don’t screw this up for me.

I turned back to Chase and slightly shook my head, while my eyes still kept naively caressing his face. The windows of the van were rolled down, and a mild draft caught my long, light brown hair and hid my face. I was grateful for it, because my face must have been a tapestry of dancing emotions.

Although he didn’t offer a cigarette to Nikky, she arrogantly took one anyway, and kept fluttering her eyelashes at him like a slut. Still, Chase was unfazed. Other boys would have played her game and taken her up on her implied offer to fuck her or have their dick sucked. However, Chase’s expression shifted subtly between pity and revulsion. His thin lips curled slightly, hinting at a mocking smile edged with disgust. As the silent minutes passed, the unwanted dark shadow of my sister pressed on me. I hated when she did this.

I shook off her arm and turned my back on them.

“I’ll wait for you over there,” I said as I stepped out of the car and sat down on the old bench, partially worn away by the passing of time. I smiled as I scanned the hearts carved into the wood, including the one with my parents’ initials. I parted my hair and braided it in two plaits while I was looking at the carvings. According to Nikky, I was so lame that I shouldn’t have ever gone near her like that—I’d embarrass her.

“You are almost fifteen, but you look like a ten-year-old,” she told me once.

I took out my compass and reinforced my parents’ artwork.

A tingling crept up on the back of my head and I felt as if someone was watching me—but when I looked up and around, I only saw a few kids on the running track, and Mr. Miller, who was looking for kids who should have been inside the school.

Suddenly, a dry twig cracked behind me, and I was startled.

“It was right about time,” I snorted angrily. I put my compass in my backpack, then slung my backpack over my back and easily swung my legs around. However, the red mist of my anger dissipated in an instant when I realized it wasn’t Nikky standing behind me—but Chase.

I blinked in surprise, and kept looking around for my sister.

“She’s gone,” he rumbled in his dark voice, making my insides shake and my lips twitch. Seriously, Nikky? How could you leave me here with him?

“So typical,” I mumbled—or, more precisely, growled under my nose. She’s gonna get it back. The scaredy-cat.

Chase was leaning back against a tree, lit a cigarette, and exhaled the smoke towards me, which almost sent me into a coughing fit. I was trying to wave the poisonous cloud away with my hand. As he kept weighing me with his eyes, I thought about my ridiculous plaits hanging below my tits. I did look like a ten-year-old, but I didn’t care—I did not want Chase Baker to like me. Quite the opposite: I wanted to avoid him like the plague. Still, we spent several silent minutes gazing into each other’s eyes. In my imagination, I was already far away, but my legs felt frozen.

“Grace!”

The sound of my name burst the bubble enveloping us. I turned toward the school and saw Daisy, my friend, waving at me. He couldn’t see Chase because the thick trunk of the tree hid him.

I smiled and waved back, thinking it would be rude to not say goodbye. I didn’t want to be nice—but still, it was us who approached him. Although I had no idea how I should say goodbye. Bye? See ya? See you never, alligator? However, when I turned back toward the tree, Chase wasn’t there. He could be silent as a ghost when he wanted to be. Or like an apex predator. The thought made me shiver.

I let out a relieved sigh. My tense muscles relaxed, my shoulders slumped, and my legs finally did my bidding. I walked over to Daisy. Halfway there, I turned back and cast a quick glance behind me, but he wasn’t there.

However… Later, he did return—and he didn’t take his eyes off me. He burned into my memory, into my body. His dark, mysterious eyes followed me, haunted me, and nearly drove me mad.

The last few weeks of school were difficult: both students and teachers were exhausted. And we students were already going crazy over the upcoming summer vacation and all the possibilities it held. During breaks between classes, the school’s oval-shaped courtyard was filled with loud conversations. During lessons, there was a constant buzz of whispers, and we barely paid any attention. There was some nonsensical gossip about the principal and Milly Stepsford’s mom. And I was constantly haunted by the reputation of my “slut of a sister”. According to everyone, I was “little Grace”, living under the dark shadow of my sister—however, I mostly just felt ashamed whenever my classmates informed me about what she had done under the stands next to the football field.

Recently, Mr. Miller had been spending a lot of time with us in the courtyard, striking up conversations with students who wanted nothing to do with him or his advice.

And of course, Daisy fell ill with a GI infection in the last weeks of school, which made it impossible for her to leave home—or, in her words, the bathroom.

“My ass is hurting so bad that I’d like to drag it across the carpet like a dog—maybe that would help the itching,” she said to me.

“Ugh, you are disgusting!” I laughed loudly.

I was walking alone in circles on the vivid green lawn of the courtyard—I gave Nikky’s gang a wide berth, boys weren’t on the menu back then and I didn’t really get along with the other girls.

Mr. Miller was watching the kids go berserk, his hands tucked in the pockets of his deep brown linen pants. He noticed me and walked over. My stomach twisted into a knot because I didn’t want to talk to a forty-year-old teacher about school, my vacation plans, or anything else. We had little in common, in terms of interests or otherwise.

I was anxiously considering possible escape routes in my head. Should I feign nausea and run away? However, before I could act on the thought, someone grabbed my clothes from behind and yanked me backwards. I was so shocked I forgot to scream as my back hit the gnarled, rough bark of a tree. My body and face contorted in pain. After blinking a few times to clear the sun’s image from my retina and managing to calm down, I saw a huge body towering over me.

Chase Baker.

My breath got caught in my chest—from the hard impact to my spine and from how close Chase was to me. My nostrils, my trachea, my lungs were all burning, and my brain was screaming for oxygen.

As soon as I inhaled the hot air simmering between us, my knees went weak. His scent was incredibly pleasant—masculine, with a hint of spice. And his body… I gulped as I watched his well-developed chest rise and fall evenly with his breathing. His broad-shouldered frame trapped my much smaller and thinner body with ease, towering over me by two heads.