Chapter Four
2002 - End of Freshman Year
Chase
I used words as a means of escape over the course of my freshman year of high school. Words that helped me through the first day when I realized Erica had no idea who I was. Words that made me see just how many feelings I had for this girl.
I loved her in ways that a fourteen-year-old shouldn’t.
I loved the way her hair bounced when she walked, how her eyes sparkled in our algebra class when she got a problem right, and most of all, I loved when she caught me looking at her and a scowl formed on her face.
The conversations with Erica never got easier, but instead of trying to work it out, I let us fall into a silence that had our conversations being more awkward than anything. We talked group projects, when she needed me to move out of her way when going to a class, and my favorite, when I was laid out along one of the benches in the courtyard and she had nowhere else to sit for lunch. That one was the conversation I had held onto all year. The one that made me think things could be different, but I was still too chicken to do something about it.
Stupid teenage hormones, because it was by far one of my favorite interactions from her in the whole time we’d known each other.
I felt a tug on the earphones I was wearing and the outside world became real again after drowning myself in the twang of country music. I stared up at Erica, who was looming over me with a look of distaste running across her face. Her lips were pursed and her eyebrows scrunched together.
“Can I help you?” I asked her, still lying across the bench I had claimed during lunch, the hard steel digging into my back. I wasn’t hungry and preferred not to socialize with anyone, since my father had already made it clear that at the end of my school year we would be going back to Savannah.
He had been offered to run for Governor of Georgia and even thought I knew that meant traveling again, I had no idea it meant the end of the school year. It was his next step to being in the Senate, which was his main goal. I never minded the traveling or the spotlight my father’s career put me in, it just always came at the most inconvenient times.
That it always kept me away from Erica and now that timeframe had damaged anything we had previously created.
“You’re taking up the whole bench.” She stomped her foot and I smiled at her. I looked down at where her Converse clad foot was tapping away on the concrete. They almost looked like the same shoes from five years ago, but I knew they weren’t. My name was written on the side of those and these seemed newer, bigger, more grown up in some way.
I swung my legs around and scooted to the side of the bench that was only big enough for two people. My legs had been hanging off the end when I was laid out, but it was still better than sitting with everyone else.
Erica sat down without a word and took a sandwich out of her bag, devouring it without a glance toward me.
“You’re welcome,” I spoke up finally and she practically choked on the bite she had in her mouth. Multiple coughs came from her before she took a sip from a water bottle she pulled out next. She took a swig and then turned toward me, her hair bouncing with each move.
“Excuse me?” The sarcasm laced around her words only forced my slight smile to grow.
“I said…” I leaned in closer to her, my bravery finding its way into my body. I was close enough to her that I saw the way her eyes danced with confusion and the tick in here eyebrow, ready to shoot up at any second to object to any comment I made. I watched as her breath heaved her whole body toward me, her plain blue shirt tight against her chest and her jean clad legs tightening together.
It was a new side of Erica I had never seen before and it thrilled me. She was sassy and feisty, and way more woman than I had realized before. Yeah, she had grown up, but it was without me, and that’s the part I didn’t like. I let myself focus back on our current conversation. “You’re welcome.”
“For what?” she asked quickly. That eyebrow I was waiting for arched immediately. She slowly took in the view in front of her by raking her eyes over me.
“For moving. I didn’t have to.” I placed an arm on the back of the bench, slightly caging her in. She moved forward as to not let her back touch me.
“You were taking up the whole bench and there was nowhere else to sit.” She pointed out to the courtyard where every other bench was taken, but I looked back at the deck of the cafeteria where there were empty seats everywhere.
“Not a fan of sitting with everyone else?”
She scrunched her nose and shook her head.
“I don’t have lunch with Madison on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so I normally eat alone.”
I had learned from others at the school that Madison was Erica’s best friend and they had been for the last five years.
“Well, if you need a lunch buddy—”
“Don’t.” She stuck a hand out to stop my offer. “I know boys like you, thinking that any girl will fall for you if you just smile. Why don’t you go over to Eden”—she turned and pointed to where Eden was sitting at a table with her friends, intently watching us. She lifted her hand to wave toward us, but I knew it was directed at me, and so was the sickeningly sweet smile. I had no desire to talk to Eden, but I loved seeing this jealous side of Erica. It let me know she cared in some way—“and have lunch with her.”
“But she’s not who I want to have lunch with.” I leaned in closer this time. Me only inches away from Erica, my breath mingling in the air between us. She sucked in a shallow breath and stood abruptly.
She picked up her bag and slung it over her shoulder, a hand whipping her hair in a flip over her shoulder, and she walked away, tossing last words in my direction, but not looking back.
