Chapter 1
Chapter One: Collision Course
Rain fell in silver sheets across the courtyard of East Haven High School, soaking the maroon-and-gold banners that drooped like tired flags over the main entrance.
Students rushed for cover beneath umbrellas and hoodies, weaving around puddles that reflected the storm-dark sky in fractured pieces. Somewhere across the lawn, someone shouted as a football skipped through the rain like a cannonball.
Tessa Lin nearly got hit by it.
She jerked sideways just in time, clutching her clipboard against her chest as the ball splashed into a puddle beside her boots.
“Sorry!” a distant voice yelled.
Tessa exhaled sharply and kept moving.
This place was chaos.
Not metaphorically. Literally.
Mud splattered across the sidewalk. Music blasted from somebody’s open truck in the parking lot. A pair of boys nearly collided wrestling beneath the awning outside the gym while teachers pretended not to notice.
She didn’t belong here.
Every part of her knew it.
From her neatly pressed Crestwood Academy jacket to the polished boots now being destroyed by East Haven mud, she looked painfully out of place.
Crestwood students didn’t usually come to East Haven unless it involved debate competitions, charity photos, or carefully supervised public relations events.
This was none of those.
The city’s new inter-school volunteer initiative had sounded good on paper. Pair students from different districts together. Encourage cooperation. Build community.
Tessa had signed up immediately.
Not because it would look good on applications—though it would.
Because she was suffocating.
Crestwood Academy ran on pressure. Grades. Rankings. Leadership seminars. Every conversation somehow became a resume competition disguised as concern for your future.
She was tired of every achievement ending in applause she didn’t care about.
Tired of ribbons.
Tired of perfect.
She pushed through the auditorium doors, rain dripping from her sleeves.
Warmth hit her instantly.
So did noise.
The auditorium buzzed with students spread across rows of seats, shouting over one another while teachers struggled to organize sign-in sheets near the stage. The smell of wet carpet, cheap deodorant, and cafeteria pizza floated through the air.
A girl in an oversized East Haven hoodie looked Tessa up and down.
“You lost?” she asked.
Tessa offered a polite smile. “I’m here for the community service pairing.”
The girl raised an eyebrow at the Crestwood emblem stitched onto Tessa’s jacket.
“Oh,” she said slowly. “One of those.”
“One of what?”
“Never mind.” The girl pointed toward the front rows. “Coach Daniels is doing assignments.”
“Thank you.”
Tessa stepped carefully through clusters of students. Conversations dipped slightly as she passed.
Some stared openly.
Others smirked.
A boy muttered, “Crestwood Barbie,” under his breath.
Tessa pretended not to hear it.
She was good at pretending.
At the front of the room stood Coach Daniels—a broad-shouldered man with a shaved head and the exhausted energy of someone who spent most of his life breaking up teenage disasters before they became lawsuits.
“Lin?” he asked, checking a clipboard.
“Tessa Lin.”
“Crestwood?”
“Yes.”
He nodded once. “Right. City initiative.” His eyes scanned the room. “You’ll be paired with one of ours for the Monroe Garden restoration project.”
“Sounds good.”
Coach Daniels snorted softly, like he admired her optimism.
“Hopefully your partner actually shows up,” he muttered. “Though punctuality’s not exactly his spiritual gift.”
Before Tessa could ask what that meant, the auditorium’s side doors slammed open hard enough to echo.
Heads turned immediately.
A boy rolled into the room on a skateboard like the laws of social consequence simply didn’t apply to him.
Black hoodie.
Dark hair damp from rain.
Faded jeans ripped at one knee.
A backpack hanging from one shoulder like he’d forgotten it existed halfway here.
He kicked the skateboard into his hand without breaking stride.
Coach Daniels closed his eyes briefly.
“And here comes the hurricane now.”
The boy grinned lazily. “Sorry, Coach. My clock runs on vibes.”
“Your clock runs on excuses.”
“Semantics.”
The room laughed.
Tessa frowned slightly.
Not because he was disruptive.
Because he was comfortable.
The kind of comfortable that came from not caring whether people approved of you.
She couldn’t imagine what that felt like.
“Jude Mercer,” Coach Daniels said heavily, gesturing between them. “Meet Tessa Lin from Crestwood Academy. You two are partnered for Monroe Garden.”
Jude looked at Tessa.
Really looked at her.
His smirk faded just slightly.
“You’re pairing me with her?”
Tessa straightened instinctively. “Is that a problem?”
His eyes flicked over her clipboard, jacket, polished boots.
Then he shrugged.
“Guess not.” A grin returned. “Long as she’s not expecting a standing ovation for picking up trash.”
Coach Daniels clapped his hands once. “Great. Wonderful. Beautiful teamwork already. Five hours a week for six weeks. Starting today.”
“Fantastic,” Tessa muttered.
Jude heard her.
His grin widened.
The walk to Monroe Garden happened mostly in silence.
Rain softened to drizzle overhead while students scattered toward buses and parking lots around them.
Tessa walked carefully around puddles.
Jude walked directly through them.
“So,” he said eventually, balancing his skateboard along the curb. “Let me guess.”
Tessa sighed quietly. “You’re going to anyway.”
“Honor student?”
“Yes.”
“Student council?”
“Yes.”
“Captain of at least three clubs?”
“Two.”
“Future senator?”
She looked at him sideways. “That’s an awful lot of assumptions from someone who was almost late.”
“Not almost. Spiritually late.” He pointed at her clipboard. “You definitely color-code things.”
“I do.”
“That’s terrifying.”
“You skateboard through school hallways.”
“Fair point.”
Against her better judgment, Tessa smiled slightly.
Jude noticed immediately.
Interesting.
Monroe Garden sat tucked between an old library and a fenced basketball court near the edge of downtown East Haven.
Or at least, what used to be Monroe Garden.
Now it looked abandoned.
Overgrown weeds swallowed flowerbeds whole. Dead vines wrapped around benches. The stone fountain in the center had turned green with algae.
Jude whistled softly.
“Well,” he said. “Looks like we’re restoring the lost kingdom.”
Tessa stared at the disaster in front of her.
Most people saw a mess.
She saw potential.
Order waiting to happen.
“We’ll start with the center path,” she said immediately, pulling gloves from her bag. “Then clear dead growth before touching the soil beds.”
Jude blinked.
“You already planned this?”
“I always plan things.”
“Wow.” He grabbed a pair of gloves from the supply bin. “You really are a senator.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“No promises, Senator.”
The first hour passed awkwardly.
Tessa worked with practiced precision, organizing debris piles and separating dead roots from salvageable plants.
Jude worked like a tornado with good intentions.
Messy.
Fast.
Surprisingly effective.
“What kind of music do you think weeds hate?” he asked while yanking vines from a fence.
Tessa didn’t look up. “That might be the strangest question anyone’s ever asked me.”
“I’m serious.”
“You’re never serious.”
“That hurts.”
She rolled her eyes.
Ten minutes later he asked if plants could recognize human voices.
Then whether talking kindly to flowers actually mattered.
Then whether tomatoes counted as emotional support organisms.
Tessa laughed before she could stop herself.
Jude looked absurdly pleased about it.
“There it is,” he said.
“What?”
“The human underneath the dictatorship energy.”
“I do not have dictatorship energy.”
“You absolutely do.”
Hours passed faster than Tessa expected.
By late afternoon, the clouds had finally broken apart.
Sunlight spilled across the garden in warm streaks.
For the first time in years, parts of Monroe Garden looked alive again.
Not fixed.
But hopeful.
Jude leaned against the cleaned fountain edge and wiped sweat from his forehead with his sleeve.
“Not bad, Senator Lin.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“But now it’s affectionate.”
“It’s still annoying.”
He studied her for a moment then, more quietly this time.
“So why’d you volunteer?”
Tessa paused.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re Crestwood.” He shrugged. “Most Crestwood kids only cross into East Haven for trophies or charity photos.”
The comment should’ve annoyed her.
Instead it just sounded tired.
Honest.
She looked around the garden before answering.
“Because I wanted to do something real.”
Jude tilted his head slightly.
“Real?”
“Something that didn’t end with applause.” She brushed dirt from her gloves. “Something that mattered after people stopped clapping.”
For once, Jude didn’t joke.
He just looked at her.
Actually looked at her.
Then nodded once, like he understood something she hadn’t meant to say out loud.
“You’re weird,” he said finally.
Tessa smirked faintly. “You’re late.”
He laughed softly.
And for a second the space between them changed.
Not dramatically.
Not obviously.
Just enough to notice.
The wind stirred through the garden again, lifting strands of hair across Tessa’s face.
Jude watched her brush them back.
“Same time tomorrow?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Same time.”
As she walked toward the street, she didn’t look back.
But somehow she still knew he was watching her leave.
And for the first time in weeks, Tessa found herself smiling for absolutely no reason at all.
The link to my book in on my Wall, please go and look it up.
