Prologue
She looked at me just like everybody else did.
With disdain, nervousness, and a clear desire to avoid me at every possible moment. Everybody walks on eggshells around me, fearful of what they may say or do that could earn them a hard glare, or worse yet, a beat down.
I’m not afraid to admit it. I’m the designated “Bad Boy” at Chistine High. The baddest you can get. I’ve skipped class. Smoked. Done drugs. Had sex. You name it, I did it.
But I don’t want her hesitating as she teaches me.
“And then you just add the H’s around to fill up the chemical structure,” Her voice rattles around in my brain, not at all being absorbed. In fact, I’ve already forgotten what she just said.
Everything was set up for me to focus. The library with all its stinkin’ books was quiet, and there was nobody around our sitting area in the corner of the place. My phone was silent, buried deep inside my schoolbag. We’re in the middle of study period. There’s no way I can be distracted.
But it wasn’t the work I was looking at.
It was her.
Her slightly oily brown hair. The way she pulled it back earlier into a messy ponytail. Those glasses I swear she cleans only once a day. Her grey hoodie, the branded leggings everybody wears and those worn out black converse. Her natural make-up. The way she pulled back those strands of her behind her ear so innocently. And those delicate fingers holding her ballpoint pen.
But more importantly, those eyes.
Those sea-blue eyes. They sparkle like the intoxicatingly dangerous blue martinis down at the club. They shine with curiosity, knowledge, intelligence, and a womanly elegance guys like me can’t hope to comprehend. They’re hidden behind those foggy glasses with thick black frames. Not Ray-bans, that’s too much for her simplistic, practical style.
I’m obsessed.
“D-Do you understand?” She asked me, clearly nervous. She pierced right through me with that look of hers, even if she didn’t mean it to. It almost felt like she could gaze into my soul. But she was instead afraid of what I was going to say next.
Sure, I paid attention.
But not that type of content.
I get it now. I get it why guys like me don’t stand a chance with her.
She’s just too good for me.
She’s looking at me curiously, and I realise I haven’t said anything, but have been staring into her hypnotising blue orbs this whole time. I stammer, for the first time in my whole freakin’ life, and scratch the back of my head.
“Y-Yeah, I got you. I mean--I get it.” I slap myself mentally. How is it that you’re such an idiot in front of her, Jackson Murgel?
She’s afraid of you, man!
“K-Keep going?” I ask her. She looks at me confusedly.
“Uh, okay,” She says. “Let’s keep going, then. Next question.”
I’m watching carefully, and learning more and more about Lena Sussel, one of the most beautiful and underrated brainiacs at our school.
If only she could see me for the guy that I could be.
