DISCLAIMER – I don't own any of Meg Cabot's characters: Suze and Jesse (de Silva), nor Paul… etc. She owns them. Not me.
A/N – Suze's Girl is exactly what its title says. It's about Suze's daughter, Christina Jessica (heehee; shout-out to the name, "Jesse") de Silva, who is a shifter, and goes to West Carmel High School (a made-up school. Unless there IS an actual West C. HS; which I don't know about); it has some romance, and action. Mostly romance, because I just like romance.
A/N – I know, I know. If I were realistic, this story would take place around, oh… the years 2025-235 give or take a few. But I really, really don't want to write a SCIENCE FICTION novel as well as a supernatural one (ghosts, romance, everything else on top of one-another), so give me a break. I've written it as though it takes place now-a days (2005, you know, etc.). I hope you all forgive me.
Suze's Girl
What a loser, I thought. The guy was slugging a backpack on his shoulders that was twice his size, I'm sure. Tall and lanky, that was Benjamin Matthews. I was sitting on one of the stone, waist-high walls at West Carmel High School, under the shade of a particularly large, ancient tree.
"Yo, are you ready to leave, Chris?" Melissa Parker asked me.
"In a second," I said, not tearing my eyes of this guy – it was an interesting sight, watching Benjamin try to open his car, with all the books and papers in his hands, and his backpack on his shoulders. It was raining Calculus and English papers where Benjamin was standing. That's because they were all slipping out of his grip. I probably sound mean, but I'm pretty nice when I decide to be. I do help people, and I'm the Vice President of our school's KEY Club – a community service organization. Right now, however, I was feeling a bit lazy, and was watching with detached fascination.
"You think we should help him?" I asked, offhandedly.
"Nah, he's good. So long as the football players don't beat the poor guy up, I think it's safe for us to leave him alone." Yes. The football players; they can be beastly at times.
"Okay," I finally tore my eyes away as Benjamin finally made it inside of his car. I looked up at Melissa. "Let's go."
"Mom! I'm home!" I tore through the house, marched up the stairs, and dumped my school junk in my bedroom.
"Christina? Is that you?" Mom called up from the kitchen.
"Yeah. Got anything to eat?" I swung in the room, and grabbed the first thing that looked eatable – in this case, it was a banana.
"How was school?" my mom asked as she dried the dishes, and watched me devour the banana in five seconds flat.
I shrugged. "Okay," I said my mouth full of banana mush.
Mom scrunched up her nose at that, "Since when did you learn such bad manners. Certainly not from your father, that's for sure. The way you eat reminds me of your uncles. Remind me to not let you spend as much time with them," she laughed.
"Ha, ha," I said humorlessly. "Very funny, Mom. Uncle Jake, Uncle Brad, and Uncle Dave have been taking me out camping during the summer since, like, forever! Any way," I turned to go, "I've got lots of homework. Senior year is really packing it hard. I feel like all I ever do is homework." I started hiking up the stairs.
My mom called out after me, "And I feel like all you ever do is avoid it."
Hand it to my mom to point out a little thing such as not doing my homework and all. Oh well. Dad would be home soon. He's a doctor, and a pretty good one, too. I'm not sure if that's what I'd want to be, but it's something to consider. I already filled out my stupid, frustrating college apps, and now all that was left to do was to apply for financial aid.
We have been living here in Carmel, California all of my life. My mom moved here as a teen. My parents don't exactly explain how to me how they met… all I know is my dad took Mom out to Winter Formal, and they had been dating since, and all of that's been told to be by Grandma. There is no one on my dad's side of the family, as far as I know it.
Thank God my mom didn't go all frilly when decorated my bedroom, I thought. She tells me of how it sucked when her mom did that to her bedroom years ago. That's why mine is blue. Blue like the ocean. Sometimes I think about studying oceanography, or something, and study the wildlife out there in the sparkling, aquamarine-blue Pacific Ocean. I got my sense of style from my mom and the love for science from my dad. My dad, who was calling me from downstairs. I was in trouble.
"Christina Jessica de Silva! Get down here right now!" I shuffled my way into the dinning room. "Senorita, you had better have a good explanation for this," Dad said, waving a piece of paper in his hand. Oh no. My report card. I realized that as soon as I started coming closer, and the paper looked familiar.
"Christina," Dad sighed tiredly. "Why are you slacking now? In your senior year of high school? I know you are a very bright student, and you can do this, then what is the problem, hija (daughter)?"
"Nothing, Dad…" I said.
"Sweetheart, we're just looking out for your best interest," Mom said gently.
"It's all right, Christina," Dad said, in resolution. "I know it's your last year in high school, and I'll pardon you this time; we are not going to ground you. But," Dad said firmly. "You must raise your grades by next semester."
"Is it shifting that's getting in the way?" Mom asked quietly. Shifting… or what my mom likes to call, mediating. That's what keeps me late at night. Not studying, it's keeping pesky ghosts in their place, or else "guiding them over" to the "next world," wherever that may happen to be – I wouldn't know.
Mom and dad are shifters, and they passed it down on to me. I had no choice, really. So now, I was stuck with this "gift". Luckily I had a shifter mom and dad to help me out with it, because otherwise, I was doomed to sneak out of the house for the rest of my life – or at least until I was eighteen, and moved out to go to college and everything.
So, after we all had dinner, and I promised them I would get my grades up, I went to bed. I thought, exactly how am I going to get my grades up now?
The answer came to me in the form of a collision. Literally; I was walking to my locker, lost in my own thoughts, as I am warrant to do, when a blur passed in front of me. Without warning, Bam! Some one had knocked me over, and was sprawled all over me – not exactly in a good way either. I sputtered, and opened my eyes to see a terrified face looking down at me. "Benjamin?" By then, he had scrambled off me, and I heard a booming, Neanderthal voice down the other end of the hallway. "Matthews! Get back here," more laughter followed the voice "We're not done with you yet."
Humph. It figured. Dwain, the quarterback, and his entourage were tracking down, and hunting Ben like the frightened rabbit that he was. This pissed me off more than the occasion warranted. Besides, who were they to make fun of Benjamin just because he wasn't some brainless hunk? "Don't worry about it. I got it covered," I informed Benjamin.
"Oh Dwain?" I called, as I stood up, casually brushing off the dust from the ground from my fashionable clothes. "Were you looking for your I.Q., because I think it just left five minutes ago? You had better go back to the football field, and start looking there. At least over there, people don't use as many big words." Hoots and howls followed my witty speech, but Benjamin looked like a dear caught under an SUV's headlights. "What are you doing?" he muttered, anxiously.
But my tact worked. Or I think it did. It could have been possibly due to the fact that the Principal just walked by, too. Either way, Dwain gathered his gang, and they left Benjamin in peace. With a sigh of relief, Benjamin started to go, too. "Not so fast, Matthews," I said. "What? No thank you? I'm not asking for a bouquet of roses, just a simple 'thank you' will do."
Benjamin got all hot and red. "Yeah – well… that is - er, I mean to say – thanks…"
"No problem," I grin widely, which got Benjamin blushing even more. He started looking like a red traffic signal, if you asked me.
I leaned over and started picking up his papers, which had scattered all of the ground – yet again. I couldn't help but notice, with each paper I picked up, a glaring, "A+" would stare back up at me, or "Good Job!" "Great Work Ben!"
"Whoa, study much, Benjamin?" I asked.
"Ben," he interrupted.
"What?"
"Call me Ben," he said with a hint of smile on the corners of his mouth.
"All right, Ben. Hey listen," it suddenly dawned on me an ingenious – if I do say so myself – idea. It wasn't that original, but no one has ever accused me of that. "Do you tutor people?"
"Huh?" he looked up at me, distractedly, still rustling his mountain of books and papers.
"Tutor," I faced him. "I know you must be busy studying for those college-level A.P. classes, and what-not, but have you ever considered it?"
"I re-really haven't thought about it," he flustered said, full of embarrassment. But why should he be embarrassed?
"Well, think about it now," I firmly stated, handing over the last bunch of papers as we rose from the ground. "Listen, I need some help in some of my classes – you don't feel like you have to or anything," I gestured my head toward the direction where the jocks disappeared to. "You don't owe me anything. But I was wondering. I'd even pay you –"
"No-no, you don't have to do that –"
"No," I said. "I really mean it. Just – just say you'll at least think about it, all right?" I really needed his help. Dad was nice enough – what am I saying, Dad's always nice; but it didn't mean I should push it – not to ground me for the rest of the year, so it was my duty to work on my grades. Let's face it; Benjamin – Ben – was our class Valedictorian. Can you get a better tutor than that? I think not.
"Okay," he still seemed unsure, so I whipped out a pen from my binder's little zipper-pack, and grabbed Ben's left hand. "This is my number," I said, scribbling it onto the palm of his hand, which was, I noted with surprise, rather large. "Call me if you want to tutor me. We'll decide how much I'm going to pay you over the phone, got it?"
Poor Ben didn't seem what to make of it all. I'm an assertive girl. I want something, I go for it. It makes things so much easier in the long-run. By then the bell had rung, the last of the late students were dashing through the halls, and slamming locker doors.
"Got to go," I said.
Ben just stood there, shocked, staring at his palm, and muttered distantly, "Yeah. Sure. Bye." He looked either shell shocked, like he couldn't believe what just hit him, or he must have thought I was crazy, and probably was thinking at this very moment, "I'm going to wash my hand five times over once she's gone."
But all I could do was cross my fingers and hope he would agree to help a girl out.