Chapter One:
My Mother slides two blueberry pancakes onto my plate and then places three pieces of bacon next to them. "Are you excited for you last first day of school?" She asks. She smiles down at me and I shrug.
"I'm more excited to get the year over with, to be honest." I grab the maple syrup and start to pour it over my pancakes.
My Father looks down from his newspaper, quirking an eyebrow. "Now Beatrice, don't talk like that." He chastises me softly. "You'll miss high school once you graduate. It happens to everybody." I have to stop myself from rolling my eyes at him – he'll just chastise me again.
How could anybody miss high school after they leave it?
"He's right, you know." My Mother stands behind me and runs her fingers lightly through my hair. "Even Caleb admitted that he missed high school." Caleb was my older brother who was currently at some fancy business place sucking up to the CEO. He was smart, which is why he was one of the highest paid managers in the business and also the youngest – at only twenty-six.
I could tell them that the only reason he missed it was because he missed being Valedictorian and showing off how intelligent he was in front of the whole school, but that would only result in looks from my parents. So I took a bite of my pancakes.
My Mom hands me my book bag and I stand up from the table, hugging her. "You don't want to be late." She smiles softly at me, the corner of her green eyes crinkling with her smile. "Have a nice day." She kisses my cheek and I hug my Dad before I grab my car keys and head out.
When I pulled into the school parking lot, I headed towards the senior lot and saw a small group of people huddled around a silver Jeep. I pulled into the spot next to it and shut the car off.
As soon as I got out of the car, a familiar, cheery voice called my name. "Tris!"
Looking up I see my best friend, Christina, waving me over towards her. I smile and start to head towards the group. Christina is standing next to her boyfriend of three years, Will, and his best friend, Al. Al welcomes me with a warm – maybe a little too warm – smile and Christina wraps one arm around my waist, pulling me into a side hug.
"What are you guys doing?" I ask, turning my attention to the pieces of paper spread out on the hood of Will's Jeep.
"Comparing class schedules." She says, holding out her hand. I reach into my front pocket in my book bag and pull out my own schedule and hand it to her. She smoothes it out and places it at the end. "We all have lunch together!" She smiles brightly and I watch as Will and Al exchange a high-five. "Tris and I have Government, English and Statistics together." When she looks up at me, her soft brown skin glows in the early September sunlight and her brown eyes shine with excitement. "Will and I have second period gym together and Al and Tris have fourth period gym together."
I look to Al, who smiles at me again and then looks back towards the schedules. I sigh and run a hand through my hair, glancing around the parking lot.
There are underclassmen getting off the buses and running to meet their friends before class. Teachers are trying to get out of the parking lot quickly to avoid all the commotion. While looking around, I notice one teacher in particular – mainly because I've never seen him before and also because from a distance he looked kind of attractive.
I snap my fingers in front of Christina's face, keeping my focus on him. "Who's that?" I point in the direction of the teacher and I hear Christina gasp.
"That's Mr. Eaton." Will speaks up, side-eyeing Al like he's irritated. "He's the new lacrosse coach and Government teacher." Christina quickly glances down at our schedules and then looks back up at me, smiling brightly.
She winks at me and says, "Guess who our teacher for Government is?" The first bell rings and we all grab our schedules and headed for the main building.
Christina, Al and I have first period art together – which is basically just an easy class to take for the credit – so we part ways with Will once we enter the building. Will turns to head to his Psychology class while the three of us head downstairs to the art room.
The first few periods go by quickly; most of the teachers didn't really have anything planned other than activities that helped each of us get to know each other – and honestly, they didn't take long since a majority of my classes were strictly seniors.
By the time fourth period ended, I left gym a little early to meet Christina outside of her American Issues classroom to walk to Government together.
We made our way into the classroom and towards two desks near the back that were right next to each other. We sat down and I placed my bag on the floor, glancing up at the front of the room where our new teacher was writing a few things on the board. Even from the back he looked attractive – he was well built with cropped dark brown, almost black, hair. He had on a black button up and a gray vest. When he turned around, he clapped his hands together to both get the class's attention and to get the chalk off his hands. I noticed that he had dark blue eyes, a bit of a five-o'clock shadow and a hooked nose.
God, he was even more attractive than I thought.
"A lot of you don't know me," he started off, glancing around the classroom. I could feel my face getting hotter when his gaze landed on me. "I'm Mr. Eaton and I will be your new Government teacher for the year. While also teaching Government, I am also the new guys' lacrosse coach." A few of the guys in the class hollered and high-fived each other, earning a small smile from Mr. Eaton.
After he finished talking about himself, he went on to explain what he wanted from us. "I'm going to be taking roll and when I call your name you can tell me the name you preferred to be called and then give me two interesting facts about yourself."
Ugh, seriously?!
He started going off the class list and he was almost sidetracked by the few lacrosse players in the class, but was fortunately able to get back on track right away.
When he got to Christina's name she said, "My name's Christina, I'm going to college for Criminal Justice and I play on the varsity softball team." She looked over at me and smiled and I rolled my eyes.
I was surprised she didn't say anything about Will, to be honest.
After a few more names he finally came to my name. Everyone turned to stare at me and I sat up straighter, suddenly wanting to show that I wasn't as anxious as I really was. "My name's Beatrice, but I like to be called Tris," Mr. Eaton scribbled that on his roll-sheet and then looked back up at me, sending a nervous jolt through my body. "And, uhm, I want to go to Brown University next fall and…" My mind suddenly went blank and I felt my face get five times hotter than it already was. What was something interesting about me? "Uhm…and I – I'm a black belt."
That last one was really, really lame and something someone in middle school bragged about – which is actually when I got my black belt, but nobody needed to know that.
After he called the next person's name, I sank down in my seat and ran a hand through my hair. Glancing at Christina, I saw that my answer wasn't that bad – and compared to some of these kids' answers? Yeah, mine was pretty fricken amazing.
Once we were done that, Mr. Eaton stood at the front of the classroom, crossing his arms over his chest. "So now that we are done with that…" He looks around the room and then smirks. "Does anyone have any questions?"
The question seems more like a dare. He has to know what a majority of the girls in the class want to ask, but yet, he doesn't expand on what type of questions he'll answer.
Everyone kept looking around the room, waiting for someone to ask something. I mean, there was about fifteen minutes left in class and we all knew nobody wanted to spend it in silence.
Christina's hand shot up and he nodded to her. "Well since nobody else is going to ask…" Oh no. "Are you single?" I'm pretty sure she was the only girl who could've asked that without getting flustered – mainly because she had Will and didn't really care about any other guy – and she did it with a straight face.
Mr. Eaton laughed, obviously knowing someone was going to ask that, and leaned back against the wall. "Yes, I am single." A few girls around the room giggled.
Christina's question acted as some sort of ice breaker because a bunch of other people had questions. They weren't as personal as Christina's, but they were still about him.
By the end of class, I knew that Mr. Eaton had originally gone to college to pursue a career in law, but deciding to become a teacher at last minute because it seemed like a more promising career and he enjoyed teaching. He also played lacrosse in high school and college and even a little bit of ice hockey while in high school.
Once the bell rang for sixth period, Christina and I hurried down to the lunchroom and chose a circular table near the front of the cafeteria. Will, Al and three of our other friends – Marlene, Lynn and Uriah, joined us at the table.
Christina and I headed up to the salad line to grab some lunch and then sat back down. When we got back to the table, I heard the end of Lynn and Marlene's conversation.
"…No, but he's like insanely attractive. Too attractive to be a teacher, honestly." Marlene poked at a grape in her fruit cup and Lynn pulled apart her cheesesteak.
Lynn looked up at towards the front corner of the cafeteria and I followed her gaze and saw Mr. Eaton standing against the wall, talking to one of the math teachers. "I don't know. I mean, he's good looking, but I don't understand why all the girls are swooning over him – it's not like they can even flirt with him, he's not allowed to flirt back. So what's the point?" Marlene looked like she wanted to argue, but then popped a grape in her mouth. "What about you, Tris? Do you think he's attractive?"
I looked at Lynn and then back at Mr. Eaton, and when I did, I was met with a gaze from him. Embarrassed, I quickly turned my head back towards the table. "Uhm…I mean, he's okay looking."
Christina tossed a piece of lettuce at me. "Oh, please! You were stumbling over your words when he asked you to introduce yourself. And you aren't one to get shy in front of the class." That was true and I felt my face get warm with blush.
Will and Uriah burst into laughter, Al shifted in his seat, and the three girls started laughing.
I wanted to turn back around to look at Eaton again, but I could still feel his gaze on me and I suddenly felt stiff and self-conscious.
What the hell is wrong with me?!
After lunch, Christina, Marlene, Al and I headed to English together. We have assigned seats, but thankfully we choose what seats we want to be assigned to. Shortly afterwards, our teacher introduces himself as Max. He says he likes people calling him by his first name and nobody really seems to feel like arguing.
Thankfully English was our last class of the day, so after the bell rang, we headed out to the parking lot and all grouped up around Will's Jeep again. Christina jumps up onto the hood of the Jeep while we lean against it, waiting for the others to arrive.
"Will you get your ass off my car?" Will comes striding towards us and tosses his book bag into the back of the Jeep.
Christina winks at him. "Oh, like you wouldn't enjoy an imprint of my ass on the hood of your car." Will grabs her around the waist and lifts her down from the hood.
"Actually, I prefer my car to be dent free." He glances over her shoulder, pretending to check for dents.
"Is that a Jeep Wrangler?" A voice startles all of us and we all turn towards the voice.
Mr. Eaton is standing on the other side of the car from us, inspecting the side of the car.
Will looks at Al, who shrugs. "Yeah, it's a 2008 Jeep Wrangler." Eaton nods and looks up, seeming slightly embarrassed to be asking about his students' cars. Christina and I looked at each other with the same "I don't care about car-talk" face.
"I had one like this when I was younger – I mean, not the 2008 version. But I had a Wrangler. It was my first car." He seems to realize that there is more than just Will in the group, and he glances around. When he looks at me, I feel like I'm frozen and can't look away from him. He stares at me for much longer than he did with anybody else.
I quickly turn my head, throwing my hair over my shoulder to avoid looking at him again. "Chris, I gotta go. I have to get home before my parents do." I hug and turn around and walk around to the other side of the Jeep to get to my car. I reach into my jacket pocket to grab my keys and drop them. I start to reach down to get them but someone is already handing them to me.
Looking up I see a pair of dark blue eyes staring at me. "You dropped these…" Mr. Eaton hands me my keys back and when he places them in my hand, his fingertips barely touch my skin but the little contact sends a shock through my arm and I instantly jerk my hand back.
"Uhm, thanks. Sorry." I open the back door to the car and toss my book bag in and then head towards the driver's seat.
I start the car up and let it idle for a few minutes. I don't realize what I'm doing until I look down and see that I'm tracing the spot where he touched me with the tips of my fingers. Gripping the steering wheel, I internally yell at myself for being so stupid and such a little school girl.
He's your teacher!
If only I could get that inner voice to shut the hell up.
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