I grinned, making my way around my English classroom, dropping little candy hearts into each of the little heart shaped boxes that our teacher made us make out of cardboard (yeah, because we were so in second grade). I wasn't complaining—unlike many of the other kids in my class—Valentine's Day is the best! Luckily at least my English teacher, Ms Leblanc, a total hopeless romantic, agreed with me.
By the time I'd made it back to my desk, I looked down to see that there was actually a not in my box. A note?! I practically tore the sparkly, glitter covered, pink tissue paper box—that I'd spent nearly an hour of real hard work on—off of my desk.
Dear Audrey,
I really, really like you. I know it's lame to send you this on Valentine's Day, but oh well. If you like me too, and I hope you do, then please meet me at the Car Garage after school. If you don't, no big deal. Bye.
After I was done reading the somewhat messy scrawl on the post-it note, I looked at my two closest friends, Lena and Candace. This was just like something that they'd try and pull on me, but now, Lena was buried in her book, and Candace was deep in conversation with her latest crush, some short kid named Brad.
I looked over the note again, more carefully this time. The writing was familiar, but where had I seen it before…
I flipped the note over again and smoothed it out; looking for something that I didn't think was there. Then I saw, written out in the same messy handwriting, a signature. As soon as I read it, my breath caught in my throat.
Seth.
I looked up to where Seth sat in the class. Was this a joke? I had to look at him, to see if he was laughing, to see if he'd just been kidding, more like just to see him. As soon as I had located his desk with my eyes, the bell rang, and nearly a dozen people were up and out of their chairs, blocking my view.
I stayed sitting in my chair, practically holding my breath, but by the time the people had moved, he was gone. Ugh. I leaned my head down on my desk, enjoying the cool sensation of the wood against my forehead.
"Uh, Miss Stills?" Ms. Leblanc asked me, just as I'd been contemplating carving my initials onto the desk's smooth surface.
I slowly raised my head. Crap! I'd forgotten that she was still sitting there!
"Don't you think you should be getting to your next class?"
"Um, yeah, I guess, I actually feel kind of sick, I think maybe too many of the candy hearts?" I said, picking the first excuse that popped into my head. Much to my relief, Ms Leblanc's face turned from suspicion to sympathy. Come to think of it, it did sound like something that my teacher would relate with.
"Oh, you poor thing, go to the bathroom right away, I'll contact your teacher for next block. Who do you have?" she asked while practically ushering me out of the classroom.
"Um, Mr. Shepherd, AP science," I said, and realized that I sounded like a total nerd. AP science? I didn't even like science—but for some reason it just happened to be my best subject!
A small smile appeared on Ms Leblanc's face. A few pieces of her brown hair had fallen in front of her chocolate brown eyes. Sometimes I really loved her—she was a great teacher, and a great person.
I smiled back, before remembering my lie about being sick, and made a sort of belching sound, before pulling what I hoped to be a convincing wince, grabbing my stomach, and running out of the door.
I figured that I should probably go to the bathroom, if only to add credibility to my story. Well, that, and I had no idea where else to go. I wasn't exactly very good at skipping (not that I had been planning on skipping). Wait, did this even count as skipping?
I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, looking over my features while pondering this.
Despite my name, Audrey Stills, my First Nations father, and entire that-side of my family, I still didn't fit in here in La Push. Maybe it had something to do with my blonde hair, and green eyes, which I got from my mom. Because of this, I was basically shunned. You would think that a little thing like appearance wouldn't matter all that much, but you'd be… wrong.
My two friends, Lena and Candace, could've fit in perfectly, but they chose not to. Lena was incredibly shy—sometimes she didn't even talk to us—and she buried her incredibly beautiful self (that I'm sure nearly every boy in school would want to go out with) in books. Candace, on the other hand, was nearly the complete opposite. She was full of life, and totally rebellious. She loved changing her hair style, flirting with random hot guys, and her friends, which might be partially why not too many other students at the school liked her. She was pretty hard to keep up with some days.
I was definitely lucky to have friends like them… I was still standing there, looking at my self in the mirror, and almost completely zoning out, when someone walked in. I recognized the girl as Shayna Duncan, a girl in my PE class, who had the exact perfect dark skin, hair, and eyes, that I'd been jealously compared to my whole life.
"Uh, Amanda?" she asked. She didn't get my name right, but that was okay. I just nodded, before realizing that she'd probably wanted to know what I was doing there.
"I have stomach flu," I said, hoping that she'd believe me. The last thing I needed today was Shayna and her friends spreading some kind of awful rumour about what I could've possible been doing all by myself in the girls' bathroom. "Oh, you might not want to use that stall, I was feeling really sick, and then it wouldn't flush," I said, practically puking at what I was saying.
Shayna's face blanched, so hopefully that was convincing enough. She nodded, and said, "I think I forgot my compact in my locker," and with that she was gone.
I looked back at the mirror. I really didn't want to go back to class, but I really didn't have a choice… or did I?
I reached into my messenger bag and pulled out my mobile fun that I'd never really felt a need to use before now. I fumbled with a few of the buttons, until I opened a new window, and started punching in the keys with my thumbs.
Hey Candi, need to leave school, don't want to talk about it. Please fake sick + meet me by the doors.
XOX Audrey
Once I pressed send, I dripped some water on my forehead, and walked into the office. "E-e-excuse me, Miss James?" I said to the secretary who looked at me over her glasses.
I opened my eyes a little wider, tried my hardest to make my face flush, and let out a little groan. "I really don't feel well. Is there any way that I could go home early?"
Her eyes widened a little, basically the reaction I'd been going for. I figured that if I didn't look sick, I'd at least come off as a little possessed, which was pretty good too.
"Oh, my dear, you're sweating!" she said, pointing at the water trickling down my forehead. She grabbed my hand to comfort me, and exclaimed, "But you're so cold!"
My dratted almost constant cold skin! It wasn't like it was really cold, I wasn't a vampire, or anything—not that they exist, of course, ha!—, but luckily the secretary still seemed to think that I was ill, so that was good.
"Oh, go right ahead, Audrey, just sign out first," she said, nodding vigorously as she practically emptied a small bottle of hand sanitizer all over her hands. At least someone knew my name. I nodded, and quickly filled out the form. I wanted to be out of the office before Candace got my message, because I'd surely blow our cover if we were in the office at the same time.
NAMESIGN OUT DATE/TIME REASON
Audrey Stills February 14th 2008, 1:42Sick.
"Thank you Miss James," I said, smiling weakly at the secretary, who grimaced in response. Soon I was out of the office, and the school. I took a seat in front of the small school, groaning as the cold, wet snow came into contact with my skin.
A few minutes later, Candace came bustling out of the school, Lena in tow, fake-coughing up a storm. When they got to me, Candace gave me a questioning look, but, luckily, didn't ask me to talk about it. Neither did Lena, although that was probably just because she was majorly put out about having to leave school early. She was a total dork like me.
After a few hours spent at the small down town Forks bookstore, sipping cappuccinos, I looked at my watch, and realized what time it was, 4:18. My job! I was a clerk at a vintage clothing store, and my job was one of the only good things left in my life. But what about Seth? A small voice in my head couldn't help but bring it up.
I couldn't miss work. I really liked Seth, but I couldn't miss work. I know, that sounds like completely illogical logic, but that was what things were like in my life. I didn't know what would happen with Seth, but I knew roughly what would at work, and I knew that people would accept me, which was really what I needed.
After a few hours of mindless, uninspired, customer service, I was dead tired, and making my way home.
I sat through a mindless, uninspired dinner with my dad. Ever since my mom died, both of our lives had become slightly empty. Oh, and our dinners became silent and awkward.
Candace had sent me three emails, Lena two, and I even had some lovely little spam to sort through, which really made me feel loved. After I was done going through that, reading ahead in my science text book to be able to keep up with my class, and reading a few chapters in my English novel, I brushed my hair, teeth, changed, and crawled into bed, wondering what could've been had I gone to meet Seth.
After I had been asleep for only a few hours, at the most, I was jolted awake by a crashing sound. Just a book falling off the shelf, I told myself, trying to calm my highly accelerated heart rate.
Then I saw the same thing that I'd been seeing every night for the past month or so. There was a tall boy standing in the corner of my room—it was Seth. I knew that he wasn't really there. It was just my mind playing tricks on me, just like it had been doing, every night for the past month.
I blinked, and reached to turn on the small lamp next to my bed. Once I pulled the cord, and light flooded that corner of my room, I looked back to where 'Seth' had been standing, expecting just to see my empty room, as always. This time, he was still there.
"S-Seth?" I asked, confused.
"You didn't come," he said. Was it really him? He was talking, but still, I couldn't be sure.
"I… I'm really sorry, I had work, but… are you really here? You can't be, you c—" I said, but stopped myself when I saw the look on his face. I held his gaze, until he turned his head away, just making me feel worse.
He didn't look angry at all—and maybe that was what got to me. He didn't have the classic grin that was normally plastered to his face on either. Instead, he looked genuinely sad.
The shadows in my room had cast shadows on his eyes, and face, making him look dark and more like an illusion than anything else, but the other thing I saw in his eyes was very real—or, at least, I hoped so.
I saw love.
"I should've come, I'm sorry," I said.
"But why didn't you?" he asked, coming out of the shadows more so that I could see that he was, in fact, alive.
"I—" I began, before he cut me off.
"It wasn't work," he said, frowning. "There's some other reason."
"I…" I said again. It was all I had been saying lately. I suddenly felt blanketed by selfishness, practically suffocating on my own horrible-ness. "I was afraid that you wouldn't accept me." I said, utterly honest. More honest than I'd ever been with anyone, maybe even myself.
"I already have," he said, sitting down on the end of my bed, and grabbing my hand with his own. I gasped, as I felt how warm his skin was. I could just picture Candace making some sort of crack about how hot he was. "You're my imprint, Audrey," he said, and although I didn't actually know what he was talking about, I didn't really think it mattered.
"I love you."
His lips met mine, and suddenly, I didn't feel shunned, or isolated, or afraid. I felt whole heartedly loved. Seth and Audrey, Audrey and Seth. Audrey Clearwater. Mrs. Seth Clearwater. The thoughts began spinning through my head.
"Are you alright, Audrey?" he asked, pulling away and looking at me.
"I love you too," I burst out, and glowed inside as a small smile grew on his face. He hadn't made me say it, I'd just wanted to, because it was true.
"Do you, um, want to go to the movies sometime maybe?" he asked, a goofy grin growing on his face. I laughed, before quieting myself, hoping that my dad hadn't heard me.
I nodded, vigorously. "I've waited a long time for you," he said, which could've sounded creepy, I suppose, but it really didn't. He wrapped his arm around my shoulder, and sat next to me on my bed. I leaned my head on his shoulder, and felt… whole.
"Happy Valentines day," he whispered, before kissing my hair. I smiled, and hugged him, murmuring, "Happy Valentines Day," in return.
