I AM SO SORRY! I'M SUCH A COW! a none updating cow who is deeply sorry and promises the readers TWO chapters this weekend to make up for her absence. PLEASE DON'T HATE ME!
Michael Hodgins loved Melissa Prescott. He loved her from her perfectly curled ginger locks to her pink painted toe nails. And really, when you took a good look at her, it was hard not to love Melissa Prescott. With bright blue eyes, that perfect heart shaped face with a long eye lashes and perfectly pink lips. She was always smiling, and she was always happy, and she was just… perfect.
He could remember the first time he had seen her. It was the first day of freshman year, and he had ridden to school with Christine and her dad. He and Christine were walking through the halls when he saw her.
She was tugging on her locker, trying to pry it open. She was dressed in a white t-shirt with a leather jacket and jeans that weren't too loose or too tight. Even then she was wearing the same thrashed black boots. Her perfect curls were held up in a loose bun, with a single curl falling into those gorgeous eyes.
"Whoa," Christine had stopped, her elbow digging into his ribcage. She was staring at Michael with her own blue eyes. "Calm your hormones, Hodgins."
"What?" He shrugged with a small smile. "She's pretty, that's all."
"Yeah, entirely too pretty for you." Christine had always been annoyingly honest.
The two of them stopped at his locker. "She's pretty, Booth." He looked down at the girl. "Calm your hormones."
And, here he was, four years later, dumping books into his locker, without Christine by his side, and a date with Melissa Prescott on Saturday at seven o' clock. He snatched up a notebook and a pen before heading down the hall towards Study Hall. Pulling open the heavy door, he wasn't surprised to see her sitting by the window. Since first grade, Christine had sat by the window. There no reason as for why she did it, but, it never failed. Come class time, you could find Christine Booth in a window seat.
He took his own spot in the third row, to the left of Melissa, who smiled at him as he sat down. "Hey," She greeted.
"What's up?"
She reached under her seat, pulling several pieces of paper and a pen from her bag. "Writing college essays," She gave a slight frown with a shrug.
"Already?"
"Yeah, my mom thinks it's a good idea, and I figured, you know, why not?" She relaxed in her chair, placing the sheaf of papers on her desk. "Are you still friends with Booth?"
"We haven't really talked in a while, why?" His eyes found the girl in question. She was bent over a notebook, scribbling like mad while still managing to hold a conversation with a girl names Maddie.
"Just wondering,"
"OK,"
And, with that, she began scribbling down an essay and he flipped open his notebook to a clean page. On the page before that, was a piece for his mom's new art exhibit in May. It was a roughly drawn sketch of his 1967 Mustang GT. With a sigh, he began the curve of cheekbones, shading it as well as he possibly could with the cheap ink pen.
He was working on the corner of the left eye when someone knocking into his desk sent his pen flying across the page in a dark scribble. "Damn it!" He spun around in his seat, watching as Christine pushed her way through the desks, an impatient Luke Harris trailing behind her.
"I don't know, Luke!" He could hear her say as she snatched up her notebook off of Mrs. Lloyd's desk. "Besides, I wouldn't tell you even if I did." They were coming back his way, he braced his notepad as the shoved past.
"She broke up with me, you're her best friend, Booth." He stood over her desk as she flipped open the notebook. "Just tell me."
"I don't want to, Harris. Now, go away." It was obvious to Michael that the conversation was over. Luke Harris was a different matter.
"Michael? Hello?" Melissa's waving hand brought his focus back to her.
"Yeah, what's up?"
She smiled at him. "Just wondering if you could read over my essay?" She offered a scribbled on piece of paper.
"I'm near useless when it comes to words, Melissa." He made a face. "Now, if it were a college portrait…"
She laughed. "That's funny,"
And, then the bell rang. He was on his feet and out the door before he could even think. Christine pushed past him, her shoulder knocking into his own. Luke was still trailing behind her. And, not long after, Melissa was by his side and they were off again.
Evan Grace was six feet tall and about two inches wide. He had died black hair and enough piercings that Michael had long since lost count of. They had been best friends since sixth grade, when Michael had braces and Evan had blonde hair. The two of them had bonded over a broken pencil, which was a much longer story than one would expect. Evan had a big mouth and no filter. He also knew more about Michael than Michael himself was comfortable with.
So, when Melissa had decided that she would sit with him at lunch, he was nervous. Tyler Anderson, a prick from the soccer team, Danny Holden, a quiet boy with wide green eyes, and his girlfriend Leigh-Anne Brown, she had dyed her hair pink in freshman year, had also taken up residence at his table. Melissa, in all of her wonderful, gorgeous glory had nearly begged to sit with him, seeing as her friends, a bunch of girls from the student council, were all allergic to nuts.
"Please," She pleaded, holding up a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. They were standing by his locker, just before the lunch bell rang. "I just want one PB and J sandwich for lunch." Her blue eyes were wide and her bottom lip was stuck out in a (very attractive) pout.
He slammed his locker closed, leaning against it. "I should ask Evan," He told her. "But, he'll just say yes anyways." He started down the hallway, turning back to her. "Are you coming or not?"
"Thank you," She smiled, hurrying to catch up with him. "I'm eternally grateful to you."
"In case you were wondering, I like money." He nudged her with his shoulder.
She shook her head with a laugh, "In case you were wondering, I'm broke."
"So am I. And, so far, my generous job of sitting on my couch at home is not paying as well as I had hoped." He could see her obnoxiously loud Capitols jersey out of the corner of his eye. Apparently, Melissa saw it too.
"Hey, Booth," She called out.
Well, crap. "Look, Melissa, maybe we should-"
"Um," She was ten feet away, five feet, two feet- crap. "What's up, Melissa?" She had one ear bud in; the other was falling on her shoulder. Her dusty brown locks were piled on top of her head, and she was wearing holey jeans, and the red Converse he had given her years ago.
"I was just wondering if you knew Dylan Foster."
Christine tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, revealing several piercings of her own. Her and Evan. He thought with the smallest smirk. "Yeah, we've met."
He scoffed without meaning too. Her eyes flashed towards him. "Sorry, um, continue." His face was on fire, he could feel it.
"Well, I just heard that he was going to ask you out," Melissa paused, twisting a curl into her ponytail. "And, what I was going to ask was if he were to ask you out, what would you say?"
"He wants to-" And without warning, she began to laugh, and laugh, and laugh. Michael was pretty sure he was the only person who knew why.
In their freshman year, Dylan Foster had been the six foot three starting center for the varsity basketball team. He had asked Christine to homecoming and for Michael, watching his attempt to ask out the beautiful, yet brutal, Christine Booth, was like watching a car crash. It was terrible, but, he just couldn't bring himself to look away.
Long story, short, their date was horrible. According to Christine, when she had climbed in his window later on after the dance, he had stepped on her toes all night, and her feet were killing her. In the process of apologizing, he had managed to spill his punch on her dress, and after forty five minutes, he had ditched her for Allison Parker, a sophomore and resident captain of the girls' basketball team. Christine, though brilliant and a fantastic writer, was probably the least active person he had met in his entire life, and Pippa barely moved to eat.
"Why are you laughing?" Melissa stood with arms crossed. For any normal human, the site of the angry ginger would be a frightening moment, but for Christine, who was raised by two fearless parents, not many things scared her. "Dylan's not a bad guy,"
"We… it's not…." She couldn't stop laughing. He had to help her.
"They've gone out before," He suddenly burst. It silenced her laughter in one second. "They went to homecoming in our freshman year. The date was so bad; she climbed in my window crying."
"Michael," Christine breathed. "Are you kidding me?"
Wait, what?