CHAPTER THREE

Tara hadn't slept too well last night. Her father had been getting a lot more edgy now that his job was in jeopardy. Apparently she wasn't the only one who always noticed the alcohol on his breath. She snuck away to her bedroom early in the night feigning homework obligations, which was a lie but it was better than having to fake interest in his problems that were all his own fault anyway. He'd spent the better part of the night slamming drawers and yelling at the TV. Somewhere around midnight she shot up in her bed to the sound of glass breaking. It wasn't new but it always startled her. She'd gone back to sleep knowing she'd have something or another to clean up in the morning.

Tara looked in the bathroom mirror at the forlorn face in front of her. Why was it so hard to be happy? Losing a parent is hard but it had been years and there was so much more to life. She'd never forget her mother but she just….she just wanted to be happy. Looking back at her reflection, she saw her mother, right down to her rounded chin. Tara could still see the smile on her mom's face. She was always smiling and always telling Tara to smile more. Feeling a bit nostalgic, Tara pulled her hair up into a messy ponytail, the way her mother always had done for her, leaving a few of her bangs out to frame her face. She'd never perfected the art like her mom but it made her smile nonetheless. Maybe happiness is something you make for yourself, she thought, maybe it's just the little things.

Taking that thought to heart, she glanced at the clock and noticed she still had plenty of time before she had to leave for school. Tara ran back to her room and slid out of her worn-in jeans and pulled a pair of cutoff shorts out of her dresser. It might be October but it was still California and maybe she needed to change up her wardrobe a bit to feel better. Looking at the full length mirror against her wall, she analyzed her outfit. Little white tank top underneath a blue flannel shirt, now in her cutoffs, and her black and white Chucks, with her hair up in a pony and just a touch of makeup, she actually felt…pretty. A Cheshire cat grin spread across her face as she gathered up her backpack and headed out the door.

The crisp air was refreshing against her skin. It was only a short walk to school, maybe six or seven blocks and she enjoyed watching the sun come up over the trees in the morning. Despite the tiresome night she'd had, she was feeling lighter than she had in quite possibly months. The birds were singing, she saw the younger schoolchildren walking with their parents, heard the leaves rustling in the trees. Today just seemed like it was going to be a good day; bringing another large grin to her face. She turned onto the road that lead up to the high school, hooking her thumbs on the straps of her backpack and looked at the ground. No! she thought, not today! Today you're going to keep your chin up! She forced herself to look back up, something that was strangely hard to do, to look at people when it was so much easier to analyze the pavement but she had to do it. Today was going to be a good day and was not going to spend it looking at the same boring old concrete.

She heard them long before she saw them. Harleys. Charming was a small town and there were only two boys that rode motorcycles to school. Tara was just crossing the parking lot when Jackson and Opie pulled in. They rode right past her, putting their two bikes in one stall ahead of her. She was having a very hard time not looking down, but she told herself she couldn't, not even for Jackson Teller. He must not have realized who she was when he'd ridden past her because as she was walking past him, she glanced over and saw his head jerk up and follow her past. Her eyes immediately broke away and looked ahead of her, not down, but definitely away. Again, her heart started racing in her chest. She took a deep ragged breath and wondered if every girl was so quickly affected by him the way she was and suddenly wished she had chosen to wear her jeans.

...

Keep your eyes up. Keep your eyes up. Keep your eyes up. If Tara wanted to pursue this view above the floor thing, she got the feeling she was going to have to utter this mantra all day. She was only headed to fourth hour and she was ready to call it a day. She made it to her locker somehow, although she could still feel the anxiety in her chest. What had she been thinking wearing Daisy Dukes? She never wears shorts to school. She felt so exposed. And looking people in the eyes? Well…looking up anyway. This all seemed a lot easier on the walk to school. Blindly entering the combination for her locker, she opened the door and started swapping out her books again. Math for Science, grab the green notebook…Suddenly, a girl screamed in laughter in the background, startling her and everything in her hands fell to the floor. The little piece of self motivated happiness was starting to slip from her grasp. Tara let out a heavy sigh and bent down to start picking up her scattered mess of books.

"Here, let me help you with those," a soft voice said.

"Thank you," Tara started as she pushed the locker door further open," I really appreciate the…."

But her words were cut short when she looked up and found herself staring into a pair of stunning blue eyes she didn't know if she would ever get used to…. "help."

Jackson smiled at her, his gaze meeting her eyes. For a minute it was as if the whole world stopped. Crouched down in a crowded hallway, she couldn't see anything but his face. The way his golden hair was tucked behind his ears or his smile reached all the way to his eyes and made them shine. She couldn't have said what was going through her mind, only that she was frozen in that moment.

"Those are some pretty big books," he laughed.

"Um, yeah, yeah they are," Tara blinked and shook her head. She was able to compose herself enough to smile and look up at him again. "Thank you again. For...the help."

He met her eyes and they stared at each other for another moment that seemed to stretch an eternity. She could feel herself getting lost in them when he smiled at her and said, "Of course."

They both stood up quickly and she shut her locker. Jackson started to walk down the hallway when he looked back over his shoulder with a quick smile and said, "I'll see you next hour."

Her voice caught in her throat but she managed to utter out, "Yeah, you too."

He smiled again before turning back around and walking away. With no one around she allowed herself a deep breath and an exasperated look around. What just happened? She looked down the hallway to where he'd disappeared and shook her head. She had to pull herself together before she was…..

RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGG!

"Shit!" Tara yelled as she ran down the hallway.

...

Science for English, grab the purple notebook… Tara let out a sigh. She hadn't been able to focus AT ALL in her science class. Jackson's face had been all she could think of …. But she guessed that meant she might actually have something to study for when she went home tonight. It might be a pleasant change from staring at her wall and waiting for her dad to pass out. Shutting her locker door, she headed down the hallway. Head up. Head up. Head up. It was amazing how such a simple thing took so much effort. She passed other students in the hallway, some of which she didn't even recognize. Just how long have I been staring at the ground? She rounded the corner and headed into room 209. And just like that, there he was…again.

Tara walked into the room trying to feel confident even though that was the last thing she felt like. She hadn't made it two steps when Jackson smiled at her from his desk in the back with a subtle upward nod of his head and mouthing the word, 'hey.' She smiled back, feeling the blush creep up in her cheeks. She clutched her books to her chest a bit tighter and crossed the room. The classroom chatter went on for another few minutes before the bell rang and the teacher strolled over to shut the door.

"Good morning class. Today we're going to start getting into our next paper. Minimum of three pages long, this is going to be worth 15% of your grade and you will be doing it with a partner. The goal of the project is to write a paper in the first person but it will be based on one of the most influential experiences of someone else's life. Good or bad. Now because you're all teenagers and I want to keep it honest, we will be choosing the partners randomly. Ideally, you will be partnered with someone you aren't close with and you can learn something new about one of your classmates."

There was a collective groan from her classmates and although Tara felt the same way she kept it to herself. She didn't know much about any of her classmates so it wouldn't really matter much who she was partnered with. The class was to start counting til the reached twelve and then start over at one until they reached twelve again (there were 24 students in the class). When it was her turn she said, "Six." And the counting continued on down the rows. About the time someone said 'ten,' she heard some whispers and shuffling behind her. She didn't pay it much mind though and kept looking at the poster of a chimpanzee with a pencil behind his ear. The numbers restarted again at one. She'd never paid much attention to who sat where in the class so when they reached 'four,' she started to turn in her seat. She hadn't quite caught up with where the counting was coming from when she heard, "Six," in an all too familiar male voice. Her body jerked around to find Jackson Teller in a seat that he wasn't in five minutes ago.

The surprise must have been written across her face because he just smiled mischievously and shrugged. Had he actually switched seats to be her partner? Why would he do that? She cocked an eyebrow at him and smiled. What was he up to?

"Alright everyone," the teacher announced, "why don't you all meet up with your partners and discuss how you want to handle your papers."

Jackson got up and swaggered to the front of the room.

"Is this seat taken?"

"No," Tara answered with a smirk, "it's all yours."

He sat down to her left and smiled at her, "So how do you want to do this?"

"Well," she started, still not believing this was happening," Mr. Wallace said it was supposed to be about the most influential times in our lives. So I guess we should probably decide what those are."

His smile faded as he asked, "So who decides the moment? Do I tell you which one it was or do I give you a couple choices and you pick?"

Tara hadn't really thought of that but she supposed that was kind of important. "Why don't I ask Mr. Wallace…"

"No," Jackson interrupted her, "no it's fine. Why don't we do whatever you think is best."

"I dunno…I guess it depends on if you want a happy paper or a sad paper."

He gave her a quizzical look.

She realized he didn't know. "Well, I don't really have a ton of happy influential moments," she confessed.

"Oh." His eyebrows furrowed a bit as he tried to think of something to say. "Well what would you prefer? Happy or sad? I'll do whatever you do. How about that?"

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, why not?" He smiled casually at her. "Truth or dare? Happy or sad? You name it."

She could feel the light fade out of her eyes . She knew she shouldn't but, "Truth. Sad." She'd never been much of a liar.

He nodded solemnly, "Ok, well why don't you start and I'll try to pick something around the same caliber."

"Hey, Jackson…"

"Jax," he smiled again. "Just call me Jax."

"Jax," she said with a small smile, "I don't want to make this paper any harder or more depressing for you than it has to be, but there have only ever been two real influences on my life and I don't know that you're going to want to go there. I mean, maybe, not that I encourage this or anything, but maybe we should just make something up."

"Tara," he said with a half hearted laugh," I've been to some pretty dark places. I don't know that anything you tell me could possibly be worse. Tell you what, how about we meet up outside of school to talk about it. Sounds like it could be pretty deep and I'm sure you're not going to want to have to talk about it here in class."

She nodded and smiled, thinking about the way her name sounded on his lips. He was right though. The teacher would wind up reading the papers but that didn't mean she had to tell the whole class about her personal trials. Gossip was like wildfire in high schools and she would really rather prefer if she wasn't the forest getting burnt to the ground.

"Attention class!" Mr. Wallace announced, "Now that you've had a few minutes to talk, I'd like you to return to your seats so we can go over the rest of the guidelines."

Jax eased out of the desk, winked at Tara and said, "I'll talk to you later."

She felt the blood rush to her cheeks again as he walked away. She didn't know what was going on anymore but for once she really didn't care.