The Misadventures of Chloe Saunders
Chapter 8
Red
"It was Tori's idea," she moaned as she buried her face in her hands.
Simon sucked in his top lip as he studied her hair, examing the red pieces she'd decided to dye that weekend.
On Friday, Tori had driven Chloe home and promptly slept over; however, during the night, she'd convinced Chloe to put red streaks in her hair. Her aunt flipped this morning.
"It'll really pop," Tori had said, handing her the tube. "It'll make you look older and then Derek can date you without feeling like a pedophile," Tori had said. Somehow, she knew about Chloe's crush and didn't really care, so long as she didn't walk in on any handsy make out sessions.
"'It'll be fun,' she said," Simon said in a high, girly voice that made Chloe giggle and wipe away her tears.
The red had come out very bright and Chloe thought she looked like a candy cane.
"A stripper candy cane," Nate giggled under his breath and she promptly kicked him in his shin as hard as she could. It was funny how your best friend can make you resort to violence like you're a third grader all over again.
"It's not bad," Liz told her, looking very sincere as she handed Chloe a fine-toothed comb.
"Like you can say that, you look at least nineteen with boobs! Like, actual boobs," Chloe grumbled as she combed out her hair.
All day she'd been getting stares and not the friendly kind.
Especially from Royce. He'd been eyeing her up and down like she was a piece of damn candy and all she wanted to do was fucking knock his teeth out. See who'd smirk now. She was interrupted from her morbid daydream by an all-too-familiar voice.
"Damn it, Tori," sighed the deep, rumbling voice.
Derek.
The blonde glared down at her clenched fists, wrapping in her black sweater, to avoid looking at him.
"It came out great," Tori said in surprise, hopping up on a table. "I was worried with your hair being so thin that it might not come out nice," she continued conversationally, crossing her legs. A strip of dark hair draped across the faux-leather choker on her neck, contrasting the maroon top she was wearing.
"It really does," Derek said to Chloe quietly as he sat down next to her.
Every inch of her brain was flood with the mere presence of him.
He was looking like he'd rolled out of bed, with his overlong hair pulled back into a bun and his bangs in his green, green eyes.
"It d-do-does?" she said hesitantly, looking up at him from under her lashes.
"Yeah," he told her, nodding and then he reached up with a massive hand and twirled a piece around his finger, staring at her face. No, not her face, her fucking mouth.
A panicky heat crashed over her as he stopped twirling her hair and just sat there, his intense eyes sucking the backbone out of her.
"I-I sh-should get to cl-class," she managed to squeak and he shook himself, like he was fighting some inner urge. Like he'd ever look at you like that, she thought darkly as she gathered her books and backpack and headed down the main hallway. It took her a second to realize she had to walk down the library hallway by herself and that was where Royce normally prowled.
"I'll walk you, Chloe," Derek offered in a tone that meant no arguing and she felt him brush her arm, gently.
A wave of relief pushed away the embarrassment and flustered feeling as they walked in silence, her mind whirring with a million things she could say—Hey, I like what you did with your hair. Nice weather we're having, aren't we? My, what lovely eyes you have. Hey, I just met you, and this crazy, but here's my number, so call me maybe. Really, Chloe? Really? You're a complete idiot. You just thought of that song?—but settled for nothing instead, counting her footsteps in a loud, screaming voice to drown out her battling voices.
"Chloe?" He had his shoulders hunched, slouched as they headed right, down a long, crowded hallway. He was so tall, she had to crane her head back to look at him. He was staring straight ahead, like he wasn't talking to her.
A group of popular girls grinned at her hair and one, a pretty Asian girl with a My Little Pony backpack, said she liked it. She sounded sincere and Chloe smiled. The girl smiled back, revealing a mouthful braces.
"Are you still coming over?" he asked. "'Casue I know what people say about me and I could ask Miss Van Dop to change—"
"No!" Chloe blurted and stumbled into the vending machine.
Heads turned, watched her blink away the stars, and look impish.
"I m-meant, I-I re-really—" She took a deep breath and clenched her hands into fists. "I don't give a shit about what people say about you."
"Yet you were the one looking up about Zachary Cain," Derek said in a dark voice.
"Even if he was your dad, you'll s-st-still be Derek."
His face, which had been stormy until then, softened a tiny bit and he pinched his mouth to the side. "Okay," he said and that was that.
They walked in silence as they neared her homeroom. Kids looked at them, eyes wide, but no one spoke a word.
"Derek," Chloe said, "About the project, what if I wrote something else? Paranormal, still, but what if it was from your point of view?"
"And what would you be, Chloe? Maybe a necromancer." There was a trace of a smile on his mouth as he mocked gently, teasing.
She snorted. "I'd piss myself at the first sight of an actual zombie," she said without thinking.
He looked at her and smiled, just a twist of his mouth. And she was in way deeper than she thought as he let out a snort of his own and shrugged a shoulder.
"I'll figure something out, Chloe."
He turned and walked away and, as she sat down in her chair and waited for class to start and the teacher to show (he was always so late), that she realized it with a grin she couldn't hide from Nate or Simon.
He called her Chloe.
