Hey Sarah, it's Seth. Are you with Emma?
That's what Seth's text to me…well Sarah had said. It had arrived in the middle of second period. Sarah had squealed with excitement, practically throwing her phone. She had turned to get my attention but she seemed to have forgotten phones weren't allowed and had it confiscated by Mr. Pennington before I could see the message for myself.
"Thanks a lot." Sarah mutters to me as he walks away with her phone.
"What? Me!" I whisper back, "You're the one who practically yelled!"
"Well I wouldn't have yelled if you would have just let me buy you a phone and you could have given Seth your own phone number!" She whisper-yells back. I roll my eyes. Sarah had been trying to give me a phone for the past year. She got a new iPhone every November when a new version was released so she had a nice stash of slightly used phones that sat untouched in her family's den. Her family did so much for me, it felt wrong to have them pay the $20 a month for the phone activation. And it would be way too expensive for me to be on my own plan.
"Yes." I drawl, rolling my eyes. "That's the reason you got your phone taken away."
"Ladies!" Mr. Pennington reprimands, "Do you need to be moved?"
Sarah and I sit in careful silence for the rest of the class, not wanting to get in anymore trouble. After class, I head to my locker but Sarah stays behind, no doubt hoping to sweet talk Mr. Pennington into giving her the phone back. School policy was to keep the phone until the end of the day but I'm not even a little bit surprised when Sarah comes bounding down the hall, ponytail bouncing and thrusts the cell phone into my hands. It's ringing and it's a bunch of numbers with a Washington area code.
"I texted him back and told him you could talk right now!" She squeals. I fumble with the phone, staring wide eyed at her.
"I-I can't—" I start, glancing around to see if anyone is paying any attention to us. They aren't. Everyone's too concerned with themselves as per usual.
"Oh yes you fucking can." She assures me, kicking my locker shut and giving me a shove towards the bathroom. "You're going to go in there and talk to him until he asks you out on a date. If you are as charming as I know you can be, you should be able to have a date secured before the next bell." Charming is not exactly a word I would use to describe myself. The phone stops ringing and I breathe out a sigh of relief. The feeling doesn't last long as it immediately starts ringing again. I run into the bathroom before Sarah can yell at me and take two deep breathes before picking up the phone.
"Shouldn't you be in school?" I ask. My voice sounds calm and confident, two things I do not feel at the moment, but I am proud of myself for creating the illusion.
"Of course I am at school." The deep voice scoffs on the other end. "But what if the chance to call you never presents itself again and I missed the opportunity because of pre-cal?"
"You make an excellent point." I agree, sitting down underneath the paper towel dispenser with my back against the tile wall. "However, if I receive a detention for being late to my pre-cal class, I will be requiring you to attend as well."
"I think that is a very reasonable punishment." He agrees and I can hear the smile in his voice. "However, if you are interested in hanging out not trapped in a classroom, I know a great place to get coffee in Forks. My treat." My heart is racing and I swear he can hear it through the phone.
"Well…" I start, getting ready to give my rejection speech. I had practically perfected it at this point, especially to give people who didn't really know me and wouldn't want to know me if they found out I was just some loser who lived in a trailer park. I pause, weighing my options. I actually really did want to see Seth again. And seeing Seth just this one time for coffee did not mean I would have to see him again after that or let him know where I lived. I also knew Sarah would kill me if I exited the bathroom without a date. "I have been known to enjoy a cup of coffee. And if it's the shop on Elm Street then I think that could definitely be arranged."
"Well of course it's the shop on Elm Street, only the best for the star of 'Two Sisters, One Ocean to Skinny Dip In'." He responds and I hear what sounds like a high five in the background. Jesus, does he have someone sitting there with him? Coaching him through how to ask me out? The thought is almost comical but makes me happy nonetheless. "Thursday? After school around 3:30?"
"I'll be the one wearing all my clothes." I promise. He let's out a laugh that warms my insides. "Okay, now I really do have to go to pre-cal." I stand back off and brush off my jeans. "Talk to you later?"
"Bye, Emma."
And, because I am alone and there is no one to witness my craziness, I let out an excited squeal before composing myself and sprinting out of the bathroom to get to class.
I slide into my seat in pre-cal just as the bell is ringing.
"Well?!" Sarah asks, falling into the seat across from me in the library. I jump in surprise and wonder if this is the first time Sarah has ever been in the library. I always ate lunch at the little corner table in the back right of the library. Sarah used to try to get me to sit with her and her other friends in the lunch room but I always felt out of place. A couple months after moving here, I had started sitting in the library during lunch so I wouldn't have to try to socialize with everyone. And I could work on homework. I tried to keep the lights off in the trailer to keep the electric bill down but that often affected me doing my homework. It was better when I could finish my work at school.
When Sarah had shown up, I was half way through chapter six of To Kill A Mockingbird. It wasn't that I hadn't been waiting for her to accost me, it was just that I didn't think she would actually waste her precious lunch time to hunt me down in the library and force information out of me. I had managed to hand her off her phone in the hallway between pre-cal and history but had refused to stop and talk to her about Seth.
"Well, what?" I ask, flipping to the next page in my book and taking a bite of a peanut butter cracker. She gives me an exasperated look that makes me think she will explode if I don't tell her what happened immediately. "We're getting coffee after school on Thursday."
"Tell. Me. Everything." She gushes, snatching the book out of hand and pushing it to the other end of the table.
"Hey!" I sigh in annoyance, reaching back for the book. "I told you, he asked me out for coffee and that's it. I'll go on Thursday and then probably never see him again."
"Of course you're going to see him again after that." She insists. "He is going to fall madly in love with you."
"Sure," I shrug, "And then he's going to find out I'm trailer trash and stay far, far away." It makes me mad that she's even pushing the issue but I know she's not trying to make me feel bad. Sarah is so perfect and has never had anyone not like her. She doesn't know what it's like to have people not like you and judge you for reasons you can't control.
"You are not trailer trash." She insists. "And he was head over heels for you at the bonfire. Promise me you'll give him a real chance?"
"Okay, whatever." I say to appease her, going back to my book and peanut butter crackers. She seems to realize the conversation is over but chooses to stay sitting across from me, pulling out her own copy of To Kill A Mockingbird and an apple.
I don't hear from Seth at all over the next few days and I feel weird asking Sarah if I can borrow her phone to text him. I also don't know what I would say if I did text him. Hi, whats up? seemed so juvenile and Please tell me you're thinking about me too was too serial killer like. By the time the final bell rings on Thursday, my stomach is filled with butterflies and I am stressing about what we will even talk about over coffee.
I bolt out of the school before Sarah can find me and either a) fuss over me and my hair and my makeup or b) insist on driving me and make me feel like I am being dropped off by my mom on a date. A date. I had been on dates before, it wasn't like the concept was new to me but this felt different. I actually wanted to be here.
I had accepted dates for different reasons in the past. When I was 16, I had this fantasy that some boy was going to fall in love with me and not care that I lived in a trailer park. I got asked out on a lot of first dates but the second dates never came because the guy thought if he bought me dinner or took me to a movie or for ice cream that I would sleep with him and I wasn't important enough to waste a second date on if I hadn't taken off my pants after the first one.
The only guy I had ever gone on more than one date with was James Stowe. He had lived in the same trailer park as me in Walla Walla, Washington and the term 'date' was a very loose interpretation. James and his father lived in the nicest trailer I had ever seen. It was two trailers put together and one of them had a small loft in the top with a mattress shoved in that I thought was just so cool. They also had a real kitchen table with two matching chairs that they had inherited from his aunt when she moved. In my mind, having nice things meant matching furniture.
When James had first asked me out to hang out at the local mall after school one day, I had almost said no. But the thing with James was, he lived in a trailer park but he still had friends. He had lived in the Eastgate Trailer Complex since he was four years old, he had gone to school with all of these kids before they knew to not be friends with kids from trailer parks, and he had kept those friends all the way through high school. Finding friends was something I had always struggled with and he was very handsome with ashy blonde hair that fell into his eyes and dimples that were always prominent when he laughed.
I had been thrilled at the idea of being James girlfriend and his friends becoming my friends. I thought that maybe things were going to finally turn around for me. And, when a few days later, he asked me to get ice cream at McDonalds, I thought we were soulmates. A week after that, he took me to a movie and after that back to his trailer where he showed me the little loft area where he slept. And I didn't stop him when he started kissing me, so when he asked if I had sex before, I answered yes because I didn't want him to think I was a loser. And when he took off my pants, I didn't stop him either. I knew I should have, that I wasn't ready, but I honestly thought he liked me so much and that would make up for me being scared.
I hadn't imagined my first time before that night. But I had never thought it would involve listening to a couple from the trailer next door scream at each other about rent and the distant sound of sirens approaching while a guy I didn't really know roughly jabbed his dick into me for a minute and a half. I was almost in tears by the time it was over but if James noticed, he didn't say anything.
So, um, do you want to go to the park tomorrow after school? I remembered asking him while fixing my top and zippering back up my pants. Uh, yeah, I'll let you know. He had responded, already on his phone, texting someone else. Already having lost interest in me.
And that had been the last real conversation I had with him. The following week I heard a rumor that he was hooking up with Jennifer Mitchell and that's when I knew I had really been delusional. Because no one was going to come rescue me from this trailer park or this life. That had been the last date I had been on. Once I moved to Forks, I had left that misguided dreamer behind.
But I figured Seth would be a good way to get back out there, just so I could say that I had been on a date recently. Not that people really asked me about my personal life, but still…
When I reach Cheryl's Cafe on Elm Street, the first thing I notice is that Seth is already there. His large, tan body seems out of place in the little coffee shop with all of the pale Fork's residence. He's sitting at a small table in the back, two drinks and a plate of assorted baked goods in front of him. I can't help the grin that appears on my face as I slide into the chair across from him.
"Hi." I greet, leaning forward to smell the warm, sweet drink, recognizing the smell almost immediately. "How'd you know?" I ask, sipping at the caramel macchiato, my favorite.
"Hi, yourself," He responds, stretching his long legs and bumping his foot with mine. "And a little birdie named Sarah told me what you liked." I roll my eyes, of course.
"Do you guys text about me?" I ask. "Because I thought you wanted her number to talk to me, not about me."
"Of course I only want to talk to you." He scoffs. "But I did need help from Sarah so I could at least attempt to impress you."
"Impress?" I ask, raising my eyebrows in surprise. No one had ever tried to impress me before but he was definitely doing a good job. I was also relieved that he was already sitting with coffee and baked goods when I had arrived. I hadn't known if I should expect him to pay for me or if I should insist on buying my own coffee. That part had stressed me out more than wondering what we were going to talk about. I wondered if Sarah had somehow known that and told him to order ahead of time.
"Well, sure," Seth rolls his eyes, "If I don't impress you on date one, how am I ever going to secure a date two?" I try to hide my grin by taking another sip of my drink. I was in trouble. I realized that Seth was not just some boy who would disappear in a few days. He was in this for the long haul…well at least he was in this while he thought I was a Perfect Forks Girl. I wondered how quickly he would ditch me when he found out I wasn't. Probably immediately.
We stayed at the coffee shop for almost three hours and only left once the staff started cleaning the empty tables. I had never met someone who listened to me. It seemed crazy but he genuinely didn't ask questions just to get a response…he heard everything I said and seemed to be memorizing it all. I really was in trouble. I found myself liking him far too much.
"Come on, I'll drive you home." Seth says as we exit the cafe.
"Don't worry about it…it's a short walk." I insist, knowing there is no way in hell I am letting Seth know I live in a trailer park.
"It's dark," He explains, "There's no way I'm letting you walk home alone." I chew on my lip, realizing he's serious.
"Okay." I hesitantly agree. Once we are in his car, I guide him towards Sarah's house.
"Here?" Seth clarifies as I tell him to slow at Sarah's driveway and I wonder if even he can tell that I clearly do not live at this perfectly manicured house.
"Yeah, this is Sarah's house." I explain, feeling like I'd be lying if I didn't tell him. "We actually have a project to work on." He doesn't question me but pulls into the driveway and parks the car. "Um…thanks." I pull on the ends of my long hair nervously and unbuckle my seatbelt.
"Do you think I can still walk you to the door?" He asks, a hopeful smile on his face. I shake my head no — not only did I not tell Sarah I was actually coming here after the date, I also know I would die of embarrassment if he kissed me on her front steps and then her parents opened the door. "Well then how am I going to secure a date two?"
I turn my body to face him. I know if I don't kiss this boy and the opportunity never presents itself again, I will hate myself forever. And I'm pretty sure Sarah will only let me in her house if I tell her I kissed him. I lean forward slowly, giving him an out incase he decides that he really doesn't want to kiss me. He goes very still and if he hadn't spent the last three hours flirting with me, I would probably think he didn't want to kiss me. I raise one hand up to his face and, with just my pointer finger, tilt his chin towards mine.
Even though I kinda want to maul Seth, I keep myself in control and just press lightly against his warm lips. They feel amazing on my own but I pull back after a couple seconds and give him a slight pat on the cheek.
"Thanks for the coffee and cookies, Seth." I say cheerfully and open the car door, quickly exiting the vehicle and slamming the door shut behind me. He's still sitting in the parked car when Sarah flings open the front door of her home before I've even made it all the way up the steps. She is beaming and leans outside, wiggling her fingers in Seth's direction, before grabbing me by the hand and pulling me all the way into the house.
I am so glad you guys are liking this! I do respond to all my reviews so make sure you have your PM's turned on! I'm always happy to answer questions, hear ideas, and chat. :) I think the next chapter we need to have some interaction with the pack, what do you guys think?