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September 17
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“You want to do something fun?” she asks as she tucks her hair behind her ear. Her backpack shifts on her shoulder and she hitches it up as the bell rings again. The third and final bell.
Everyone’s on their way out. The hallways are crowded and occasionally someone brushes against Harlow. She sways easily, seemingly not to notice. But I notice and it pisses me off. There’s plenty of room to go around her. And I hate that they’re distracting her in the least.
“What do you think?” she asks me and my gaze is drawn back to her.
Her eyes are the lightest shade of blue I think I’ve ever seen but there’s a sparkle in them, and it reflects back at me as I stare at her. I let it last too, not saying a word and just letting her flirtatious suggestion hang in the air between us. It makes the tension grow and I live for that. For weeks she’s been pushing me, asking little questions she already knows the answers to, just to say something to me.
She’s playing with fire; she already knows that. But what she doesn’t know is how damaging she’d be to me. The things I want to do to her and the depths I’d sink to in order to have her to myself. I’m no good for her, that’s nothing new. But I want to make her mine and she can’t know that. If she did, she’d be happy to let us burn together.
“The bell rang,” I tell her just to say something and get my mind off her.
“I heard,” she says as I start walking to the exit. She follows me, refusing to take the hint. “So, let’s go do something.”
Everything in me is screaming at me to just tell her to go home.
“I’m just going home,” I tell her and watch as disappointment temporarily dulls the brightness of her eyes. But she’s not the type of girl to take no for an answer.
“Are you walking?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I tell her and shut my locker.
She’s quick to respond, “I’ll walk with you.”
With that, I spin the combination on my lock and hang my bookbag over one shoulder. She looks up at me with those sweet eyes as she twists her hair around her finger like she’s won. She knew I couldn’t tell her no. She’s my weakness.
“We can do whatever you want,” she offers with a shrug that lifts her tank top up, exposing a bit of skin on her hip. She’s quick to pull it down and cover herself back up and that alone is enough to make my fingers itch to touch her there.
“I think your idea of fun and mine are different, Harlow.” She flinches at her name and I almost think I’ve fucked up somehow, but I know that’s her name. I’ve whispered it over and over alone in bed.
She wrinkles her nose and says, “I don’t like it when you do that.”
“Do what?” I ask her.
“When you call me Harlow.”
“It’s your name, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, but I don’t know. It just sounds weird with you saying it,” she answers me, continuing to follow me as I walk past two groups of kids that are clogging up the entrance to the school. I walk down three steps and although I felt her hold onto my backpack as I shifted through the people, I don’t feel her anymore. I almost spin around to see if she’s still with me, but the second I cave into temptation, I feel her soft hand brush against mine. It’s like a spark of heat, a stroke of warmth and recognition flowing through me. I have to grip the straps at my shoulders to keep from taking her hand in mine.
My eyes narrow as I take in her words as the crowd slowly dissipates, walking toward the school buses lined up in rows. I don’t get on mine and neither does she. She’s so different. She’s an odd girl, beautiful and naïve, but also alarmingly raw and genuine.
The sun’s hotter than I thought it’d be; I’m already sweating, so I stop on the edge of the sidewalk that lines the asphalt road to the school to take off my t-shirt, displaying the plain white undershirt beneath. My eyes never leave her face though. I see how she looks at me and I love it.
“I saw you like playing cards,” she says and tears her eyes away. Licking her lips, she starts walking again as I pick up my bookbag.
“Is that right?” I ask her. I bet she doesn’t know shit about cards. I could teach her though.
“You were playing poker in free period.” She’s not in my free period. I give her a side-eye and it makes her blush. She’s caught red-handed, but that doesn’t make her miss a beat in her stride. My steps slow as we round Second Street. The turning point between my way home and hers.