Dark Heart (Dark Heart 1)

She lowers her head, draws her shoulders in, and dashes toward the bridge that’s just a little up ahead of us—the one that arches over West Street and connects to the side of our school building. As she runs, I hear a clacking sound I realize is her boots. She’s in a fucking run to get away from me.

I wonder if she’ll stop when she gets to the side door of the school, or at least slow down so I can ask if she’s okay. It doesn’t happen. By the time I make it into the school, she’s lost in the crowd.

I wonder about her all damn morning. During homeroom when my dickhead teacher, Dr. Brown, asks what happened to my eye—like it’s his business. My pal Loren Missanelli snickers and whisper-hisses, “Did you run into a fence, Galante?”

“Why a fence?” I throw him a what-the-fuck look.

He shrugs. “Why not?”

“Fucking random, man.” I shake my head and slip into thinking about her while everyone around me works on homework.

In first period it’s the same song, second verse. My buds Liam and Max give me shit about the black eye, and this girl we chill with, Maddie, tries to touch it. When I lean away, she sits on my lap, wraps her arms around my neck, and leans in so her tits are pressed against my chest. I wrap my arm around her back, prepared to move her off me, and that’s the moment our calc instructor, Dr. Sweedish, steps into the room.

“Mr. Galante,” she chirps. “Kindly relieve yourself of Miss Sinclair and come to my desk.”

Fuck.

Sweedish is a young, blonde hottie, but she’s strict as hell. Stricter than she has to be, just to let us know she has a PhD and means business. When I get to her desk, her gaze flies up and down me as her pink lips flatten.

“We need a new desk for LaShaun Kinsey, your classmate whose desk is squeaking in a way that I find most displeasing. I’ll let you walk to the athletic wing and fetch one from the supply closet. Closet C. Whatever you do,” she adds primly, “don’t hit yourself again in the eye. That looks awful.”

I let out a breath and nod. “Okay, Dr. Sweedish.”

“Oh, and from this point forward,” she calls after me, “keep your hands and your body to yourself, or you’ll be written up.”

I stop for a second in the hall and rub my temple. Fuck, my eye is throbbing. Hell of a time to get asked to haul a desk halfway across the school. But I know it’s my fault, sort of. Last week, Sweedish passed me in the hall when Lana Greene had her arms around my neck. Maybe around my waist; I don’t remember. Lana’s always like that, and it doesn’t mean a thing to her. But I guess Sweedish thinks I’m—what? Threatening the chastity of the student body? Like there is any.

I shake my head as I start walking. I’m probably the only guy in this school who isn’t prowling for pussy. Not for lack of wanting. Just—there are reasons.

Of course, now that I’m thinking of pussy, those reasons seems less convincing. Especially when I start thinking of her again: Elise O’Hara. She was so damn fast this morning, I didn’t really even get a chance to enjoy the view. Not even her face, which was turned toward me and away so quickly, I’m not even sure it happened.

I do remember the stuffed bear, though.

Maybe she was embarrassed? I haven’t had a stuffed animal since like first grade.

I close my black eye about halfway to the athletic wing because the sunlight streaming through the horizontal windows hurts. Everything looks weird with only one eye.

Thinking about the black eye gets me thinking about last night, and that makes me feel weird and sort of drifty. I don’t like the drifty feeling. And so, again, I try to think about Elise O’Hara. Elise and her stuffed bear.

I think about the first time I ever saw her, on my first day at MM—the first day of last year, my junior year. She was wearing a dress and some kind of strappy sandals, walking right in front of me as I headed to the office to check in. And I could smell her. It’s so fucking weird. So animal. But that’s what caught my attention, and then her body did, and later I found out her name when we had history together.

I didn’t see her much in that class because as a “G,” I was at the front of a row of desks, and as an “O,” she was always behind me. But I could hear her when she answered questions.

Thinking of that sultry voice—something hits me. This summer, when I was catering a thing, I followed this girl up some stairs, into a bedroom—and it was her. Holy shit, that was Elise O’Hara. I stop mid-stride, stunned at the realization.