Chapter 4

The next Monday at school was a nightmare.

I walked into my first-period history class and saw her. Jocelyn Anderson was talking to the teacher at the front of the room. She had transferred. Of course, she had. Our fathers were probably already planning the wedding.

As the top academic student, everyone expected her to take the empty seat at the front, next to the valedictorian.

The bell rang. The teacher introduced her. And then, Jocelyn walked past the front row, past the middle rows, all the way to the back where I sat slouched in my chair.

"Is this seat taken?" she asked, her voice quiet but clear enough for the whole class to hear.

Every eye was on us. My friends were snickering.

I didn't even look at her. "Yes," I said coldly.

Without another word, I grabbed my desk, scraped it loudly across the floor, and moved it to an empty corner by the lockers, as far away from her as I could get. The class erupted in whispers. I ignored them all, staring at the wall until the bell rang.

I couldn't handle being in the same room as her. At lunch, I didn't go to the library. I grabbed my football buddies.

"Let's go," I said, already heading for the exit. "Practice. Now."

"We have practice after school, man," Mike said, confused.

"We need more," I snapped. "We're going to the field."

We spent the rest of the day running drills under the hot sun. I pushed myself until my muscles burned, trying to exhaust the turmoil inside me. I was trying to create a world where she couldn't reach me.

It didn't work.

After our official practice ended and everyone else had headed to the locker room, she appeared at the edge of the field, holding a bottle of Gatorade.