Authors: Ruth Houston
"Winter? What's going on?" she asked me, stopping and frowning at the line I was standing in.
"Administration messed up again," I sighed restlessly. "I've been standing here for forty five minutes already."
"Sucks," Rebecca said sympathetically, a little amazed at the massive wait. "I'll see you at Spanish then?"
"If I make it by then, yeah, see you Becks," I said gloomily. "Hey, wait! Are you in for track this year?"
"Yeah, you?" she said, walking backwards away from me. She nearly made this skater dude trip over his own shoelaces.
I nodded. "400 meter relay sprints again, the two of us?" I called to her.
"Definitely," she yelled back, "See you later Win!" She was gone, and I was short one more person to chat with.
Finally, half-way through third period, I was able to go in and get my schedule fixed by Mr. Bower – nothing in my schedule was
supposed
to have changed except that I was now with a different coach for seventh period athletics. At lunch time though, I found out from Rebecca that we had had a huge English project assigned, and it was one of the classes I had missed.
I groaned. "Are you kidding me, Becks?"
"I kid you not, dear Winter," Rebecca said gravely, hiding a smile as we sat down in the cafeteria and took out our lunches.
"Hey," I said suddenly, taking a sip from my water bottle, "Did that guy ever ask you out? What was his name…Nathan or something?"
Rebecca blushed a deep crimson and mumbled something incoherently. I grinned. "Come again,
dear
Becks?" I mimicked her endearment.
"We're going out," she said a little louder, promptly taking a bite of her sandwich.
I chuckled. "Good for you. He's the hot one, right?"
Rebecca blushed even redder and nodded. "Really,
really
hot," she confided in me, finally smiling a little.
"Do you usually sit with him?" I asked, but my question was answered as a tall guy approached our table from behind Rebecca, motioning at me to be quiet. He covered her eyes and murmured "Guess who?" in her ear. Oh, god. If this was Nathan, Rebecca had not been kidding – he
was
hot. What a lucky girl. He had dark emerald eyes, ruffled chestnut hair, and an absolutely devastating smile. Yes, he was hot.
'
Not as hot as Zack
,' a little voice popped up in my head, and I frowned.
'
Shut up,
' I said to the little voice.
I could see it shrugging in my mind's eye. '
Hey, just telling the truth
.'
I was brought back to reality when my friend spoke. "Oh, gee, I don't know," Rebecca played along, though a huge smile was on her face. "Hmm, it couldn't be
Andrew
, could it? Oh, I know we're lab partners Andrew, but we just
can't
go on another romp through the woods again like last time, because you see, I have this boyfriend now, his name's Nathan, and I've got to commit."
Nathan gasped and removed his hands, clutching his chest as he sat down next to her. "You wound me, Becca," he said, "Way to punch a guy's ego in the face. Who's Andrew?"
She laughed and kissed him on the cheek. "No one," she said, "I made him up." Then she whispered something in his ear. A grin spread on Nathan's face and he replied softly, both of them laughing a little over some private joke. Suddenly I couldn't bear to sit with them anymore, feeling like a third wheel, and quickly packed up my lunch.
"Hey Win, where ya going?" Rebecca asked me curiously as I stood up, her eyes flicking to Nathan for half a second when he slid his arm around her waist. "Have you two met? Winter, this is Nathan; Nathan, Winter."
He nodded at me, and said, "Hey," but his attention was all on his girlfriend.
"Actually Becks, I realized I have to go ask the track coach about something," I lied smoothly. "I'll see you seventh period at the track bleachers, yeah?"
"See you," Rebecca said as I turned away, making a bee-line for the cafeteria exit. Once I was outside, I leaned against the wall, my chest constricting with a dull ache that I didn't know had started up. Seeing Rebecca and Nathan so happy like that… I shook my head and left for Miss Cooper's room. She was my English teacher, and she let anyone eat lunch in there if they wanted to. I figured I could eat in there and ask her about that project.
I pushed open her door, and surprisingly, the room was empty. Miss Cooper was a very popular teacher, and students tended to enjoy spending the odd lunch period in here. She was attractive, young, maybe in her late twenties, and was getting married this summer. When word had gotten around, that had certainly crushed a few male hearts. Miss Cooper looked up from her desk as I slid into the room, greeting me with, "Hello Winter. Tough time with the administration, huh?" she said sympathetically.
"Yeah," I said, sitting down in one of the desks near her.
"Actually I'm glad you're here; there's a project I need to you know about," the young teacher said.
I nodded mutely and re-started in on my sandwich, my heart weighed down with a burden I couldn't put my finger on.
There was a moment of silence in the room, broken only by the quiet sound of her pen scratching on paper before Miss Cooper said to me, "Are you alright? You look kind of down in the dumps, Winter."
I shrugged. "I don't know, Miss Cooper," was all I could come up with.
"Is it about Zack Crowne?"
My head shot up and I gave her an odd look. "Miss Cooper, with all due respect, I don't know what you're talking about," I lied for the second time that day.
She just smiled at me in a friendly way and said, "Winter, I'm not blind. There are things that go on in this school that probably even you don't know about. Teachers are more observant than you think." She winked at me.
"Oh," I said, rather impressed. This woman didn't even have Zack as a student; how much more observant could you get if she knew something was up with the two of us? "So what do you know?"
"I know that he went out with Eva Westley for a while," Miss Cooper said, setting down her pen and gazing at me thoughtfully. "I know that every single time I see you two within a twenty foot radius of each other, Zack is always staring at you, sometimes looking like he's perplexed about you, sometimes with a small smile on his face, sometimes sad, and sometimes like he wants to jump you."
I flushed, protesting, "That's not true!"
She just laughed. "Trust me, it's true. Most of the time it's a mix of several of those. Though personally I like it the best when he looks like he wants to jump you." She smirked a little and I looked at her, horrified.
"Zack n-never wants to – to –
jump
me," I spluttered. "Why would he want to do that?"
Miss Cooper smiled mischievously. "Well that's for me to know and for you to find out, I suppose," she said cryptically.
I groaned. "I hate it when people use that line," I muttered. "I thought in English we were supposed to stay away from the clichés, Miss Cooper."
If teachers were allowed to giggle like schoolgirls, Miss Cooper came very close. I'll settle for saying that she chuckled a bit. "Now do you want to talk about it, Winter?"
I paused half-way through my sandwich and set it down, and suddenly, all of it came out. It was like my brain had chosen today as the day to turn on, and I found myself telling Miss Cooper all of it, every single bit, even the parts I hadn't yet told Eva. She was quiet through the whole thing, pushing her reading glasses up on her head and actually listening to me. And once I started talking I couldn't stop – everything just came spilling out, and the more I talked, the better I felt. By the time I reached the end, my eyes were stinging a little and Miss Cooper had to give both of us a tissue.
I laughed a little. "That's my sob story, Miss Cooper," I said in conclusion, rubbing my eyes and sniffing. Why had I been turning on the waterworks so much lately? I was usually not one to get over-emotional or teary about things (that was Eva's job), but I felt like lately I had been a walking emotional wreck. I decided it really didn't suit me very well.
She smiled slightly. "Those are the facts. The most important part though, is how he makes you
feel
."
"Feel?" I said.
"Yes," she said, settling back in her chair. "How does he make you feel?"
I shook my head slowly. "I don't know how to talk about it."
She gave me an encouraging smile. "Try."
I stared off into a corner of her room, thinking a little, then repeated, "How does he make me
feel
?" My eyes lost focus as I thought about the question, then realized I couldn't answer it properly if I was thinking. Instead, I imagined Zack was here, with me, at that very moment, sitting next to me. What would he be doing?
"I guess…sometimes I don't know how he makes me feel," I said softly, lost in a swirl of emotions and heartaches. "Zack used to make me mad a lot. Especially when I first met him, and he and Eva had been going out. Maybe it was because I was jealous that Eva was giving him so much time or something, or maybe I was just looking for a reason to hate him. Zack annoyed me; I didn't know why and I still don't know why, but he did. But then…after that night he took me out to the warehouse parking lot to look at the stars, it was like something changed between us. And especially that Sunday at the park, when he told me everything about him and why he is the way he is, after that, it was just…I don't know. He confuses me a lot.
"Most of all, I think I don't know what to feel when I'm around him. I don't know what I'm
supposed
to feel. He makes me smile, and he makes me furious and frustrated and ready to kill him. It's absolutely crazy most of the time. But sometimes, he makes me feel good too. When I'm around him, it's like I don't have to be anyone else but myself, because it's good enough for him, and it's so easy to laugh with him. When he smiles, I smile too, I can't help it. And we talk so easily, but we can be quiet together for a long time too without feeling awkward." I furrowed my brow a bit, eyes still unfocused. "But it hurts too. Now that he's gone, it hurts. There's this…ache, really, and I guess it never goes away. I wish it would, but it never does." I blinked slightly and was jolted back to the real world as Miss Cooper sighed.
She said lightly, "Have you figured it out yet?"
"Figured what out yet?"
She smiled again. "You will soon, I think. It hurts though, doesn't it?"
I touched my chest in the spot where my heart was and nodded.
"If it's real, it won't go away. Keep sending him letters. I'm sure he'll be just ecstatic to get them," she said. The bell rang, making both of us jump.
I gathered up the remains of my lunch, no longer hungry, and said, "Thanks, Miss Cooper. You're a good listener."
She nodded. "You're very welcome, Winter. Ask Rebecca for the notes on the project. She usually takes good notes."
I left her room feeling a little better than I had in the past couple of days.
It was my first day of school without Eva and Zack. It would have even been nice to see Tristan or Anthony, but
no
, they were gone as well. Rebecca was alright, I guess, and so was Martin, but (and I know it sounds mean and shallow) they weren't the same. I managed to pull myself through the rest of my classes and realized I had to take the bus now that Tristan was unable to give me a ride. The great part about it was, I realized this exactly thirty seconds before the buses were scheduled to leave.
I rushed through the hall, out of the building, through the student parking lot, past the athletics field, and got there just in time to see my bus, number 31, drive away.
"Come
on
," I said disbelievingly, dropping my backpack to the concrete and sitting down on the curb. Needless to say, I was feeling a little sorry for myself. Today had sucked. The whole Westley family had been re-located to Hampton, and here I was, sitting on the dirty curb of Branner High and not knowing how I was going to get home. I sighed after a moment of miserable contemplation, got up, and started walking. I'd get home eventually, I told myself. Unfortunately, my sense of direction is not as sharp as I'd like it to be, and it took me about forty-five minutes and nine wrong turns to complete a walk that otherwise would have taken twenty minutes. Mental note: never go on a camping trip without either a compass or my handy-dandy personal navigational genius Eva.
Once I had figured out the correct way to get home, I thought back to my conversation with Miss Cooper at lunch time. Something odd struck me about what she had said: "
If it's real, it won't go away
." What was that supposed to mean? If
what
was real, it wouldn't go away?
-
Zack
-
The night before the first day of class, I got no sleep at all. Leo proved to be on the opposite end of the spectrum – it took me a full fifteen minutes to drag him out of bed after I had realized at 7:30 that if he didn't wake up soon, we would miss breakfast and be late to first period.