Chapter One
The Riot And The Fret

Ever been in a hurry and can’t find your keys? Frazzled, you check the door, making sure you didn’t leave them in the lock earlier. You check the freezer because apparently that’s where everybody leaves them. You even ask your little sister if she hid them because you wouldn’t put anything past the ten year old. You’ve checked every conceivable place you could possibly think of and they are nowhere to be found and once you’ve given up completely, resigned to your inescapable fate, you realize they’ve been in your hand the entire time. I’ve been looking for that hypothetical key my entire life it seems and that key’s name just happens to be Julia Jacobs.
Jules, as I called her, was remarkable. An untarnished heart, cool and pristine without the slightest hint of selfishness, tall and slender with dark black hair, long and full of large loose curls and eyes as green as the moss that laid sleepily on our creek bed. Her skin was soft and sweet and matched her honeysuckle-orange scent absolutely. She had the best laugh her side of the Mississippi and was the most adventurous girl I’d ever known.
What made Jules extraordinary though, was that her heart was made of the most curious fabric. It could bend and stretch to fit every single person she’d ever met. I could not have loved her anymore deeply. She and I were predetermined. It had been designed and without her gravitational pull, I was spiraling out of control, deeper and deeper into the kind of blackness that not any one person can return from sane.

Ironically, Jules and I saw each other practically every day growing up with barely a thought invested in the other. She lived across town from my parents, my little sister Maddy and I but I’d see her on Main along with all the other Bramwell kids. Most days, I would throw dirt at her and she would retaliate with a punch to the gut. On others, we’d ride our bikes down by the creek to catch tadpoles.

In junior high, we had long forgotten about one another, with only the occasional smile in the hallways, and grew even further apart as we approached high school. Needless to say, to each other, we were just another warm body roaming the hallways. Until, that is, the first day of classes our senior year, when something extraordinary happened.

A sightless lightning bolt stuck us to one another forever.

I was mucking around with my best friend Jesse Thomas outside Mrs. Kitt’s Geometry class when I saw Jules for the first time that day, or ever really, because this time she wasn’t Julia Jacobs. This time, when our eyes met, she was Julia Jacobs and a clash of feverish tension grew amongst us, illuminating the invisible line that had clearly, now, always tied us as one.
    “What’s wrong with you dude?” Asked Jesse, moving to lean against the tiled wall.
    “What?” I said, not able to tear my eyes away from Jules. “Ju, just a second Jesse.”
He turned to face Julia, looked at me and back at Julia. A scowl of disapproval grew evident across his face.
    “What are you doing Gray? I know you’re not looking at that. Do you know who that is?” He scoffed, shifting his weight against the wall.
    “Yeah.”
    “Are you sure?” He joked. “I’m not so sure you do. In case you haven’t heard, Julia Jacobs is a freak man.”
    “What the hell are you talking about Jesse? Why is she a freak?”
He was starting to infuriate me. Apparently, Jules was mine to get infuriated for.
    “Okay, so I admit, she has a nice body, but seriously dude she looks like a freakin’ gypsy and crap. She always has those ridiculous buttons of bands no one has ever heard of on her bag like she’s so much more cultured than us. She acts like she has nothing in common with the rest of us when she comes from the same small town we all do.”
    “You’re wrong dude. She doesn’t act like that. She’s just different is all and you, and the rest of this stupid town, don’t understand her. Besides, did it ever occur to you that maybe I like different?” I paused, a grin of realization growing on my face. “You know what I think?” I asked, not waiting for his answer. “I think you think she’s hot and probably cool too, but you’re afraid of what others would think. Plus, you know you could never get her. You’ve built a rep in this school and the good girls go running the other direction when they see you coming.”
    “Whatever Elliott. Say whatever you want if it makes you feel better. Nothing you can say excuses the fact that she’s a freak. Just look at the way she dresses. She’s always wearing those torn up jeans and her fingernails are always dark as night. Everywhere she goes, you can hear her coming. She jingles. She’s just weird.”
When I didn’t give in to his peer pressure he threw up his hands.

“You’re insane!” He continued, “Go ahead and ogle the freak. I’m just sayin’ is all. Jeez! Elliott! You could have any girl here and that’s who you eye on the first day?” He snorted a laugh. “Julia Jacobs. Huh. Why don’t you wait and see who got hot over the summer? What about Taylor Williams?” He asked, perking up. “We both know she wants you.”

I was barely listening to him now. Every inch that Julia grew closer to me felt like being in the presence of Aphrodite herself. I didn’t even know if she was real or not. Jesse’s own recognition of her was my only proof. I hunched my torso in preparation for something. The something, I knew not, but prepare I did. She appeared ethereal yet overpowered me with a very non-fictional smack to the chest. The expectation weighed heavily on my shoulders.

The sensation of it brought back the memory of when I used to play with my dad’s old tape measure. I remember locking its little mechanism and stretching out the metal tape as far as it could go. I’d take a deep breath then press its release. Suddenly, the tape would fly furiously in my direction. It made me cringe as I half expected it to slice me but, instead, would wrap neatly into its little square encasement, a violent action with tidy results.

With Jesse tugging at my shirt trying to distract me, I stood as still as a statue while she gently brushed past me, her eyes wide and in sync with mine. And she was mesmerizing. I remember everything about that moment down to the length of the tears in her favorite pair of faded blue jeans. She had on black flip-flops and her toenails were painted the same dark cherry that was on her fingernails. She wore a white tank with something printed on the front, but all I could make out was the word ‘Future’ because her hair laid upon the rest. Her long hair was dark as night and the morning sun streaming through the doors veined shiny shades of white in its sheen.

Across her chest laid the weathered canvas strap of her army-green messenger book bag with the myriad of tiny metal buttons of obscure little bands’ names that Jesse had been talking about. Not that I would have told Jesse this, I was such a coward, but ironically I knew at least half the bands on her bag.

On her waist, she wore one of the many belly dancing belts she owned and the coins that fringed the layered garment danced against her legs. Around her neck, on a chain, was the first guitar pick she had ever learned to play on. It was green with flecks of gold and swayed to and fro with each one of her steps. Both of her arms were covered in assorted bracelets, at least ten on each arm and climbed the length of each. I wanted to touch the ones above her elbow just to feel the muscle pressed firmly against them.

I did not know this Julia Jacobs. She was a stranger to me. The old Jules I’d grown up with my whole life seemed the caterpillar before this butterfly.

Her eyes caught up with mine and if I hadn’t been paying attention I would have missed the slight hiccup in her steps, proving her reaction matched mine. She looked at me as if she had, too, never really seen me before and while her eyes burrowed through me, she ran straight into our geometry teacher, Mrs. Kitt, causing her to scatter the worksheets she had just printed onto the floor at her feet and breaking our trance for the moment.

Mrs. Kitt bent to pick up her papers. She was a short, round woman with short brown hair. Her wardrobe was at least thirty years old and you could hear her coming from a mile away by the swish, swish, swish of the friction between her panty-hosed legs. She was a suspicious woman but, by far, the nicest teacher in the entire school. She may not have trusted everyone but she always gave them the benefit of the doubt. Oh, and she was Jules’ mom’s best friend. Yikes.

I flinched when Jules went to help her but accidentally stepped on a sheet and went tumbling onto her back. Her hair tossed around her as she fell flat to the tile floor, perfectly framing her face. I bent over her. The Future Cast, I mouthed, reading her shirt, a sharp ping resonating in my chest. They were literally my favorite band.

“You should do shampoo commercials, Jules,” I teased, holding out my hand.

    “Huh?” She asked, confused, but keeping her eyes with mine.
    “I said, you should do shampoo commercials,” teasing her by pronouncing each word with perfect clarity.
    “Yeah. Right.”
She refused my hand. Apparently, she didn’t need my help. When she stood, her honeysuckle-orange scent drenched my senses and I nearly fell over Mrs. Kitt.

“Thanks for the compliment, though,” she contritely conceded, knowing how impolite she had been and trying to remedy how obviously uncomfortable that had made her.

    She bent to help Mrs. Kitt while I stood dumb and disabled by her unconscious yet incredible assault on my senses.
Scrambling, Jules apologized, “I’m so sorry Mrs. Kitt! I wasn’t paying attention and........”
 “Oh darlin’, it’s no big deal,” Mrs. Kitt sang.
Jules’ voice woke me from my catatonic state. I threw myself down onto the floor next to both women and helped them with the spill, purposefully reaching for the same paper Jules was in order to graze her hand. Little did I know the literal and figurative cataclysmic results of such a touch.

A potent, electric shock raced through us and we yanked our hands away. Our touch sent a warm blaze of sparkling flash from our connected fingertips, spreading a tangled mesh of lit pressure that briefly painted the walls around us. It lasted only a second yet permanently altered me. Something huge and very unexplainable had definitely just happened.

When all the worksheets were gathered, Jules and I straightened our backs but settled softly into our own bodies once our eyes met again, the anxiety eroding from our chests with each second that passed. We stayed knelt on the floor just staring at one another like idiots. We were dumbstruck by the physical reaction of our very physical touch and bewildered beyond belief at the lack of reaction from our classmates. What were we supposed to do though? Ask everyone why their lack of response was about as dull as watching bread bake?

The entire class was already seated and Mrs. Kitt had to clear her throat to ask us if we would mind sitting in our own desks. That was the rest of the class’ cue to laugh hysterically. I playfully slapped the back of my buddy Matthew Tanen’s head as I walked by. We chose desks next to one another, but kept our gazes toward Mrs. Kitt to avoid anymore suspicion. If Jules’ thoughts had been anything like mine, she had to have been scared out of her mind.

When class was over, I gathered all of my things and waited for Jules to gather hers, assuming she and I were going to talk, but to my surprise she bolted for the door instead.

I chased after her in the hallway.

“Jules!”

“My name isn’t Jules. It’s Julia,” she said over her shoulder, picking up her pace.

“Julia, stop running will ya’?”

“Why?”

“Because it’s hard to run and talk.”

“Well, you see, I don’t want to talk. I guess that means I can run all I want.”

“Wait a minute!”

I pulled her body short by grabbing her arm. The lightning bolt cracked and whipped its way around us, darkening the hall, only jagged shards of electricity illuminating our faces. I pulled my hand away in a slight daze and watched as she fled toward the lunchroom. Crap.
    I walked into the cafeteria, nodding to those who said hello, never allowing my stare to stray far from Jules. I sat next to Jesse and the other varsity seniors on the football team. To my dread, five of the cheerleaders, including Taylor Williams, shared the line of tables we all sat at but I did my best to ignore them.

Conversations erupted around me but I was in my own world. Jules sat on her own. She looked relaxed but I knew it had to be an act. Her legs rested on the chair next to her and she was reading a book. A tiny, rapid bounce in her right knee exposed her true feelings.

Anxiety. That’s what it is. Jules shakes her head. Are you sure about that? No, not anxiety, she hates you dude. Can you blame her? You never bothered talking to her before. Why now?........Wait, wait, wait. Whatever that was in the hallway and classroom definitely meant something. Stupid, she’s just scared, frightened is all. It’s an amazing thing, our shared zap.

Be honest with yourself, you’re not really that alarmed by it. It feels natural. Maybe she’s concerned about what it means. Yeah, shaken up. It’s got nothing to do with you personally.

Did you see how quickly she ran away from you though? She genuinely can’t stand you man. Every chance she got she pushed you away. She hates you. I sighed out loud. I need her not to hate me. What can I do to get her not to hate me? How can I get her to stop detesting me and start listening to me? How should I approach her?

Jules looked up and caught me staring. I smiled crookedly and raised a weary hand but she rolled her eyes at me and returned to her book. She shifted her chair so her back would face me. Wait a minute. Wait just a gosh darn minute! What is wrong with you dummy? Why do you need her not to hate you? Why should you care?........Yeah. I don’t care! She doesn’t want to talk to me? I don’t want to talk to her!

I folded my arms in resolution. She leaned her elbow on the table beside her and started looping a strand of hair through her finger. She sighed and sat up straight. Her hair slid across the top of the chair and fell across her lovely back............I really, really need to talk to her.

I confirmed it was all an act when I took note that she hadn’t turned a page in ten minutes. I would have given anything to know what she was thinking. I readied myself for the rebuff I’d get when I walked over to her in three, two, one......

“Dude? Where are you?” Jesse asked, wrapping his knuckles on my head.

I tossed my head back from his reach and looked his way. He was really starting to annoy me lately. Maybe I was spending too much time with him. The difference between medicine and poison is in the dose right?
    “I’m here,” I said.
    “No, you’re not. What is up with you?”
    “Nothing,” I said, turning my stare back to where Jules sat.
She wasn’t there and I got up in a panic.
    “Uh, see you later. I gotta’ go.”
    “What? What’s up with you!” He shouted as I escaped the cafeteria.

I pounced through the double doors, peering down the center hall, the left, and then the right. She was gone. My shoulders slumped at the loss. Until tomorrow Julia Jacobs.

    The following day I found out that I shared neither my first nor second class with Jules. I wanted to see her so badly that I was seriously considering ditching third period of the second day of school just to search for her. I decided against it though. Mainly, I chickened out. No sense in getting detention unless Jules was going to be there right? I compromised with reason and decided that right after lunch I would convince Millie in the office to let me look at Jules’ schedule, bribe her if I had to.

I walked into the cafeteria resigned to my plan but those plans promptly fizzled once I saw Jules sitting at her table all by herself again. She had a sack of carrots on her lap and her feet, once again, rested on the chair beside her. I got a small kick out of the fact that it was how she liked to sit, sort of unashamed. That’s what it was. She was brazen. She had her nose buried in yet another book. When I got closer I noticed it was George Orwell’s ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’. I loved that book. Boy, was she exasperating to me. That’s it. No more, I thought. I walked to her table and sat in the chair across from her.

“I love that book,” I said.

Look at me, I wordlessly demanded, swallowing hard. I’m sweating. Oh no. I’m nervous. Very, very nervous. I wiped sweat from my forehead and felt my longish hair stick to it. She didn’t even look at me, let alone respond. So, it was going to be like that.
    “Carrots, huh?” I asked, obviously reaching.
She rolled her eyes.
    “Those are good for the eyes, I’ve heard. I see they’ve done wonders for your teeth too. Texas A&M did that study a few years ago. Did you hear about it?”

She didn’t respond.

“No? Well a few years ago they developed a carrot that helps people absorb forty one percent more calcium than when they consume a regular carrot. Interesting right? Genetically altered vegetables?”
No reply.
“I certainly found that interesting,” I said, laughing nervously. “You may not, or maybe you did, I’m not sure. It’s certainly something a braniac should find interesting. You’re a braniac, right? I mean, you’re always reading, so I assume. Not that I claim to be a braniac or anything. I’m of pretty average intelligence, I think.”
I was drowning.

“Yeah, so,” I continued, digging my embarrassment hole deeper. Hell, it was so deep I could bury myself in it. Good thing, too. I wanted to be buried. “I heard they collaborated with Baylor’s College of Medicine in Houston.” Nothing. I was beginning to think the book was attached to her nose. “Houston’s a pretty crazy town or so I’ve heard. Supposedly the humidity is heck on girls’ hair. Your hair doesn’t seem to take on that much humidity. I’ve never seen it frizz anyway.”

I drummed my fingertips on the table.
    “As I was saying,” I said digging my grave further than needed, might as well go for gold here, “it’s obviously done wonders for your teeth.”
She stopped her reading and scanned my eyes. Stop talking! I commanded myself.
    “Yeah, your teeth are big and a pretty white.” See, that wasn’t so bad. “You could mistake them for a horse’s.” Nice, very nice.
I nervously laughed. She didn’t. When I was nervous, I resorted to inadvertent insults.

She looked at me but turned her focus back on her book. Sweat was dripping down my neck. I carried my fingers through my hair and down the nape to remove any evidence of my impending social death. No sense in letting her see the physical evidence as well as the emotional proof that I was drowning.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to compare your teeth to a horse’s. I was only trying to point out how large they were. That is, I mean to say, that they are larger than most people’s. But! Perfectly proportionate to your face. Your face isn’t huge or anything! Your face seems pretty average in its proportions. Yes, very well proportioned.” I sighed deeply. “What I meant to say is that you have very beautiful teeth.”

And, scene. Very good job Mr. Gray. Your audience has accepted you for the idiot that you are. Look forward to being typecast as the bumbling fool from this point on.

My throat was dryer than a bone. I yanked my bottled water from my bag and downed half of it. She refused to even look at me.

    “Jules,” I said, catching my breath.
    “Julia,” she corrected me.
    “Julia, obviously I’m an idiot. All I want to do is talk to you. It’s extremely hard for me to talk to you.”
    “Then you should stop.”
    “But I can’t.”
    “But you should.”
She sat up and sighed loudly, collected her belongings and left the cafeteria.

I sat back in my chair. I had no idea what had just happened. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. Nothing came out how I’d planned them. I couldn’t stop vomiting the worst conversation I had ever had. I didn’t understand. I never had trouble talking to girls, ever. Granted, I never shared a literal lightning bolt with one of them or was ever really interested in one but, just the same, I never had trouble speaking with them. I knew Jules was going to be trouble. She was going to give me the fight of my life but I decided right then and there that I was not going to give up. The next time I saw her, I knew exactly how I was going to talk to her.

Third period I had band and it gave me a chance to calm down a little bit, for which I was grateful and allowed me to go to my last class of the day, chemistry, a little bit more relaxed until I walked through the door to the classroom. I was immediately crushed with borderline hysteria. I gulped a breath and slid past Julia who sat at a lab table in the center of class. I chose a table in the very back and sat with Sawyer Tuttle, whom everyone just called Tut. He nodded a hello and I nodded back. I set all my stuff down and just watched her.

She reached for her bag on the ground and her hair gracefully slid across her shoulders and back as she pulled it onto the table. She opened the bag’s flap and felt around inside for her notebook and pen and pencil. She closed the flap and laid the bag back onto the floor but as she let the bag slide off her arm and fall to the linoleum she glanced behind her to see if I was watching. I smiled and she quickly turned her head back to the front of the classroom. She looked. That was enough for me.

That’s when I noticed Sawyer Tuttle. His eyes followed her every movement. His fists tightened when she tossed her hair behind her shoulders and I had the overpowering desire to clobber his face. I searched for a reason to justify such a violent reaction but there was none. Damn. He wasn’t doing anything repulsive. In fact, I was probably the only person in the room who even noticed him watching her; he was so subtle about it.

Still, it felt as if he was asking me to hit him and it was bothering me that I didn’t know why. I had no claim on Jules. She wasn’t mine to get in fights over but I still wanted to and had to busy my hands in order to distract myself. Yep, Sawyer Tuttle was officially on my enemies list and for motives I couldn’t comprehend. I was in trouble.

I officially knew what we shared as far as our schedules were concerned. On A days, Jules and I had second and third period together. On B days, we only had fourth period Chemistry together, but we shared lunches on both days, which put some color back into the way I felt about spending time away from a girl who essentially acted as if I were made of acid. I felt like a bonded animal. It was comical.

Despite her apparent hatred of me, time away from Jules seemed such an uncomfortable idea. I felt slightly queasy at the prospect because I had this confusing and overwhelming urge to protect Jules and couldn’t quite put my finger on why I felt that way. Jules was not exactly the kind of girl who needed defending. She was spirited, feisty. I passed her house dozens of times that first week on the way to and from school, and sometimes not even then, looking for her teal Karmann Ghia, hoping, no, desperate to know if she was at home. Just knowing where she was gave me a sense of peace and appeased the unwanted and definitely inexplicable ache I felt for her. Each class, we sat near to one another and each class I promised myself I would talk to her only to lose my nerve every single time I attempted to open my mouth.

Whenever I was near her she made my palms sweat. More than the two hours of practice I had every day baking in the sun. Football practice was sort of a numb distraction from the things I needed to forget about. At least for the little while that I needed to forget. I especially enjoyed it during the weeks I struggled with who the new Jules was supposed to be to me. Honestly though, football was at the bottom of the  list of things I wanted to do, especially after seeing Jules outside Mrs. Kitt’s class that first day of school.

I was our high school’s quarterback, letter jacket and all, moonlighting as an academic obsessed with science. Looking back, I don’t know why I kept that fact a secret. My teachers certainly knew but I had made it very clear that I wanted no one else to know. I was afraid of the backlash I’d get from the team. I should have been proud of the fact that I was phenomenal at it right? Right. I should have been. But you didn’t have my father and you didn’t know Bramwell, West Virginia. Don’t get me wrong, I mean, my dad, Mark, was awesome. Awesome but also an out of shape ex-football star who hurt his knee senior year and wasn’t able to play college.

He had been banking on that to get him out of Bramwell, but eventually accepted his fate as a potential lifelong resident and settled down with my mom, Shelby. Once they had me and my little sister Maddy, they were stuck here for good. That’s why he was obsessed with me playing and playing well. He wanted me to have a life outside of Bramwell and its coal mines. My mom, on the other hand, didn’t care if I made Bramwell my home or not, as long as I was happy. All her family came to live in Bramwell when they caravanned as one huge group from Oklahoma about thirty years before. Bramwell was a step up in society to her, since it had been one of the wealthiest towns in America at the turn of the century.

Though the wealthiest in America no longer had a place in our sleepy little town, their homes remained and that’s where the very few of the wealthy-enough residing in Bramwell lived, including Jules’ family. Her mother and father were both big wigs at the coal mines my dad happened to work at. They had a flare for luxury, especially Jules’ mother. I remember Jules coming to school in elementary and junior high in the most hideous designer clothing I’d ever seen. It wasn’t until she reached high school and her mom couldn’t dress her anymore that Jules became her own girl and probably much to her mother’s dismay.

My mom had always been a simple woman, never really needing much. The one thing my mom and pop did have going on for one another was the deepest of loves. Deeper than any of the other parents I came across in Bramwell. My dad was always really kind to my mom. Once a week, he’d pick wildflowers off Main and put them in this little ceramic pitcher she kept on the table. Two summers ago, he got really sick and had to stay in bed for a week. He made me pick the flowers for her because he knew she was expecting them.

As I got older, I took serious notice of the way my mother and father looked at one another and knew it was something I had to have for myself. I learned early on through their example that I needed to find my hypothetical key in order to feel as happy as they did. Needless to say, I was in a hurry to love someone the way my father loved my mother. Nothing looked as comforting or as fun as that.

It never even crossed my mind that my key was someone I would have known my entire life. I always thought I’d meet her in college or something, funny how life bites you like that.

Jules definitely had a profound effect on me throughout those first few weeks. My life was filled with unbelievable anxiety every moment that I was awake. I did everything within my power but could not get her off my mind. I tried desperately to forget her. Every night, after dinner, I would get in my truck and tell myself to drive. Somewhere. Anywhere. Except to wherever Jules may be. That was my only rule. I forbade myself to look for Jules, convinced that I needed to break my dependence on knowing where she was, as if I could do that, but of course, every night, I meandered throughout town trying to tell myself that I wasn’t out driving to see if Jules was at Thatcher’s, or at one of the shops off Main in Bramwell’s business district, or at her home, The Perry House, on Brick that turned into Main.

I never had trouble with schoolwork before Jules either, but she distracted me so often, even in the classes we didn’t share, that I would get home and have to try and teach myself everything I missed in class because the lessons behind the homework were never absorbed. I found myself wondering where she was, what she was doing, what she was wearing, how her hair looked, how she smelled, and what book she’d be reading at lunch the next day. And the weekends? The weekends were pure torture.

The Friday night of the second agonizing week, I left town and drove two hours to Charleston to get my mind off her. I went to an obscure little book store and actually wandered into the self-help section. I absently trailed my fingers along the titles praying there would be one that read ‘You’re insane Elliott Gray. Stop obsessing about Julia Jacobs’ or ‘She’s just a normal girl dummy. An abnormally beautiful and intelligent girl who just happens to share literal electricity with you but that’s nothing to get so worked up about’. Can you believe it? There wasn’t, but there was one ironically entitled ‘Getting over the one you’re obsessed with’. I laughed out loud, got a few shushes, and almost picked it up but stopped myself. I do need help, I thought to myself, but not this kind. Professional help. I began to pick my way through the aisles heading toward the Fantasy section. I was still waiting on Stefanie Conrad’s new novel to come out and wondered if it was there.

I took a right into the section and my heart nearly stopped cold where I stood. Jules was there. Reading from a book and had absolutely no idea that I was looking at her. I began to panic and my stomach tied into knots that would rival any sailor’s. I escaped the aisle without detection and found solace one row over. I knelt down, cursing my ridiculous height, and ran my fingers through my hair trying to think. Gotta’ get out of here, I thought. Can’t let her catch you. She’ll skin you alive and you’ll ruin any chance of talking to her again.

I shot up, kept my head buried in my neck and headed straight for the door. I could not have gotten out fast enough. I was confused, agitated. I leaned against the door of my truck and dug my hand into my pocket to find my keys. No! No! No! No! No! I left them inside the jacket I had strung over a reading chair inside. If my keys hadn’t been inside that store I would have said goodbye to one of my nicest jackets, that’s how eager I was to get out of there.

I thought about waiting for her to leave but didn’t want to risk being the real life example of the predator inside that stalker book if she saw me camped out in my truck or at a nearby shop. Plus, she knew my truck. If she hadn’t seen it coming in she would definitely spot it coming out being that it was right in front of the entrance.

I hated the idea of her thinking I was watching her. Why should I care now, right? When I’ve been watching at school and searching the town for her? Because, technically, back at home I was watching for her not at her. Yup, I had to go back in. I gave myself a little pep talk and strolled back into the store convinced she’d probably never even see me as long as I was quick. I opened the door and the little bell attached to the handle, rang. All eyes shot toward me but returned to their own business, except for one pair. Jules’ pair. She was in the checkout line purchasing her book. My face went flush and I tripped over a chair.

Her eyebrows pinched in confusion then seethed with anger. She thinks I’m following her. Damn it! Why did I have to pick this store? Of all stores? Why did I have to leave my keys in that stupid jacket in this stupid store?

I picked up the coat with a yank and headed back out toward my truck without giving her a second glance and shoved the store’s door open with all my might. I had never been so angry with myself in my entire life. I wish I had stayed home and played board games with my mom and pop or called Jesse and see if he wasn’t with a girl that night but I didn’t. Instead, I had daftly removed any sort of minuscule chance of making something real with the one girl I couldn’t stop thinking about.

The drive home gave me the opportunity to analyze what had happened over and over in my mind and by the time I had arrived, according to my calculations, the atom bomb might as well have detonated inside that store. I demolished any hope of a future with Julia Jacobs. I stormed off to my room, ignoring my parents’ stares. I slammed the door behind me and kicked on my stereo before toppling onto the bed and laid there staring at the plastered ceiling until I noticed I still had that insipid jacket on. I sprang off my bed, tore off the jacket and threw it across the room and sank back onto the bed with enough force that my hair landed in my face. I brushed it over my head when I heard a knock at the door and laid my arm across my eyes.

“Elliott? Honey, are you okay?” My mom sang in her deep southern accent.

“Yes mama,” I muttered beneath the crook of the arm draped over my face.

“Can I come in baby?”

“Sure mom.”

I didn’t budge. She walked into the room and I could hear her little footsteps stride across the wood floor before she lay on the bed next to me. I peeked underneath my arm and smiled at her as she folded her hands across her stomach. No matter how angry I was at myself I could never take it out on the one person who knew me the best.

    “Sweetheart. There’s something wrong.”
    “No, mama. There isn’t.”
    “I wasn’t askin’ Elliott. I was tellin’.”
I remained quiet.
    “You’ve been mopin’ around here for the past few weeks darlin’ and I wanna’ know why. You’re really starting to worry me. So, spill. Is it school?”
    “No, mama. It’s not school. It’s a student at school.”
    “Hmm. I’m having trouble imagining my six foot four mammoth of a son would have a problem with anyone,” she laughed.
When I didn’t say anything, she kept on.
    “Well does your mama need to call his mama?” She teased, poking me in the ribs.
We both laughed.
    “No, that’s okay. Seriously. It’s okay. I’m gonna’ fix it. Come Monday, come hell or high water. I’m going to fix it.”
    “Well good son.” She tapped me on the leg before lifting herself off the bed. “Come on, it’s time for dinner. Oh, and Elliott? Remember, you never throw the first punch boy. That’s the rule. Just a reminder.”
    “It won’t come to that mom. Trust me.”
I was beginning to scare myself. It was time to do something about my obsession.