The Temptress

Blast from the past

Blast from the past

August 2010

“Hey Lily!”

That voice, I know that voice. I thought to myself. I could feel my hair glued to my face. The august heat was definitely melting my mousse; the only thing that remotely controls the afro my control-freak of a mother ever endowed me with. As I lifted my head, I saw Sabrina running across the courtyard to meet me.

“Where were you?!” she asked with an exasperated breath.

I shot a smile her, “Here, I honestly haven’t moved a muscle since I got off the bus.”

Her blue eyes shone back at me with curiosity. “Mmhmm…. well anyways, are you nervous? I mean we aren’t exactly on the other side of the fence anymore.”

Her voice squealed with delight, anxiety and fear. I knew her so well that I didn’t even question what she was thinking about. Boys. That’s about all she’s been talking about since we left graduation last year. I know that teenage girls are supposed to get all giddy around boys but I guess I never got the memo. I honestly feel so weird around them. I don’t want to dress up for them and I don’t want to laugh at their stupid jokes. I want people to laugh at my stupid jokes, and I never understood the point of looking pretty if you’re just going to get dirty playing outside during the breaks. 

[Little to my knowledge that was all about to change thanks to a little thing called puberty.]

As we entered the school in search of our lockers, I could feel Brina bustling beside me. As she rifled through her instruction booklet, schedule and school rules hand-out she reminded me of a squirrel getting ready to hibernate. Her red hair bounced around her with every step.  Just as we crossed the doors to the second floor, she quickly asked me,

“What class do you have first?”

“I don’t know… I haven’t even looked at my schedule yet. Why don’t we focus on finding our lockers?”

Brina didn’t even take a second to answer my question before listing off her entire schedule. Lucky her, she gets to start with Art. I dwelled on the possibility of starting with math. My most hated subject. The best part of high school was getting to choose my locker partner. Brina made it easy, she asked me the day of graduation if we could share lockers this year. I silently followed her to our locker, nodding every time she asked a question and laughing when she’d make a joke. “This isn’t me. Why am I so shy? Why are there so many people here and how do I get to my first class?” As my mind buzzed with every question a freshman is faced with; we arrived at our locker.

“What’s the combination?” Brina asked, knowing I had the paper in my hand.

“Uh…I honestly don’t know how these locks work.” I responded as I quickly handed her the code and gave her a crooked smile.

Brina can be a real superhero sometimes but other times I feel like she has a secret anger within her aching to escape. Happily, this wasn’t one of those times.

We parted ways and headed to our first class. Just as I had dreaded, my first class was math. I entered the room expecting a quiet, old math teacher. To my surprise, a scary and stern older woman greeted me. I shuddered beneath her glare and quickly grabbed a seat. I made sure to have easy access to an escape route and placed myself in the back, by the door. She marched across the class and stood before us. I feared looking away and having to do some type of military math drill.

                After class, Lily met up with me at our locker. She placed a purple magnetic mirror inside the locker door and began fixing her makeup while talking to me.

“Have you seen the new kid?” She whispered to me, “He’s kind of weird looking.”

“Nah, I haven’t really been registering people except for the math teacher. Have you seen her? I’m afraid she’s going to be the next school shooter. Careful when you go to her class. If you breath wrong she’ll send you walking with a failing grade.” I grumbled under my breath.

I knew Lily was used to paying close attention when I spoke. I always seemed to develop a horrendous mutter whenever I was talking about things and I was fired up about in one way or another.

                In that same instance I spotted a tall, lean guy strutting down the hallway. I could tell what Brina meant by “weird”. What she omitted to say was that he was probably one of the most beautiful people I had ever seen in my life. His high cheekbones rested against his squared jaw. His black brows seemed constantly furrowed as he glared at all those he passed. As he turned the corner and began heading down the hallway our eyes locked and his red tinged lips lifted to the right in an attempted smile; it faded from his face so quickly that I began questioning if it had all been a figment of my imagination.

                As I turned around to watch him glide down the hallway the loop of my jeans got caught on the locker door and pulled me into the locker door face first. “f**k” I muttered as the metal smashed against my face. All I heard was Brina’s loud laugh start to ring against the cement walls and echo down the hallway. I could already feel everyone’s eyes piercing into the back of my skull before I heard the roar of laughter begin to sing me into the darkness. What a great start I thought to myself, as if this is my first day of high school, I really am s**t out of luck.