An Inconvenient Attachment

Chapter 2

The next morning, Emily woke to bright sunlight. Rolling over, she disturbed Tybalt who protested with a small chirp and arched his back in a big stretch. Emily gave him a good nuzzle before she swung her feet to the floor and rose to get dressed. She thought of the night before and the stranger in the woods. “It had to be a dream, right?” she asked Tybalt as she pulled on her jeans and boots. “Just, like, a really realistic dream.” she said, this time to herself. She checked her appearance in the mirror and ran a brush through her hair. Her mother called up the stairs, telling her to get a move on before her breakfast got cold. “Coming!” she yelled down and gathered her things into her backpack. 

Downstairs, her mother was placing a platter of pancakes and bacon on the table. It smelled heavenly. Emily’s mother Daya was an excellent cook, having been an executive chef in Las Vegas before meeting Emily’s father. Every meal she ever made was perfect and Emily loved learning all her recipes, it was their way of bonding.  

Emily sat and flopped three pancakes and a couple strips of bacon on her plate, drowning all of it in Daya’s homemade blueberry syrup. “Someone’s hungry this morning.” Daya commented, watching her daughter load her plate. “Must have worked up an appetite running through the woods last night.” 

Emily groaned. “So, it wasn’t a dream?”  

Daya laughed. “Afraid not, kiddo. You can’t just be running off into the woods at night, Emily. It’s dangerous. You could have fallen into a ravine or gotten seriously hurt.” 

“Not to mention kidn*pped by forest weirdos who claim to be my betrothed.” Emily said dryly. “Trust me, it won’t happen again. Tybalt is never allowed out of the house again.” 

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Daya asked. “Must have been pretty scary.” 

Emily shook her head. “It wasn’t, really. It was mostly just weird. He really seemed like he knew me.”  

“Well, I’m sure wilder stories have been told by busted criminals.” Daya said, making herself a plate.  

“He knew my name.” Emily said, finishing off the last of her bacon. 

“I thought you didn’t want to talk about it.” Daya said with a knowing smile. 

Emily hopped up and slung her backpack over her shoulder. “I don’t. Like you said, wilder stories...right?” 

Daya shrugged. “Well, if you change your mind, you can come to me with anything, you know that.” 

“I know, Mom. Thanks.” Emily said and offered her mother a smile to reassure her that she was, in fact, okay. “I gotta run or I’m gonna be late.”  

Daya kissed Emily on the cheek and sent her out the door with a wave. “Have a good day, sweetheart.”  

 The parking lot was bustling when Emily pulled into her spot. She spotted her friends in their usual spot near the picnic tables. She hurried over to them, catching the middle of conversation. “That’s not what happened at all. Yes, I spilled the drink and yes, her shoes got wet, but it wasn’t like everyone is saying. I didn’t even get any on her dress.” Amelia was saying animatedly. “I hate her.” the petite blonde said fervently. 

If ever there was a picture of small but mighty, it was Amelia. Standing five foot nothing and weighing a hundred pounds soaking wet, she didn’t look like much of a threat; when she opened her mouth, however, the amount of feisty was staggering. 

“What happened?” Emily asked as she approached. 

“Oh, hey! We were just talking about James’ party last night. You should have come.” Amelia replied.  

“Sounds like there was some drama.” Emily said. 

Katy rolled her eyes. “Just Bridget’s normal over exaggeration. You know how gossip goes in her little cult.”  

Katy was the group’s protector of sorts. She was very quick to squash outside attacks and was known to be downright brutal to anyone threatening the group’s peace. She had a sharp wit and an even sharper tongue and was not above threatening violence, which is why she and Emily had been best friends since kindergarten.  

“So, what is she saying?” Emily asked. 

Daniel jumped in. “She’s going around telling everyone that Amelia dumped an entire drink on her Gucci dress. She says it was on purpose.”  

Daniel stood out as the only male of the group. Each of the girls considered him something of a big brother, except Katy, who’d started dating him over the summer. Emily thought they made a cute couple.   

“Which isn’t true!” Amelia cried. “I just tripped on the coffee table, and nothing even got on her dress. Bet it wasn’t even Gucci anyway.” she grumbled. 

“Don’t worry about Bridget, Amelia. It’s just gossip, it’ll blow over, just like always.” Emily assured her. 

Amelia rolled her eyes. “Anyway, how was your night? Get a lot of studying done?” 

Emily shook her head. “No, I spent the night chasing Tybalt through the woods. Met a trespasser. He said we were engaged.” She kept her tone casual, knowing the group was about to explode. 

“A trespasser?!” Amelia shrieked. 

Daniel was next. “Engaged? Why would he say that? That’s bizarre.” 

Katy just stared. Daniel and Amelia took turns grilling her with questions. She explained the best she could and filled them in on all the details. After Amelia and Daniel were satisfied with her account of the night’s drama, a peculiar look passed Katy’s face. “Was he cute?” she asked and the whole group dissolved into laughter. They chatted for a while longer until the bell rang and they all scattered to their respective classes.  

Emily trudged into homeroom and sat near the back of the room and took out her chemistry notes to study a bit more before the quiz next period. Other students began filing in and filling the air with idle chatter, talking about their weekends. Emily found her mind wandering as she listened to them. She found herself thinking of the trespasser who called himself Bayard. ‘Was he cute?’ Katy had asked. Now that she thought about it, he kinda was. Tall and lean-muscled, the white hair was unusual but it was nice.  

Emily shook her head. He was a criminal. Who knew what kind of dastardly things he’d had in mind? He had kind eyes though. She shook her head again. What was she doing, thinking about this strange man that way? As she struggled to reign in her thoughts, Mr. Gaines entered and called the room to attention so that he could call roll. Try as she might, she couldn’t stop her mind from venturing back to that clearing in the forest. “Emily.” said Mr. Gaines firmly, snapping her back to the present.  

Emily blinked rapidly, as if waking from a dream. “Yes?”  

“I just wanted to make sure I could mark you present, but I guess it’s obvious I cannot.” Mr. Gaines joked, earning a chuckle from the rest of the students.  

Emily flushed in embarrassment. “Sorry. I was distracted, I guess.”  

Mr. Gaines eyed Emily with a touch of concern. “A bit early in the day for that, don’t you think?” he chided, good-naturedly. 

Emily nodded. “Yes, sir. Won’t happen again.” she said with conviction.  

As Mr. Gaines returned to taking roll, Emily resolved to keep her mind off Bayard. “He’s a criminal, a trespasser.” she told herself, firmly.  

Once the bell rang, signaling the end of homeroom, she rushed out into the hall and made her way to Chemistry. “Shouldn’t be too hard not to think about last night there,” she thought to herself, “that quiz is going to be brutal. I just know it.” 

She seated herself near the back of the room again, frantically trying to memorize equations and chemical combinations in her remaining few moments. Maybe if she hadn’t had to chase Tybalt through the woods, she could have studied more... 

“Nope.” Emily said out loud, earning a strange look from the classmate sitting next to her. She gave him a wry smile. “Chemistry, am I right?” she said jokingly and closed her notebook. He seemed satisfied by that and returned his attention to his own notebook.  

Mr. Phelps was insanely disorganized and always entered the classroom like a whirlwind and this day was no different. He entered the room and immediately dropped the stack of papers he was holding, which fluttered noisily to the ground. Emily immediately rose to help him. She liked Mr. Phelps. She found his awkwardness endearing. He stuttered a thank you and asked Emily to pass the papers out to the class. As she did so, he positioned himself at the front of the room and began speaking. He went over the rules of the quiz and then made everyone turn their copy face down on the desks. “Last but not least on this hour’s agenda, we will have a new student joining us.” Everyone groaned, knowing this would further delay starting the quiz. Emily could feel precious information fading second by second. A new student, though, was kind of exciting. Everyone else seemed to feel the same way, judging by the hushed whispers and shushing as Mr. Phelps exited the room to retrieve this new person. The classroom practically buzzed with excitement in his absence.  

The girl in front of Emily, Sarah Frank, worked in the office during first period. Everyone barraged her with a hundred rapid fire questions. “Is it a boy?” one of the cheerleaders asked. “What does he look like?” another asked. “I bet he’s not even cute.” said a third. Sarah answered none of them and carried on studying her notes.  

Emily didn’t even look up when Mr. Phelps re-entered, new kid in tow. “Introduce yourself to the class and tell us a little about yourself.” she heard him say. 

“My name is Bayard...”