However, this notebook contained the ramblings of my teenage mind. My poetry.
Apparently Tobias King had been in possession of my private, innermost thoughts in rhyme since yesterday. I felt so shaken and vulnerable that I might as well have been sitting in class naked.
There were thoughts in that book that no one knew I had. No one. My thoughts. My own. And this boy who was practically a stranger...
I shuddered, fighting the desire to burst into tears. Instead I curled my fingers tight around the book and reached for my bag. Without looking at Tobias, I shuffled the notebook into my bag out of sight, as if the action would erase the book from his memory.
Maybe he hadn’t read it...
I winced at the naive wishful thinking.
Of course he’d read it.
Oh God, what if Stevie had read it, too? They shared a room, after all!
“I—”
“Act Three Scene One, today.” Mr. Stone strode into the room, cutting off whatever Tobias was going to say to me.
My cheeks felt like they were on fire and as I moved to pull Hamlet closer to me, my fingers trembled. I thought I heard Tobias release an aggravated sigh. In an effort to block out everything about him, I hunched around my copy of the play and thanked my decision to leave my hair down today. It acted as a curtain, falling across my face, hiding my burning cheeks from him and everyone else.
For the rest of class, I was lost in manic thoughts and fears. If Tobias had shown my poetry to Stevie Macdonald and his group of idiots, my life was over. They’d never let me live it down. Worse—what if they’d taken photos of the pages? What if I walked into school tomorrow to find snapshots of my poems plastered all over the walls?
Or even worse, all over the internet without the shield of anonymity my words were currently protected by?
My stomach roiled.
My knee bounced under the desk in agitation as I imagined my life at Blair Lochrie if my friends and classmates ever got their hands on those poems. They’d decimate me. Some were so personal.
I flinched, remembering I’d written a poem about my first kiss the other week. No. No bloody way! I’d written it down to get it out of my head, like I did most of my worries or concerns. It was supposed to be funny, to cheer me up, but in the wrong hands it was embarrassing, and it would be cruel if Ethan ever got word of it. The fact that Tobias might know I’d compared my first kiss to a slug mistaking my tongue for a mate was beyond mortifying.
And that was the least of what I’d written.
I didn’t hear a word in class.
Not a word.
When the bell rang I just grabbed up my books and bag and darted out of the room before anyone could speak. As I hurried along the corridor, I tried to shove my books into my backpack but the action stupidly slowed me down.
“Comet, wait!”
I was going to throw up.
His hand clamped down on my shoulder, and suddenly Tobias was right in front of me in an increasingly crowded corridor. I stared up at him in reproach, waiting for him to bring the guillotine down on life as I knew it.
Instead he stared at me, searching my face for what felt like forever.
Then he did something that surprised the hell out of me. “I, uh...” He scrubbed a hand over his hair and glanced at his feet. “I really liked your poems.”
I was a mass of conflicted emotions in that moment, but overruling them all were confusion and distrust. “What?”
His gaze flew to my face again. “I know I shouldn’t have read them... I’m a nosy asshole... But they were really good.”
I couldn’t detect an ounce of remorse in his tone, despite his words. Was he making fun of me? Was this all a big joke to him?
The anger I’d been feeling burned into bitterness, melting the shyness I usually felt around boys into ash. “Did you show them to anyone?”
Tobias flinched—at my accusing tone or just at the question, I couldn’t be certain. “I wouldn’t do that.”
Really? And how the hell was I supposed to know what King would or wouldn’t do to get a laugh out of his friends? As far as I knew, he didn’t take anything in life seriously, and I was just supposed to believe that he’d found the poetry of a boy-shy, introverted bookworm “good” and that he had no intention of turning me into an afterschool special?
“Comet, are you okay?” Suddenly Vicki and Steph were at my side, Vicki looking from me to Tobias with suspicion. Whatever she saw in my face made her cross her arms and glare at the American.
I tensed, silently begging him not to say a word.
“I was just asking Comet a question about our presentation.” He shrugged, and my tension eased. As if he knew, he smirked at me. “See you later.”
I watched him walk away, hope and fear now fighting with one another equally. Was he telling the truth about liking my poems? Had he really kept my notebook to himself and not shown it to Stevie? Only time would tell, and until then I’d have to walk around with giant butterflies in my stomach, waiting for that guillotine to fall or not fall.
“What was that all about?” Vicki said. “You looked angry at him.”
“No.” I shook my head. “He was just asking when we were meeting up to finish the presentation. I said we’d already discussed it and he should probably start concentrating if we want to pass our talking outcome.”
“You did not!” Steph looked wide-eyed at the thought. “Comet, you’re going to blow your chance with him.”
I stared at her like she’d lost the plot. “Since when did I have a chance with him? Since when did we want me to have a chance with him?”
“Since you still have virgin lips.”
I flushed at the way she smirked as she said it, as though she enjoyed the fact that I had less experience with boys than she did. She probably did enjoy that fact. For Steph, life was one big competition. Even with her friends. “Actually I don’t,” I said, pleased when her eyes rounded in shock.
“What? Since when?”
“Since you were too drunk at Jordan’s party to see me kissing his friend Ethan.”
“No way!”
“Yes way.” Vicki nodded, surprising me. She shrugged as I gave her a questioning look. “Ethan told us that night. He said you two had been snogging and then you just disappeared. At the time I was...well... I was a bit drunk and into Jordan Ass Hall. Then you never mentioned it so...” Irritation shone in my best friend’s eyes.
I could only assume she was mad at me for not confiding in her.
Again.
Any other day I’d stew over it and try to think of ways to make it up to her. However, I had bigger problems today.
“It wasn’t a big deal.” I started to walk away, the corridor emptying as everyone else hurried to get home or to extracurricular activities.
“It was your first kiss, Comet. How is that not a big deal?” Steph frowned.
“Because it wasn’t.” And sadly, it really hadn’t been.
As we strode outside I glanced around, preparing myself for Tobias and his friends to jump out and start mocking me. Instead there were just pupils strolling with friends like I was.
No one paid attention to me.
The tightness in my chest, however, didn’t ease.
“Comet, you’re not even listening. Earth to Comet!”
I threw Steph an exasperated look, surprising both of them when I said, “I have to go, okay. Talk later.”
For once I didn’t care if my behavior would have them talking about me behind my back. All I cared about was getting home in one piece.
Yet, when I did cross the threshold of my home, my anxiety didn’t lessen.
Instead I thought of the personal social media pages I used infrequently. What if Tobias had posted something on there?
I threw my bag on the floor of my bedroom and
dived for my laptop. Heart pounding in my chest, I started scouring every social media site I could think of. Finally, after discovering Tobias hadn’t even been on his own social media pages for months, despite being tagged on Instagram and Facebook by a lot of my classmates in photos from parties, I relaxed marginally.
But only marginally.
Because even if Tobias didn’t share my poetry with anyone else, he had still seen it. This boy I’d spent some time with but knew little of had seen deep into my soul. And he didn’t seem to care or understand how big of a deal that was.
Tears pricked my eyes at the injustice of it. I rummaged through my backpack for the offending notebook, then flopped down on my bed and cracked it open, preparing myself for the torment of rereading words I’d written, now knowing someone else had read them, too.
As I read poems that ranged from silly, inconsequential meanderings to ones of longing and loneliness, the tears began to spill over. These were my thoughts. Mine. No one else’s.
How dare he steal into my thoughts and take them from me!
And what an idiot I was for giving him the opportunity! I was so mad at myself for not realizing my notebook was missing, for leaving it for him to find. I was probably angrier at me than at him!
Frustration burned through my tears, and as the wet blur cleared from my vision I was stopped in my ragey inner protests at the sight of a Post-it note on one of the poems. Scrawled in messy, boyish writing were the words, “This is my favorite. TK.”
It deflated me entirely.
Confused me.
Bewildered me.
And worse...softened me.
I peeled the Post-it note off the poem and reread it.
For the longest, loneliest time,
I thought it was me, not you.
So I tried to see it in rhyme,
Work out what was real and true.
For years there have been secrets,
Hidden in those distant eyes.
Truths that are your weakness
Because you want to keep them lies.
It doesn’t make me feel better,
Knowing you’re so messed up.
I thought it would free me of your fetters,
But here I am still locked up.
Some would say I need empathy,
For the pain you’ve had to endure.
But for you I’ve run out of sympathy,
You’re my villain...and there is no cure.
If Tobias was telling the truth, and this poem really did speak to him in some way, I was curious. Curiouser than curious. This was one of my most revealing poems about the state of my relationship with my mum. Did he understand that? It was possible, considering his less than warm interaction with his mum the other night at Stevie’s. Or did he relate to the poem because of his mysterious, apparently-not-in-the-picture dad? Or did the idea of the poem have relevance to another aspect of his life?
Just knowing my words had touched him changed my perspective of Tobias and made me wish I’d had the courage to ask him all my nosy questions, after all.
That was, if he was being honest with me.
But why was he being honest with me?
He’d admitted himself that he didn’t know me.
Had my poetry, plus our short time together, made him feel like he could trust me?
A new breed of butterflies awoke inside at the thought of Tobias and me becoming friendly enough that we trusted one another. Until now he’d been a mix of fantasy-book boyfriend come to life and a confusing troublemaker who could make me feel at ease one minute and then a nervous wreck the next. Now I was almost desperate for classes tomorrow, to see what he would say or do.
I wanted more than anything for him to be telling the truth, not only about keeping my poems to himself, but about liking them. The former was out of self-preservation. The latter, however, was about something else entirely. The idea of being friends with Tobias filled me with what felt like electricity. My heart beat harder, faster, and my fingers and toes tingled with restless energy.
It was like I’d been sleepwalking for the last sixteen years, and now I was awake.
Really, truly, awake for the first time.
THE FRAGILE ORDINARYSAMANTHA YOUNG
9
Yesterday there was nothing but gray sky,
Now there are sunbeams where once there were clouds.
Yesterday I felt as though I had no ally,
Now I have someone who sees me among the crowds.
—CC
There were no weird looks or whispers behind my back as I walked into the school the next morning. No one said a word to me in form class, so I concluded that Tobias had been telling the truth. He hadn’t shown anyone else the poetry.
I relaxed at the thought, although not completely, because I was still anticipating seeing him in English for first period. We saw each other for the first three periods on a Thursday because we had English, Spanish and then maths together.
Vicki and Steph barely said a word to me in form class. Now that I wasn’t anxious over everyone finding out about my poetry, I found myself concerned over alienating my friends even more than usual.
“Do you guys want to study at mine after school?”
“I can’t. Rehearsal,” Steph said.
I looked at Vicki expectantly.
She gave me an apologetic smile. “I said I’d help out with the costumes for the show. I’m going over some sketches with Ms. Scott and taking cast measurements.”
“Oh. Okay. Do you need help? I could keep you company and it would look good on my university applications.”
“There would be nothing for you to do.”
My belly roiled as I tried to convince myself they weren’t deliberately avoiding me. Which was hard to do when they walked ahead of me toward English class.
Staring forlornly at their backs, I was distracted, which was why it took me a second to realize someone had fallen into step beside me. I startled and glanced up into Tobias’s gorgeous face.
He grinned down at me. “You were somewhere else there.”
I nodded, still struck by his size and the fact that he was walking with me to class.
“Are you mad at me?”
I tensed, feeling more vulnerable than I ever wanted to feel as we walked into class together. Should I be honest with him or not?
Ignoring Steph’s and Vicki’s pointed stares, I settled into my seat and said to Tobias, as he sat next to me, “I should be mad at you.”
Tobias leaned in, his breath caressing my cheek as he whispered, “Don’t be mad. Your secrets are safe with me, Comet.”
I turned to look at him, our noses inches from one another as I stared into his bright eyes. “I admit it was my fault for leaving the notebook at yours...but still...I never willingly gave you those secrets.”
Finally, remorse clouded his gaze. “I know. I’m sorry. They’re all good secrets, though. They say good things about you. Trust me with them.”
A part of me—a huge part—wanted to sway into his words, be wrapped up in the spell of his deep voice and magnetic charisma. But my confusion over why someone like Tobias could possibly understand someone like me, and like me, won. I felt a shutter come down over my eyes, blocking him out, and he must have noticed it. His smile turned into a scowl seconds before I unlocked my gaze from his.
* * *
Unfortunately, as silent as I was with him, I couldn’t escape Tobias. We had Spanish next, though thankfully, he sat at the back of the room. I didn’t even have the support or distraction of Vicki in Spanish anymore as she’d dropped the subject after week one and was taking Modern Studies with Steph instead.
I didn’t know if it was my imagination or not, but I honestly thought I could feel Tobias’s gaze on the back of my neck.
And then I couldn’t even escape him in conversation during our morning break.
Steph and Vicki found me in our common room, which happened to be a music room on the second floor. Other classmates were there, too, hanging out with their friends, but Steph and Vicki zoomed in on me.
“What was that?” Vicki said.
“What was what?”
“Don’t play dumb.” Steph slid onto the tabletop beside me and put her feet on a chair. “I thought King was going to snog you in front of everyone.”
I felt my cheeks flush. “Wh-what?”
“What were you talking about?” Vicki stood in front of me, arms crossed. Was I under interrogation?
“Class,” I lied.
She scowled at me. “It looked more than that.”
“It wasn’t.” I looked between my friends. “What’s the big deal?”
“The big deal is that it looked intense between you and Tobias King this morning. Your faces were, like, right here.” Steph placed her palm inward to just short of the tip of her nose. Her features seemed pinched. “He looked really into you.”
I blushed harder and, to my chagrin, squirmed in delight, remembering him calling me cute. “He’s not. He just likes to wind me up about class.” That was half the truth, at least.
Steph looked more than ready to believe that over the idea that he fancied me, and I wondered if she even knew what she really wanted. Tobias to like me, or for him—no correction, every boy—to like her instead.
Vicki did not look convinced. But instead of pursuing it further, she challenged me in another way. “It’s my cousin Sadie’s eighteenth this weekend. We’re all invited. Her parents are on holiday.”
I knew Sadie and liked her. Her parents were extremely successful in buying and selling property and had a lovely Georgian town house in Stockbridge. But a party was still a party after all. And even though I knew this was a test, I couldn’t bring myself to do something just to make Vicki happy with me again.
“I don’t like parties, Vicki. You know that.”
Steph huffed. “You’re seriously the most boring teenager on the planet.”
Hurt, I looked down at my feet. I was wearing black-and-metallic-gold brogues today. At least my clothes weren’t boring.