Willow helped me haul the xylophone back to the band room, and Owen wasn’t around to kick any more speed bumps under my legs. In fact, he seemed to disappear entirely after the pep rally this morning.
My second period was blissful, spent alone in one of the music practice rooms. I cheated on my lessons and instead spent the hour playing jazz. My next two classes were less pleasant. Part of being placed in honors math and English meant I could expect homework right out of the gate, which I got—several chapters of reading and a lengthy problem set.
What I didn’t expect was to hear the teacher call out “Owen Harper” in both of my classes. Harper—I’m pretty sure that’s his last name. That’s what that one guy called him when they walked by me early this morning. He didn’t strike me as an honors kind of anything.
By the time the lunch hour rolls around, my stomach is growling so loudly that I’m sure people near me in the hallway can hear it.
“There you are. How were your morning classes?” Willow asks. She’s a junior, so I don’t have any classes with her.
“All right, I guess. I have homework already,” I say, and she scrunches up her face in disapproval.
“Yeah, me too,” she says.
I follow Willow to the cafeteria and mimic everything she does. I grab a tray, shuffle along the counter, and pull the same sandwich, apple, and drink from the coolers that she does. I won’t be able to copy her for long; I get a feeling she eats kind of healthy, and I’m going to have to delve into the pizza and fries line one day this week.
We both punch in our numbers for the lunch account and take our trays to a table near the window where Jess is waiting for us along with another couple I recognize from band this morning. Everyone sits—everyone…but me. I’m frozen, locked into where I’m standing, my elbows somehow unable to operate well enough to place the tray on the table in front of me.
On the other side of the glass, Owen Harper is kissing a girl. She seems pretty—her hair a long, dark brown, very different from my wavy blond layers. I try to notice more about her, but I can’t take my eyes off the place where his hands are cupped around her face, holding her lips to his with this animalistic sense of ownership. It’s almost offensive, but it’s also…something else.
His right hand slowly slides into her hair, and he tilts her face ever so slightly to one side, giving his mouth a better angle, as his lips grow more aggressive. I’m hypnotized by the power he has over her—over me. His lips move over her mouth with a sense of possession, and his grip on her upper lip with his teeth slides away with a slowness that simply oozes sex. I’m blushing—just standing here, a voyeur, and I’m blushing.
I have never been kissed like that. I have never really been kissed at all.
He moves down her neck next, his tongue blatantly sliding along the nape then under her jaw. Their friends are all standing nearby, but nobody is looking. I’m stunned no one else is seeing this. His hands are now clutched around her head and body, her shirt twisting up enough to reveal her bare midriff. It’s almost a soft porn show in front of the main window for the whole cafeteria to see. Yet, I’m the only one looking.
And then his eyes open, in a purposeful haze, and he looks. Right. At. Me.
My heart stops. My stomach feels sick, and my lip puffs out with the small gasp that escapes me from the shot of adrenaline now coursing through me from getting caught.
Owen never stops kissing. His eyes toy with me for the brief seconds I stand there in shock. He’s laughing with those eyes. He’s teasing me—as if he knows that I am so far out of my comfort zone that I may pass out from humiliation at any moment. But I don’t. I look right back at him. I can’t help myself. And his eyes soften, but not in a gentle way. They become sexier, more daring—he’s daring me. Keep watching; go ahead. That’s what his eyes are saying now. The gray color suddenly looks like a storm brewing, and I’m caught in it, no chance for survival.
“Earth to Kens! We’re down here. Tell them to get a room!” Willow says, pulling at the edge of my shirt, yanking me down into my seat, away from the danger tempting me on the other side of the window.
“Sorry, that was…huh…I just guess couples never really did that sort of thing at my old school. You know…so…out in the open?” I say, forcing my eyes onto my tray.
“Oh, they’re not a couple. Owen just does that sometimes. And girls keep lining up. Like lemmings,” says the small girl sitting with us. Her hair is cut into a sharp bob cut, and her eyes are lined in smoky-gray eye shadow. It’s a look I wish I could pull off, just once. “I’m Elise, by the way. I play the flute. And this is Ryan. He doesn’t play anything, but I like him anyway.”