For a split second, I glanced toward Daniel, who was staring at me with a confused look. Just seeing his perfect eyes made my heart rate increase and my anger rise. Once I reached Theo, I tapped him on the shoulder.

He turned to me, looking ridiculous with his ‘hippie’ bracelets and necklaces and his dirty hair. “Do I know—”

I took his water bottle and splashed it in his face. The cafeteria gasped as they turned to stare at us. “That’s for being a manwhore.” I picked up his vegan salad and dumped it on his head. “That’s for lying and cheating on her with her ex-best friend in front of her!” Then I picked up Lia’s hot grilled cheese and separated it with the intentions of smearing her face in it, but my hands were grabbed.

“Ashlyn! Stop it!” Daniel yelled, standing behind me.

“Let me go!” I screamed as I tried to yank myself from his hold, tears filling my eyes. I threw the grilled cheese in Lia’s face. “She’s still calling you her best friend, you slut! There are rules. There are rules to being someone’s best, and you chose the dirty hippie over a girl who has your picture framed on her dresser! You’re not a friend! You’re a whore!”

Theo tossed his hands up in uncertainty, a piece of lettuce hanging near his mouth. “Who the hell are you?”

“I’m a girl with feelings, you asshole!” I screamed before getting pulled back by Daniel.

“Ashlyn! Principal’s office! Now!” Daniel hollered in the now silent lunchroom.

I looked at him with tears rolling down my cheeks. I blinked and I could have sworn I saw Gabby standing behind him giving me a small, sad smile. The tears came faster as I pushed myself from Daniel’s grip and marched away toward the office.

“You what?!” Henry screamed as I sat across from him at his desk. He must have snuck outside to his car for a smoke break. I could smell it on his clothing. I sank into the seat and rolled my eyes.

“I thought I was going to be talking to the principal?” I sassed. I hated how sassy I always was with him. But I couldn’t make it stop.

“Yeah, well, he’s busy not dealing with two-year olds,” Henry shot back, pacing his office.

I glanced down to his desk, where he had pictures of Rebecca, Ryan, and Hailey. Henry caught my stare and sighed. He sat down in his chair and clasped his hands together.

“Look, Ashlyn. I get it. You miss your sister. You’re dealing with a lot of things being thrown your way with the relocation. You’re mourning…” He paused. “Don’t you think I miss her, too?”

I found his eyes and they locked in with mine. He didn’t know what missing Gabby meant because he hadn’t been there to begin with.

I reached into the pocket on my dress and pulled out the bucket list. I laid it down on his desk. “You were number three on her list. Out of everything she wanted to do, she wanted to forgive you the most.” I lifted the family photo from his desk and studied it. “I didn’t.”

He picked up the piece of paper and stared at it. After reading, he placed it back down and rubbed the corners of his eyes. “I get it. You’re angry,” he sighed, seriousness lurking in the depths of his eyes. “You’re pissed off. But don’t take it out on the rest of the world.”

He didn’t see it, did he? My longing to call him Dad.

I did my best to mask my broken heart from seeing that he had no pictures of Gabby or me on his desk. I did my best to mask my broken heart from the fact that I really knew number three on Gabby’s bucket list was based on me forgiving Henry, not her. I hated that I was so stubborn and couldn’t just speak to him about it. Say something! my mind screamed. Speak! it cried. But I doubted we had the type of relationship where words would fix anything.

“Fine. Whatever.” I stared at the yellow dandelions swaying left and right outside of his office window. They looked so free based on how they moved, yet I knew their roots were holding them in place, making sure they didn’t dance too far away. He didn’t even cry at her funeral. What kind of father didn’t cry at his daughter’s funeral? “Are we done?”

He kept a hard stare on me and then blinked. “Yes. We’re done. Get back to lunch.”

I stood up and walked out of his office. In the hallway, I sighed when I saw Daniel standing outside his classroom. We locked eyes and I turned to go the other way. I heard his footsteps growing closer and I stood still.

“Can I help you?” I questioned inimically. In the history of bad first days of school, I had to hold the record for the worst one ever.

“Theo Robinson is in my first hour. I can already tell he can be a real prick. And he’s not the brightest kid.” Daniel slid his thumb across the bridge of his nose. He glanced down the hallways to make sure no one was watching and moved an inch away from me—just to be safe. “He thought Macbeth was some kind of new McDonald’s sandwich and scolded me for forcing him to study the manslaughter of cows.” He snickered to himself, but he looked so sad.

“What are you doing?” I whispered.

He ran his hand over his face and cursed under his breath. Merged in an unutterable sadness and confusion, he shrugged. “I don’t know.” He frowned perplexedly. “I don’t even know what this means.”

“And you think I do? You think this is easy for me?”

“Of course not.”

“Listen. It’s not like anything really happened between us anyway,” I lied. “I’ll pretend it never happened,” I lied again. “Only if you promise not to look past me as if I don’t exist. I can deal with the bullies. I can’t deal with you ignoring me.”

His hand ran across his mouth before he crossed his arms and stepped a few inches closer to me. “Your eyes are puffy. I made you cry.”

My skin prickled by his proximity. “Life made me cry.” I hugged my books closer to me and closed my eyes. “’When we are born, we cry that we are to come to this great stage of fools,’” I quoted from Shakespeare’s King Lear.

“You’re the smartest person I’ve ever met.”

I sighed. “You’re the smartest person I’ve ever met.” I paused. “I’m not stupid, Daniel. I know that we…can’t be anything. And I would switch out of your class but Henry made sure that I was placed in it.”

“Yeah…” he said. “I just wish I didn’t like you so much.”

I didn’t know why, but I felt like crying when he said that. Because I liked him too. We had connected on Saturday. At least I had… He’d awakened me after I’d been asleep for so long.

“I would never jeopardize your job,” I promised. I didn’t know how it happened, but somehow we were closer, so close that I could smell his clean soap from his shower that morning. Did I step forward or did he? Either way, neither of us was going to step back. I closed my eyes and allowed his scents to wash over me, bathing me in fantasy and false hope.

When my eyes reopened, I saw his stare, strong and determined. He took my arm and pulled me around a corner. We went through a door to an empty staircase. He glanced up and down the stairs before he pressed his mouth against mine. My lips instantly separated and my tongue twirled against his.

My fingers ran through his hair, bringing back my ‘Joe’s bar’ Daniel and making Mr. Daniels disappear for a moment in time. His hand gripped around my back. Kissing him in the silent stairwell felt dangerous, but safe. Adventurous, however idiotic. Depressing, yet real.

When he withdrew his mouth from mine and stepped back, we both knew that what we had done couldn’t happen again. He bit the corner of his mouth and shook his head. “I’m so sorry, Ashlyn.” The bell rang before I could reply, and he went on his way and I went on mine.

The saddest part?

I’d missed him before he’d even left.

Chapter 10

Don’t be who you are today.

Be the person I saw yesterday.

~ Romeo’s Quest

I’d felt something pulling me to her the moment I saw her on the train. I’d felt an even bigger pull when I saw her breaking down behind Joe’s bar. Yet nothing felt as right as it had when I bumped into her at school. Which I knew was wrong. All of this was wrong.

There was no question about it—teachers didn’t date students. The ethics behind it were strong, something they’d hammered into us in college. Never in my life would I have ever considered it.

At least I wouldn’t have before Ashlyn Jennings showed up.

Now my mind was considering crazy things. She made me think about breaking the rules, finding the loopholes, holding her close to me in the hidden hallways, and reading her Shakespeare in the abandoned aisles of the library.

I spent over an hour after school tracing the building, searching all corners for secret hideouts, for places we could maybe meet, maybe hold each other between the school bells ringing. That was crazy, right? I was crazy. But I looked, I searched, and I was extremely disappointed in myself after the hour passed by.

When I arrived home at the lake house, Randy was sleeping on the sofa. I headed for the kitchen, grabbed a beer from the fridge, and sat down at the kitchen table, staring out the window above the sink counter. The sky was darkening with clouds moving in. The smell of the air pointed to a downpour of rain coming soon.

I sat there for a long time—long enough to witness the first raindrop dance down to the windowsill. Long enough to witness the crack of lightning igniting the sky.

Maybe we could be friends. I sighed at my idiotic thought. Of course we couldn’t be friends. She was a student in my class. Besides, after that kiss, there was no part of me that simply wanted to be her friend. Plus, her life was already complicated enough. I couldn’t add to her issues.

When we’d bumped into each other outside my classroom, I’d seen the confusion hovering in her gaze. Then, when I’d waited for her to leave Henry’s office, I’d seen the sadness implanted there.

“First day of school already got you drinking alone?” Randy joked, walking to the fridge and opening it to pull out two beers. He slid one my way.

“Yeah,” I muttered, still staring out the window.

“You need to get laid.”

I shot my eyes to Randy, cocking an eyebrow. “I’m good.”

“No.” He shook his head back and forth. Grabbing a chair from the table, he swung it around and sat. “You need sex. What happened to that chick who came to the concert on Saturday?”

I cringed. “Don’t call her a chick.” A chick was what you called a girl who you didn’t give a crap about. Ashlyn wasn’t a chick. She was so far from just a chick.

She was smart.

She was funny.

She was intriguing.

She was so, so far from being a chick.

“I’m telling you though. Your aura is all off.” He waved his hands around my head, and I sighed. Randy was talking his mumble jumble again. “It’s f**king depressing.”

I took a chug of my beer and placed it back on the table. “And to fix this, you suggest…”

“Sex. Lots and lots of sex.” He said it so matter-of-factly that I had to laugh. “Seriously, Dan. When was the last time you got laid? I’m not even sure if you have a dick anymore. I’m telling you, it’s not healthy. I should know. I studied this in college.”

“One class, Randy,” I stated. “You took one online course on human sexuality and now you’re a professional?

A loud clap came from his hands and he sat up straight in his seat. “A na**d music party!”

“No,” I said, pointing at him.

“What?! Come on! We haven’t had one in years!”

“Exactly.” When we were younger and I had my first apartment on my own, Randy and I would have jam sessions with some beautiful women who…would be na**d. After Sarah passed away, I’d been a little lost, and Randy had been positive that the best way of getting my mind off of death was to replace it with sex and music. One of his many different beliefs. It wasn’t my proudest moment of my past. “No na**d music parties.”