Made to Love (3 page)

I grunted, then pushed out
the office door.

During the fascinating
conversation, the bell had run, and the halls were empty.  I
looked at my schedule, and groaned.  Three classes in one
day?  And a different three the next?  What kind of
school was this?

“
It's block scheduling,” a
voice behind me said.  This voice was smooth, musical, nothing
like the brutes in the parking lot.  “It'll drive you nuts at
first.”

I looked up into the face
of a god.

He was lean and pale, much
like the rest of the school.  But unlike the golden goofballs
I'd seen, he was also dark and gorgeous.  His black hair was
well-styled, if a little oily, and his eyes were equally
dark.  I wanted to reach out and see if his skin was as soft
as it looked; he seemed like he
bathed
in lotion.  I
dreamed of skin like that.

“
Hi,” I breathed. 
“Yeah, I'm new.”

“
I figured,” he
grinned.  “I'm Octavius.  I was the fresh blood around
here until you turned up.  What's your first
class?”

“
Um...” I looked at the
schedule.  “Advanced Poetry Workshop.”

“
Cool, me too.  Walk
you there?”

My tongue felt too huge for
my mouth, so I stared at his plump blood-red lips and nodded. 
He offered up his arm, and I just about swooned on the spot, so I
took it.

“
Where are you from?” he
asked.  His voice seemed to dance down the halls.

“
Um,” I said.

“
You forgot where you're
from?”

“
No,” I shook my
head.  “I just...didn't sleep well.”

Octavius nodded.  “Oh,
I get that.  Some nights, I'm so jazzed after band practice
that I can't think straight, much less sleep.”

“
You...you're in a
band?”

“
Lead vocalist,” he said,
jutting a thumb against his chest.

“
You sound like
it.”

He quirked an
eyebrow.  “Sound like what?”

“
Like your voice is
beautiful.”

I realized what I said, and
my cheeks set on fire.  He gave me a gracious smile. 
“That's nice of you to say.  I just hope the record companies
feel the same.”

“
Georgia,” I
said.

He looked so puzzled he was
nearly cross-eyed.  “Georgia.”

“
Sorry!  Where I'm
from!”

Octavius laughed. 
“You have a bit of an accent.  I was wondering.”

Stupid, stupid!  I
must have sounded like a hick to him!  He was the most perfect
thing to ever run into my life, and I was yammering on like a
country bumpkin!

We stopped, and I stared up
at him.  “What's wrong?”

“
We're at the
classroom.  I thought you might like to know before we barrel
in.”

“
Oh!”  I pushed my
hair out of my face.  Octavius looked startled.  “Did I
do something?”

“
No,” he said. 
“Just...your eyes.”

I smiled, and he beamed at
me.

“
There,” he said. 
“Now you're ready.”

And we went
inside.

Chapter Six

Like the rest of my life,
poetry class was miserable.

All the kids in the room
stared at me when I came in.  The school was small enough that
they immediately recognized me as an outsider, and their eyes were
judging me.  Were my hips too big?  My hair too
long?  My skin too pale?

And of course the teacher
had to humiliate me further with an introduction.

“
This is Calliope
Crestone,” she said, and I gave a feeble wave to Octavius’s
radiance in the back row.  He was slouched over his seat, hair
falling over his eyes, and his lips were curved into the only smile
in the classroom.  “Why don’t you tell us a little about
yourself?”

I stared around the room,
and my heart dropped into my stomach.  What was I, a seal
trained to bark on command?  I didn’t think so.

So I ignored my teacher and
sat at the only empty desk in the room, which was tragically on the
other side from Octavius.  She gaped at me with a round mouth
like that of a dead fish, aghast that I would dare refuse to do as
she bade.

I didn’t care.  I cast
a glance at Octavius over my shoulder, and he winked.  My
heart fluttered.

We started with a writing
exercise my teacher scrawled across the board in messy cursive –
write a poem about your spring vacation
– and I bowed my
head over my desk to work.  Around me, girls chattered and
boys complained about having to write so early in the
morning.

I glanced up at the window
and the rivulets of rain dribbling down the other side, and began
to write.

The words spilled out of
me, cascading like the ocean.

Displaced

Dejected

Jaded and faded

A new world

A prison of
stone

Free me,

Sorrow’s
symphony

I realized my eyes were
stinging, and I tried to wipe away the tears with the back of my
hand and make it look like I was yawning.  Rich Coos glanced
at me and offered a wide, toothy smile.

Occupying the remaining
minutes of the assignment with doodles around the page, I watched
the clock inch by and was relieved when the teacher said, “Okay,
time’s up!”  But my relief disappeared when she added, “Form
into groups of three to four people and get ready to share what you
have written!”

Oh dear Lord.

“
Your name is Calliope,
right?” a bubbling voice thrilled above me, and I looked up to see
a girl with cascades of red hair and freckles clutching her
notebook to her chest.  “I’m Rita!  You’ll be in my
group!”

“
Uh,” I said brilliantly,
casting a glance over at Octavius’s desk.  It was
empty.

She snatched my hand and
tugged me over to a group in the corner.  Rita introduced the
two others to me with all the enthusiasm of a football announcer:
“This is Jana!  She is such a good poet!”  Jana smiled at
me shyly, her brunette hair pulled into a braid over her
shoulder.  “And this is Rich!  His family—”

“
We’ve already met,” Rich
said.  He still had that stupid toothy grin on his
face.

“
Hi,” I said.

Jana sat forward on her
chair.  “I’ll read my poem first.”  Rita clapped her
hands with delight.  “Ready?  Okay.  ‘Green fields
of endless splendor/Awaken in me such a candor/I love my trips to
Ireland/Way better than trips to Disneyland.”  She stopped
dramatically and gazed about the group.

“
Wow!  That was
really good!” enthused Rita.

I stared. 
Really
?  That was supposed to be
good
?

“
What do you think?” Rich
asked me.

“
That was great,” I said
flatly.

Jana inclined her
head.  “Thanks.  I appreciate it.  Why don’t you
read what you wrote, Calliope?”

I couldn’t imagine sharing
my prose with these louts as a pleasant experience, so I steeled
myself for it, lifting up the sheet to hide my face as I
read.  “Displaced/Dejected/Jaded and faded/A new world/A
prison of stone/Free me,/Sorrow’s symphony.”  And then I set
the paper down and tried not to look any of them in the
eye.

The completion of my poem
was met with stunned silence.

“
You… wrote that?” Rita
asked.  “Just now?”

“
Yeah,” I said.  My
cheeks were hot, and I flipped my hair over my face to hide the
flush.

Jana scowled, but Rita’s
face broke into a grin.  “Holy crap, that was amazing! 
That might be even better than Jana’s poems!  What do you
think, Rich?”

“
That was incredible,” he
said.  “But that’s basically what I expected from such a
pretty girl.”

I rolled my eyes.  Of
course the words that came from the depths of my soul were amazing,
but the false flattery was entirely unnecessary.  Jana
interrupted me mid-eye roll by saying, “I didn’t like that at
all.”

“
Really,” I
said.

“
It didn’t even
rhyme!”

I sniffed.  “Real
poetry doesn’t.”

She glared at me, and then
at Rita, and then at Rich.  “You can’t seriously think that
was any good.”

“
Don’t be jealous, Jana,”
Rich said.  “You’re still okay.”

“
I hate you all!” she
announced, flinging her papers to the floor of the classroom, and
then stormed out into the hall.

I smiled.  I liked
her.

Casting a glance over at
the doorway, I saw Octavius staring at me, his eyes dark and
intense.  For an instant, I couldn’t breathe.  His gaze
was so gloomy, burning hot against my flesh.

And then Rita was saying my
name, and I took an instant to flash a shy smile at her.

When I looked back at the
door, Octavius was gone.

Chapter Seven

I didn't see Octavius again
until lunch, which came after the second period of the
day.

What passed for a cafeteria
in this poor excuse for a school was a large chamber that looked
like an oversized living room.  The walls were wood-paneled
and bounced off every single sound that hit it, until a few dozen
voices became well over a hundred.  I was mildly surprised to
see that there weren't ugly plaid sofas or deer heads on the
wall.

Rita had been in my second
class – Advanced Calculus 2 – and felt the need to point out every
single element to the cafeteria.

“
There!” she yelled,
gesturing toward the buffet line.  “That's where you get your
food!”

“
Duh,” I said under my
breath.

She didn't hear me. 
“And there's the door!  And that's a window!”

I decided more drastic
measures were in order.  “What about the tables? 
Everyone separates off into different cliques, right?”

Rita gave me a blank
look.  “Cliques?”

“
Just...who are all these
kids?”

“
Oh.” She looked at the
tables.  “I don't know too much about them.”

“
Why not?”

She broke into a smile as
we stepped into the food line.  “I guess I don't pay that much
attention!”

“
Right,” I
said.

It was up to me to figure
out the social dynamics of the school, although it didn't appear
too tough to crack.  Rich was at a round table with a bunch of
other guys, and Jana was hovering by his elbow, trying to get him
to talk.  Nearby, some kids at another table shifted around
huge cases: definitely the band.  There were some
preppy-looking girls on their other side, close to what looked like
the rich guys, but not so close that they looked desperate.  A
longer table behind them had a couple kids with hair covering their
miserable faces.

I could relate.

The food of the day was
some disgusting concoction that resembled spaghetti.  Rita
eagerly filled her plate with it, while I pulled the plate away
from the server as fast as I could get away with.  The only
excuse for salad was some wilting leaves that were brown on the
edges.

I sighed
heavily.

“
Aren't you hungry?” Rita
asked.  “Spaghetti day is the best!”

I shuddered to think what
other offerings I'd be forced to deal with in the future. 
“No.”

Rita didn't seem to notice
my scowl and asked, “Where do you want to sit?”

Unfortunately, that was the
exact moment that Rich noticed my presence.  He stood and
beckoned, and despite the fact that Jana gave me a look that could
wilt flowers, Rita headed in their direction.

I started to follow when I
caught the hint of a sweet note on the air.

Octavius.

He was on the complete
other side of the room at a table I hadn't noticed.  He sat
with a bunch of other guys clutching different musical items: some
drumsticks, a guitar pick, a keyboard. 

Octavius flipped his hair
over his shoulder and looked my way.  He flashed me a smile,
and my knees went weak.

I made my way to their
table before I realized it.

“
Hey,” Octavius said as I
walked up.  “You survived!”

I blushed. 
“Hey.  Can I...?”

“
Sure.” He smacked the arm
of the guy next to him.  “Make some room, will
you?”

The kid grunted, but
slipped further down the bench.

I put my tray down and
plopped into the empty space.  That was, of course, after I
fell into Octavius and got a strong whiff of his musky, masculine
smell.  My eyes fluttered, and Octavius brushed back an errant
lock of my hair.

“
You okay?” he
asked.

“
Uh-huh,” I replied, but I
was practically dizzy with the idea of him.