The Seven Devils (YA "New Adult" Romance) (2 page)

Chapter 2

Mom insisted on driving us to school on our first day, trying to convince herself she was a good mother. Austin stared angrily at me on the way over, but said nothing. He didn’t really need to say anything; I had a good idea of what he was thinking. He’s Mr. Cool and I’m the geeky little sister, so while at school I was to act as if I didn’t know him. I don’t know why he was worried; I knew by the end of the day he’d have people falling all over themselves to be his friend. I, on the other hand, truly had something to worry about. I was never a real “go-getter” in the social world. I couldn’t even tell you how, when, or why I had made the few friends that I had back in Akron. It just seemed to happen. I was more than a little afraid I’d be the social outcast of the 11th grade. I was constantly at war with myself. I wanted to connect with someone, but I also felt safer alone.

I did have high hopes for my new school. I spent a good deal of time scouring the Internet for any mention of my new town that I could find. From what I could tell, Minster was absolutely insignificant except for being home to the world’s largest yogurt production plant. I also learned there would be only sixty or so people in the entire Junior class. From this limited information, I made the assumptions that the people here would be nice friendly “country folk” who went hiking on the weekends and ate a lot of yogurt and trail mix. This was what I was desperately hoping for. I could get along with people like that. I wasn’t a big outdoorsy person in Akron, but Minster was quiet and away from all the sounds and smells of the city. It was much easier to lose yourself here.

Austin, in his typical style, asked mom to drop him off a block from school so that no one would see him being dropped off by his mom. I thought he was being rude and stupid, but mom simply called after him, “Have a great day!”

She dropped me off in front of the school a few moments later and said the same to me, also letting me know that I would need to walk home after school since she’d be out job-hunting all day. I nodded and walked through the front door of Minster High.

The first thing that struck me was that I was just about the only girl in my first class who was not wearing khaki shorts and a green t-shirt advertising something called Tabfest, which I gleaned from conversation was some sort of party everyone had gone to. Well, everyone but me and a few other lost-looking souls. Another thing I realized right away was that everyone, except for a few pockmarked kids sitting in the front row, was drop-dead gorgeous. The girls were all slender, tan, and looked as though they were up for hours doing their hair and makeup. Some guys looked like they had just rolled out of bed while others looked like they were straight out of an Abercrombie catalog, but all of them looked completely amazing.

I sat in the back of the room and fidgeted in my chair, wondering if I had put enough effort into my look. I was never really one to wear makeup and owned only some lip gloss and an eyelash curler. I touched my neck tentatively and hoped my bruises weren’t as noticeable as I was suddenly afraid they were. My auburn hair was also making me stand out like a sore thumb. It seems everyone in Minster had either blonde or brown hair. Not another redhead or even someone with black hair as far as I could see. It was only 8:10 and I was already eagerly awaiting the end of the day when I could return to the sanctuary of my room.

As the day went on, school itself seemed as if it would be fine and my classes didn’t sound too hard, but I wasn’t getting anywhere with my classmates. I had seen people whisper and point at me, but no one had actually spoken to me until I was putting my books into my locker right before lunch. A group of girls confronted me, and the girl who seemed to be the leader asked, “So who are you and where are you from?”

I swallowed nervously. “My name is Ellen. We moved here from Akron,” I said, trying to sound as if them surrounding me by my locker didn’t intimidate me in the slightest. “That’s near Cleveland.”

“Cleveland? What, were you in a gang or something?” one of the other girls asked, giggling.

“No, why would you think that?” I asked back stupidly.

“So what do you like to do Ellen-from-Akron?” the lead girl asked in a bored voice. I swear she just glanced down at my bruises.

I self-consciously touched my neck while racking my brain for something fun and exciting to say, but ended up just sputtered out, “I.. well, I like to read… and… ugh..”

A couple of the girls laughed at my response and I could feel my face begin to burn. The lead girl rolled her eyes and turned to walk away from me, not bothering to get out of hearing distance before saying, “I told you she wouldn’t be worth our time. Just another loser.”

I could feel the tears coming, but I refused to let them fall. I turned and stood there staring into my steel grey locker and tried to collect myself. I wished I could just crawl inside. When I finally walked to the cafeteria and went through the lunch line, I barely even noticing what the servers put on my tray.

As I was waiting to pay for my lunch, there was a tap on my shoulder. I turned my head and saw quite possibly the sexiest guy I had ever seen in real life. He had tousled blonde hair and his eyes were such a bright shade of blue that I couldn’t stop staring into them. I felt my brain melt to goo.

He smiled and said, “Hi… Ellen, right? I was wondering if you wanted to go out with me sometime.”

I think my jaw dropped to the floor. I was about to say God knows what when the group of guys standing behind the boy erupted into laughter and smacked him on the back. Clearly it was hilarious that a guy like him would ever ask me out. I was mortified as they high-fived each other and nearly ran out of the cafeteria, but I knew that would only make them laugh harder. I quickly turned back around, took several deep breaths, paid for my lunch, and walked out into the cafeteria.

I was hoping to find a nice empty area to eat, but there were people spread out everywhere. I stopped to look around and after a few moments I could feel people’s eyes begin to turn to me. My mind kept screaming at me to just sit somewhere, anywhere, but I didn’t know which way to turn. There were literally no empty tables, so I would have to choose a group to join immediately. And what if they said no? How many tables would I go to before someone would let me sit with them?

One of the boys who had laughed at me in the lunch line pushed past me, almost making me drop my tray, and yelled, “MOVE!” Every head turned to see what was going on. Every eye was on me. I felt as if I were about to have a full-blown panic attack. My heart raced and I felt my knees begin to wobble. To make it worse, I caught sight of Austin at a table in the center of the cafeteria, casually sitting on a table. He was laughing at me with a big group of people. My breath caught in my throat.

I was about to turn and run from the room when I noticed a boy walking up to me. He seemed incredibly tall and broad at the shoulders, and I watched in awe as everyone standing between us moved out of his way as soon as they saw him coming. I instinctively took a step back, afraid of whatever would posses him to come towards me.

When he reached me he smiled and took the tray from me. I hadn’t realized my hands were shaking like leaves. His eyes were a rich, deep brown and held me to my place. They looked kind. He switched the tray to one hand and with his other he reached out and touched my arm. His touch lasted only a moment, but his hand was warm against my skin. I took a deep breath. Finally I could breathe again. I couldn’t help but look down at the spot just above my elbow where his hand had just been. When was the last time someone touched me so kindly? For an instant it was like nothing in the world mattered except for this boy and this moment.

“Hi Ellen, I’m Neil,” he said softly, just above a whisper. “Would you like to sit with me?” His eyes pored over my face as I hesitated for a moment. Finally I snapped out of my daze and gave a tentative nod.

I thought that once I sat down people would go back to their lunches and forget about me, but the funny thing is that people seemed to stare even more as I followed Neil back to his seat. The room became alive with whispers and pointing. I figured that Neil must be either very popular or not popular at all, but I was past caring about things like that and I tried to ignore the people around us.

We sat across from each other at a table we had to ourselves. I got the distinct feeling that he wanted to say something to me but couldn’t bring himself to, and he went back to eating a slightly burned piece of pizza. Could a guy this good-looking truly be shy?

I had never been very good at knowing what to say around new people, but I found myself especially nervous around Neil. He was so cute that I couldn’t seem to think straight when I looked at him. His dark brown hair was a bit wavy and ended an inch or two above his shoulders, and those eyes! They were the deepest chocolate brown and seemed to hold both kindness and intelligence. His clothes baffled me, though. Everyone else was in t-shirts and shorts, but Neil was wearing a dark pair of jeans and a black long sleeved t-shirt. From the look of his collar, it looked like he was wearing another t-shirt under that one. He must have been unbearably hot in the un-air-conditioned school.

I stared back down at my tray and moved my green beans around with my fork. “Thank you for letting me sit with you,” I said quietly.

Neil’s lips twitched into a half smile and he chuckled. “Letting you? I should be the one thanking you. I can’t remember the last time someone actually sat with me.”

I glanced around the cafeteria and saw nearly half the cafeteria unabashedly watching our every move. I looked down at my tray quickly, my face burning. “What’s with them? Why are they staring?”

Neil rested his chin on his hand and smiled at me as I looked back up towards him. “I think they’re wondering if I’m going to eat you.”

I couldn’t help but laugh.

“That’s more like it,” Neil said, studying my face. He added hesitantly, “You looked like you were having a tough first day.”

I fidgeted in my chair. “It’s that obvious?”

“Don’t let it bring you down, Ellen. The biggest jackoffs in the school also happen to be the loudest, so you were bound to meet them first. Over the next few days you’re sure to run into some of the nicer kids,” he said.

“Like you?” I asked shyly.

I must have said something wrong. Neil seemed to study me for a long moment and then suddenly gave a false-looking smile and shrugged his shoulders. “No comment.”

I tried to eat some of my lunch but my stomach still felt all jittery. Neil seemed a little strange, but okay, and I was dying to make some friends, especially after seeing Austin surrounded by a huge group of people already. I wanted to talk to him but was afraid of saying something stupid.

“You know,” Neil said suddenly, “I usually come across Ellen as a middle name. Is it your first?”

My face immediately reddened and I shook my head slightly. Of all the things to come up! “I don’t usually volunteer this,” I began, “but it’s my middle name. My first name is Myra. Myra Ellen,” I said, fully expecting him to laugh. He did give a wide grin, but he didn’t laugh.

I ate a bit more of my lunch and thought about how lucky I was that he had rescued me at the front of the room. I am not sure how long I would have stood up there like an idiot before finally sitting somewhere or just given up and ran out. I wondered why the people around us still stared and whispered. It always seemed as though cute guys were popular, so I wasn’t sure why people seemed as if they disliked him.

Neil interrupted my thoughts by asking me where I lived. I gave him the street name and he said, “Hey, I live there too!” He paused for a bit and seemed to be studying me once more, making me a bit self-conscious. Something about his eyes made them seem as though they really pierce deeply inside of you. “Would you like to walk home together?” he asked suddenly, so quietly I almost didn’t hear.

Until that moment, I hadn’t really thought about the fact that I would be walking home at the end of the day, but I now realized that I couldn’t quite remember the way back to the house. “Oh, that would be great,” I replied. “I’m not even sure if I can remember my way home!” I added. Neil laughed with me and said he’d meet me by my locker at the end of the day. The bell rang then, signaling that I must get to class. I went to tell Neil my locker number, but he had already gone.

Maybe it was such a small school that he wouldn’t have any problem finding it. I shrugged to myself and went to throw away my trash. It was sure to be a long afternoon.