Jared Holt Renfrew.
The first time they had met was still at the back of Gracie's palm like a Psalm verse. She remembered the tingling that crept on the slice of the hair on the back of her neck when he held his hand out for her to shake.
She did sped off in fear and she couldn't sleep that night, thinking of her awkward reaction when the cute boy offered a bright smile and his hand.
She recalled how they started talking, becoming friends and preteen was awesome because of him until his mother said they were moving back to Sacramento. She was a kind woman too.
She cried. Her grandma knew because her ears were pink when she was back through the door and her eyes swollen, then she ran into her arms and murmured his name.
And now that he was back, not seen though. She had no idea how to welcome him or approach after four years–
"You still won't tell me who Jared is?" Gracie jolted as someone slammed their locker.
She looked sideway at the culprit, seeing Tori who rose her brows in question. Her right hand met her chest and she closed her eyes, relishing in the feeling of relief.
She opened them and gazed directly at the questioning ambers that belong to Tori, "Told ya he is- was a childhood foundation." She bit her lips slowly, constantly ruminating over what she said.
She jammed her locker after she was with her notebook and other requirements for class.
She made her way to class while her best friend followed with her black high boots knocking the flat tiled floor. And today she was not in a fishnet rather in a lovely white socking.
"Foundation? It's just so surprising how you never mentioned anything about him." Tori panted while she caught up with her.
"Well- he's just..." Gracie nibbled on her lower lip making it redder than the usual color.
She had slide into the crowd as Tori followed behind, both of them broke into the classroom where most people were dominating to have the highest volume. It's not surprising that someone like Gracie would fancy the front seats due to her respect in grade as she compete with Morgan Aaron, a nerd who had already booked her seat in the front seat of the middle row. But Gracie would rather hide away in the backspace and pretend the whole lecture went without her.
She smoothed her chest while looking down as she had earlier breach eyes contact with him, the 'him' that made her miserable and she would have to finish senior year pretending she knew him not. She hated his corky proud smile, he was currently sharing with his friends.
It was until she felt the soft touch of Tori on her shoulder that she moved to the back to take a seat at the tail of the seat where she could watch out in the air through the thick yet transparent glasses.
"Forget him, he's no factor." Tori hissed as she perched on the seat beside her best friend and scooted her chair closer to her.
"Yeah... he isn't."
There was a comfortable silent between the friends even though the class was noisy. Gracie scrolled through her notebook while she await the teacher and Tori was typing on her phone, reread the good morning text from Pete.
While Gracie was wandering aimlessly lost between the pages of the book before her when she felt a change in the atmosphere that automatically geared her head up like she had be hypnotized with a sealed charm. So did the class went numb.
She could feel it, something was coming.
The next second to count was seized for long and the door kicked opened. The Platinum hair girl catwalked in without her black foxy friend. She looked pale but still hot in her short skirt and loose cleavage button.
Gracie could boldly hear how shameless the basketball team boys were as they were all murmuring, "Hot cake!" Yet, she gave no one face except from the one minute that she locked eyes with Gracie at the corner and both had a large share of staring competition while Gracie's heart trembled up before she looked away.
The person that entered the room next left Gracie hanging as she found herself belonging to the club of shallow girl ogling at him.
It was the boy from the cafeteria, the one with the deep set of blue eyes that made her heart skip a beat. His steps crippled her and left her with fantasy of what those long legs can do.
She looked away from the boy feeling the guilt of shamelessly looking at a man for so long that she might start drooling.
With a hand playing with her fountain pen in a circle she looked out and faked not to hear Tori's frustration groan as she whispered that 'they're here'
Exhausting, she adjusted herself on the hard chair, therefore shift her body and face to the crowd mistakenly jamming contact with a pair of green eyes.
They weren't just green... there was something about the eyes. Maybe it was the muscle around the eyes that made it look darkened or it was just a feeling.
As an explorer that she was, Gracie swallowed and followed a pattern of smoothness down, skipping the donkey pointed nose to the well defined cupid lips painted in red- cherry red.
She pushed back and captured the detail as a whole. Regretting immediately as she couldn't find her breathing sense again.
A previewing past memory flashed in her head and the drop of rain from that night felt like it actually dropped on her in reality.
The shape of his lips and how red they were in the rain while she was blessed with the opportunity to gaze at those burning, beautiful pair that night.
Now, she remembered him and properly convinced it was those tingling eyes and wet lips she saw.
He was the one who saved her.
"Good morning, class."
She jolted to reality and looked down to her notebook, uncontrollably her right hand pushed a falling strand back while she sniffed and looked back to the teacher.
The skinny man in oversized faded shirt and black pants walked quickly in the front of the class and quickly wrote Biology.
Tori had fallen back to her original space as she also pay some attention.
It was the senior year, even students who gave no face before actually care about their grades now. Almost, everybody want to go to Yale but not everyone will enter Yale.
Only if Gracie knew what was in store for her. She probably start her race now rather than caring about stupid grades.
And for the last time in Gracie's dictionary, she looked at the guy again while he exercise his time on the man teaching left her starstruck.