Kissed (First Edition Retired 2021)

Chapter One

Chapter One

1998

Mum's latest idea of punishment was public school. The private academy asked him not to come back when the tenth grade term ended and she wasn't going to pay for him to "act like a hooligan" at another school.

Didn't make him miss England less. Why she moved them back to California and away from all his friends and the familiar, he still didn't know. They left Los Angeles when he was ten and after four years in London, he finally felt at home, then yank-right back across the Atlantic and a whole 'nother country again. Felt like a bleedin' yoyo. So he acted up a bit at school-what did she expect?

London gave him his identity. At twelve, he discovered punk and metal and devoured every disc he could get his hands on, much to the Head Boy's chagrin. What better appealed to a teenager than loud music and authority-shunning lyrics? These California prep school brats didn't understand. They thought punk was Green Day. Needed a bath just from thinkin' of it.

So, anyway, here he was at a new school again with no friends or allies and prob'ly stickin' out like a sore thumb.

Jacob snuck in the house, trying to get to his room without being noticed.

"Jacob...how was your first day?"

He sighed and walked into his mother's bedroom. "Every teacher but one had me introduce myself."

She looked up from her needlepoint. "Did you make any friends? You're welcome to have guests provided your homework is done first."

"I had friends. You keep pulling me away from them."

"Don't be melodramatic, Jacob. Your choices put you in your current situation."

He stood his ground. "It wasn't my choice to leave England."

She sighed. "I know, dear. Some day you will understand. Do you have homework tonight?"

"Little bit."

"Then I won't take up more of your time."

"Yes, Mum." He turned on his heel and went to his room, shutting the door and cranking up the stereo.

****

Beth's mother gave her a journal today. "Now that you're going to high school, there are going to be things you don't want to tell me or Daddy, or you're going to want to think them out first."

She wasn't going to use it. Really, she wasn't...but there was Jake Lindsey and...

Most kids in Geometry were sophomores, with a sprinkling of juniors. Dreading the walk into a class of older kids, she got there early and chose a desk in the back on the door side of the room, hoping she could be invisible in the corner. She was a freshman, and not just a freshman, but five feet tall, undeveloped, and stuck in glasses.

With her first day over, she could say Geometry wasn't her worst class of the day, and part of the reason was the boy with the last name called after hers-Lindsey comma Jake. The teacher had Jake introduce himself since he was new to their SoCal district, and that voice had been stuck in Beth's head all day.

Jake Lindsey had an English accent.

Jake Lindsey wore a sleeveless shirt displaying arm definition she'd never seen on a teenage boy before.

Jake Lindsey was a junior, sixteen or seventeen, and way out of her league.

Still...that buttery voice made Beth and every other girl in the room take notice.

She'd been dwelling on this memory to avoid thinking about English class and the boy assigned to the seat next to her-didn't even know her and he already called her names.