BARE SOULS: A STEAMY TEACHER/STUDENT ROMANCE

Chapter 1 | Harper

I kept calling his phone again and again. I felt like a stalker, harassing him over and over with my fifty unanswered calls. Yes... Fifty. I know... It's a lot of calls, but I had a good reason.

Levyn and I had been dating for two years, and a two year relationship in a teenager's life is a pretty solid relationship to others. Except one thing: our relationship was everything but solid.

It was not always like that though. I was 16 when I met him. I just had moved from Las Vegas where I was born and raised, to the small city of Oxnard, California. When I had been told I would move to my Uncle's in Oxnard, I thought my life was ending. First of all, where the hell is Oxnard????

Well... It's a small and peaceful city located 80 miles West from L.A. What is there to do in Oxnard, California? Abso-fucking-lutely nothing. Did I know anybody else beside my Uncle Mark and my Aunt Lorie?
Nop-p-p-pe! Not a soul. Did I want to move from the comfort of Las Vegas to the hell hole that Oxnard, California represented? Hell, nah!

However, I was not really given a choice here. My parents were gone and my closest relatives were there, in Oxnard, California.

Moving in with Uncle Mark and Aunt Lorie was pretty much the same than moving in with complete strangers. They keep saying they used to come visit often until I was 6... Well... How am I supposed to remember playing with them from 0 to 6? Why they just stopped showing after I turned 6 then? Whatever they could say, I had absolutely no memories of them.

So here I was, moving to a California hole with people I didn't know, forced to start off again against my will. But then again, why staying in Vegas? I had already lost the most important persons in my life, so what was there left for me in Sin city? Absolutely nothing!

I was never a social butterfly. I never had really good friends. In fact I was kind of a geek: straight As student, always participating in class. I was not standing out, was not bullied. Never hung out with the cool crowd. I was just me. Simply good student Harper. And I somehow thought I would keep keep being the goodie-goodie me even after I moved to Oxnard.

On my first day at Oxnard High, well... I stood out. Not on my own will... And not in a good way. Let me explain...

I somehow noticed Oxnard was an upscale city. The beautiful estates, the clean streets, the expensive shops in the mall, the fancy cars parked everywhere... I couldn't not realize it. Uncle Mark and Aunt Lorie were loaded too. Mark was the head of a financial investment company called Dean Global Investment. By the size of the house and the car he was driving, it was kind of easy to guess. However, I couldn't care less.

So what if my room was the size of the entire apartment we had in Vegas? So what if the car I was landed to drive from home to school was the latest Benz? So what if I was given a $1,000 allowance per month? None of that really mattered as I would have gave up all of that if it could bring my parents back.

I was raised in a simple way, with morals and value. Never lust after what I can't afford and work hard. I had no interest in fashion so was never spending my days at the mall. The only times I ever stopped by a clothing store was in case of absolute necessity. So when aunt Lorie offered to spend the day at the mall to fill up the huge walk-in closet in my new bedroom, I politely declined. Why buying more clothes when I already came with a suitcase full of them?

So when I walked the halls of Oxnard High dressed with some black sweat pants, a white wool sweater and some brownish sandals, I felt hundreds of mocking eyes and laughters rising around me.

How to describe my new peers at Oxnard High? Well... They were sparkling. Every single student was perfectly dressed, perfectly brushed, perfectly perfect! Like in those TV shows where every character, even the most insignificant one shows up overly dressed, smiling with ultra bright white teeth. Shit... I was only 300 miles away from home but a millions miles from reality.