SHADES of GREEN ↬ m. wheeler

IV. THIS BOY

CHAPTER FOUR
━━━━━ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ━━━━━
❝THIS BOY❞

　
　

FRIDAY ROLLED AROUND, slowly but surely. Although she did not quite like it, Jade found herself hoping that Mike Wheeler would come to school. On Thursday, a day after his mysterious disappearance, he had also failed to appear. Jade wished it would not affect her at all.

　The air was not getting any warmer, so Sarah Oaks drove her sixteen-year-old daughter to school. Her fingers tapped a tattoo upon the thin steering wheel, as the scenery before her unraveled. It was a clear morning, the empty sky shining like a new quarter. Jade's curly head rested upon the window, eyes focused on the mounds of autumn leaves.

　"What are you thinking?" Sarah finally asked. She had not minded the silence, but it was clear that something was bothering Jade. Call it mother's intuition.

　Jade's head lifted, only to fall back against the clean glass. Trees reflected above her. She opened her mouth—and closed it. Moments later, she opened it again.

　"There's this boy."

　Sarah's lips quirked. "Ah. There always does seem to be a boy, doesn't there?" Jade did not quite understand what her mother meant by that, but she did not question it. "What's up with this boy?"

　"Well..." Jade sighed, allowing her eyes to flutter shut. "I don't really know. It's stupid."

　Sarah's smile vanished. Her eyes remained on the road, and she said, "You're never stupid for how you feel. Come on, baby—spill. If you want to."

　Jade's lips parted moments before she spoke. "Well, I guess I have a crush on him. It really is dumb, Mom, it doesn't make any sense. He is so unlike any other boy I've ever liked...I think. I don't really know him, not at all, actually, except that he wishes he could read like me and that he used to have three best friends and a girl who broke his heart."

　Sarah listened quietly, eyes trained on the road, but her lips slowly rose again. The smile was so faint that most would not catch it at all.

　"Anyway, I've only had one conversation with him," Jade continued, her head raised now. She tugged at the hem of her sweater—it was a deep coffee-brown today, like the color of Mike's eyes. "We talked two other times, but...I don't know, they were sort of weird. I have no idea why I like him—I just know that he didn't come to school yesterday, and he left before it even started the day before, and it makes me so...disappointed— Or like the sky right now: bright enough to see well, but you still can't see the sun."

　After a sharp intake of breath, Jade snapped her mouth closed. She had been close to elaborating, but she realized how stupid she must have sounded.

　Sarah didn't think so.

　"What's he like?" the woman questioned, and she was genuinely interested in the answer. Whoever could divert Jade's attention from books had to have a talent.

　"He's...mysterious, I guess. I don't think he really has any friends, not anymore. And he has a mouth on him, but the funny thing is that he's smart with the people who deserve it. Like, he's got a sharp tongue, but he isn't wrong. You know? He seems funny—I'm not that sure, though. And he kind of looks like the sort of person who would be rebellious and maybe a little bit of a bully, but...he doesn't seem that way. Not the last part, at least.