Before the Ashes

Chapter Six

There's news spreading about Julia, about something awful that's happened, but I have yet to catch the details. I'm so focused on running through the math she's taught me, trying harder than ever to be on time. As soon as the test is done, I'll be able to enjoy the homecoming festivities.

I slow for a split second when I see a strange boy smile at me from across the hallway. I give him a small wave and a second glance over my shoulder before rushing off to trig. Even though I'm going to the dance with Nate, I hope that boy will be there, too. Just that one look from him made my heart race, like I know him without ever having met him. Like what I dream true love might feel like when it happens in a fairy tale. Maybe it could happen for me.

The test is long and harder than I expect, but I go through it three times and use five sheets of scratch paper. I double check that my name is on the top and add a smiley face beside it. My hands shake as I turn it in.

I thought I'd feel better afterwards, but I don't. Nervous butterflies invade my stomach and chest. Finding my friends at lunch, they're busy buzzing about the catastrophe that happened to Julia. Saddened by the news, we devise yet another plan to help her find happiness at homecoming.

During our final pep rally before the dance, I see Cole sitting alone on the bleachers. He looks cloudy and gray, like the sky before a storm. But I don't have time to entertain my concern, because Nate hands me a bouquet of flowers with a smile that's shy and endearing.

"Thanks for agreeing to come with me," he says, his voice cracking a little at the end. And then he smiles at me. "It'll be fun."

His eyes and nearness do nothing to my heart, but a glance around the emptying gymnasium shows no sign of that other mysterious boy, so I can't help but smile back.

I offer him my hand, and he takes it, happy.

* * *

From across the crowded dance floor, beneath the sparkles of the spinning disco ball, the boy draws my eyes toward his. Nate is off laughing with the football team in the corner. Kerry and Caroline mingle, their voices adding to the buzz and music and life under the homecoming tent. A fall breeze blows through the tent. I move without thinking toward the center of the dance floor, where the boy and I meet. He raises his arms and my hands join his. We turn and sway, our eyes never leaving each other's. We are a fairy tale, a love story, a dream. My heart is full and racing and his.

He lowers his lips and kisses me. The kiss tastes like a memory. When it's done, he's gone, vanished among the dancers or into thin air. I turn, lost. I see him, then, faded, almost translucent, smiling at me from beneath the edge of the white tent. The moon casts a glow on him, through him. He looks at his wrist, as if checking the time on a watch. Summer, I hear him say, though his lips don't move. His eyes find mine once more before he walks away, heading toward the woods on the outskirts of the school grounds.

In his deep, colorless eyes is a promise.

But I have no idea what it means.

* * *

My palms sweat as my trig teacher walks between the aisles of desks, a stack of math tests in his hands. One by one, he passes them out.

After class, I stand in the hallway outside the classroom door. In my fist, I clutch my math test with a bright red A circled at the top.

I rush off to find Julia.

The End