Blank Space

Prologue

She drew her hand through her long, wavy dark hair and bit her lip. Which one? Which book? Her eyes quickly re-scanned the synopsis of her several options.

He came over and swept his fingers over the spines of the books, trying to decide. This was his parting gift; it had to be chosen carefully. He laughed snidely at this thought and looked sideways at the girl beside him. He pondered the thought of adding her to his conquest list but they were at a book store and he was moving in a week. Unbelievably as it may be, he thought, he could easily make her fall him the few minutes together, however. He glanced at her again. She was excruciatingly pretty, but it was obvious that she didn't know it. The girl was hiding behind a long sheet of wavy brown hair and was slouching her shoulders slightly, trying to make herself invisible. There was something different from the other girls he flirted with; she wasn't done up in tight clothing and reeked of strong perfumes. In fact, she was dressed in white and black sweats that he knew his sister had bought from American Eagle the other day, a yellow top and a white cardigan. He knew he probably shouldn't go after her; she had this vulnerability around her that made him hesitate. Except, he didn't care about the girls and the girls loved the players. The boy grabbed one of his least favourite novels from the shelf and cleared his throat.

The girl looked up at him. He noticed she had a slight spray of freckles across her nose as well as a pair of semi-round tortoise-shell glasses that were a stark contrast against her pale skin. Black was smeared under her bright blue eyes from left over makeup combined with a little bit of remaining glitter that dusted her warm cheek bones. She looked around the same age as the boy.

"Hey there... I was just wondering if this book was any good. My friend reccomended it but he likes to mess with people," he grinned at her.

Her cheeks flushed pink, "I- I, uh, don't really like it. I mean it's, it's alright but I wouldn't reccomend it to anybody."

He bit his lip and then said, "Well I trust you more than I trust him," and re-shelved the book.

"I- well, this book's really good. I-I don't know what you like but, um, yeah," she handed me a book, her face now flamming red.

He read the title, "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children? I'll check it out."

He flashed a grin and, he didn't know it was possible, her blush deepened and spread down her neck.

"Yeah, um-" she began before being interrupted by another voice somewhere down another hall.

"Charlotte? We have to go!"

"That's my mom, um-" The girl hurriedly grabbed the three books she had been looking at but dropped one. As she bent down to grab it she dropped the two others, letting out a flustered noise. The boy smiled again, set his book on the shelf and gathered them for her. After handing them back, he grinned at her and said, "Later."

Another heat wave hit her face before she turned and left, murmuring thank you.