Leap of Faith

Day Twelve

I felt someone push me from behind before I tumbled to the ground and the contents of my satchel spilling on the floor. I banged me knee as I fell, and the pain travelled up my leg as I refused to curse out loud.

“Sorry,” a mocking voice said behind me as a group of girl sniggered. I didn’t need to turn around to see who was taunting me. “You’re such a klutz, and you’re forever losing thing… especially to me.”

Catherine Addison crouched down next to me and tried to catch my eye. I looked up and let her smirk at me. Sometimes with Catherine Addison it was just easier to give her what she wanted, which is probably why I hadn’t given up much of a fight for Adam back when he cheated and broke up with me.

“Poor little girl,” Catherine poked out her bottom lip in a petulant way and ran her pinky fingers down her cheek from her eyes, mimicking crying. “You really should be more careful, Cate. Oh, and keep away from my man. We all know TJ would never look at a girl like you when he can have me.”

With her parting words, Catherine Addison clicked her fingers and her cronies went running after her. The crowd dispersed but no one came to my rescue, not that I wanted anyone to help me. I was humiliated enough without having to be someone’s damsel in distress.

I gathered my books first because they were the easiest to pick up. My stationary would have to wait at least until most of the senior class had vacated the hallway, because there was no way in Hell I was going to go search them out between the cliques.

I saw my favorite pen lying on the floor just a few feet away and I stretched out my hand just as someone’s foot came down on it, shattering the plastic exterior of the casing. The person who had stood on the pen must have felt the crunch because they quickly moved away from the fragments and crouched down next to me.

“Sorry,” the boy said as he flashed me a weak smile. He helped me gather the rest of my things, even the stationary that hand wandered farther afield, and handed them back to me. When he saw that I didn’t have a pen, he stood up and reached in to his locker, taking out a new and handing it to me. “It’s my version of an apology.”

I laugh at the gesture, but take the pen anyway. “You have nothing to apologize for,” I tell him earnestly. “I dropped my things, so this was all on me.”

The boy, whose name I couldn’t remember, quirked his eyebrow at me and gave me a skeptical look. “So, it had nothing to that airhead that pushed you?”

“You saw that, huh?” I mumble as I drop my head to look at the ground, and blush. From the periphery of my eye I see the boy nod. “It’s not a big deal, really. So and my friend are a thing, and apparently I’m a threat, which is hilarious when you look at her, and then you look at me.”

The boy stares at me with his mouth open and his eyes wide. He frowns, then, and shakes his head before he lets his eyes cast along my body from head to toe and back up again. When his eyes reach mine again, he laughs.

“I just took a pretty good look at you,” he smirks with a glint of mischief in his eye. “I would still choose you over her. I have a thing for red heads. You’re Cate Westbrook, right?”