Leap of Faith

Day Twenty-Two

*~*~* Cate *~*~*

My lips are tingly. I’ve yet to decide if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but I can feel the ghost of a kiss on my lips.

I press my fingers against my mouth to rid me of the sensation, but it has the opposite effect. Instead of the tingling subsiding, I can feel it even more and it reminds me of yesterday when TJ… I feel a smile forming on my lips.

When TJ kissed me.

Despite spending most of last night and this morning trying to decipher what the kiss had meant, all I’ve managed to do is overthink everything. The kiss probably meant nothing to him and it was just a way for TJ to get me to shut up. Granted, I had been rambling on and on and on, but there was no need to go and kiss me. I’d already been blindsided by him asking me out on a date. Throw in a pair of warm, soft, sweet lips that really knew how to make a girl go weak at the knees…

God, that kiss was amazing.

I was currently daydreaming in my second period class, so please don’t ask me what the teacher is going on about because I have no idea. All I can hear is distant grumblings, the ticking of the clock and the beat of my heart- which incidentally is beating at a hundred and eighteen beats per minute. Yeah, the after effects of that kiss are still ongoing. Just thinking about it gets me all hot and bothered and distracted.

A knock comes at the door and Miss Wick, Dean Maddox’s secretary, enters, holding out a slip of paper for the teacher. They talk in whispers but every now and then their eyes fall on me. I knew the look on Miss Wick’s face well- it was the one of hardened composure that she wore every time she went to drag our resident bad boy, Maxwell Lennox, to the Dean’s office.

“Catherine Westbrook,” the teacher signaled to me. “Could you make your way to the Dean’s office, please?”

Everyone in class gasps as I start to pick up my books and leave the class. I follow Miss Wick along the hallways and out to the administration building. Miss Wick didn’t speak as we walked and I was grateful that she didn’t feel the need to make conversation to fill the silence. That said, the lack of dialog was making me nervous. I had never been called to the Dean’s office before and I couldn’t tell if this would be a friendly visit, or worse.

Probably the latter seeing as I cut school yesterday. Actually, was that possible? They would have called my parents if they knew I had skipped and neither of them had said anything last night when I arrive home dazed and confused.

“Take a seat there, Catherine,” Miss Wick motioned to a chair just outside the Dean’s office door. “He won’t be long.”

I sat and waited, my hands clasping and unclasping as I tried to steady my nerves. I could hear Dean Maddox shouting at someone from inside his office, but his words all ran into one another so I couldn’t understand much of what was being said. But I could guess that it wasn’t good.

It went quiet all of a sudden and then the door opened. I saw Chris Theoris exit, his face red, bruised and cut with his lip busted and swollen. I gasped and stepped closer to examine the damage, but Chris just glared at me.