The Understorey Book One of The Leaving Series Read online

  “Sweetheart. There’s something wrong.”

  “No, mama. There isn’t.”

  “I wasn’t askin’ Elliott. I was tellin’.”

  I remained quiet.

  “You’ve been mopin’ around here for the past few weeks darlin’ and I wanna’ know why. You’re really starting to worry me. So, spill. Is it school?”

  “No, mama. It’s not school. It’s a student at school.”

  “Hmm. I’m having trouble imagining my six foot four mammoth of a son would have a problem with anyone,” she laughed.

  When I didn’t say anything, she kept on.

  “Well does your mama need to call his mama?” She teased, poking me in the ribs.

  We both laughed.

  “No, that’s okay. Seriously. It’s okay. I’m gonna’ fix it. Come Monday, come hell or high water. I’m going to fix it.”

  “Well good son.” She tapped me on the leg before lifting herself off the bed. “Come on, it’s time for dinner. Oh, and Elliott? Remember, you never throw the first punch boy. That’s the rule. Just a reminder.”

  “It won’t come to that mom. Trust me.”

  I was beginning to scare myself. It was time to do something about my obsession.

  Chapter Two

  With Everything I Have

  These were the days that changed my heart.

  I remember it all so vividly.

  Elliott Gray was hovering above me. He’s speaking to me but I’m too mortified by the fact that I’ve run into my mom’s best friend and my math teacher, then slipped on the worksheets she was carrying, to listen.

  Not to mention the fact that there is some freaky things happening between the two of us that I just can’t seem to put my finger on. He is affecting me and I never asked him to do this. I’m losing control. I never lose control.

  “Huh?” I intelligently ask.

  “I said, you should do shampoo commercials, Jules,” he teases, holding out his hand.

  “Yeah. Right,” I say, refusing his hand. That was rude. Dang it, I hate being impolite. I’m better than that, even if it is Elliott Gray. “Thanks for the compliment, though.” There, remedied that little issue.

  Suddenly, I remember that Mrs. Kitt was cleaning up a mess that I helped make, by herself.

  “I’m so sorry Mrs. Kitt! I wasn’t paying attention and........”

  I knelt down and began gathering the loose worksheets. Elliott Gray helps me but I don’t think he’s paying attention to his task because he’s just pooling them into a disheveled pile at his knees. I avoid eye contact, hoping not to catch his unbelievably blue eyes because I’ll betray myself if I do that. I just know I’d end up smiling like the dope I am if those eyes met mine.

  You don’t like him Julia Jacobs. You haven’t suddenly developed a crush on your childhood friend. This is Elliott Gray. He used to shove tadpoles down your shirt when you were little. He denied your existence in junior high, breaking your heart. He’s well-liked and you’re, well, hated by almost everyone here. Ha!

  I try not to remember how badly he broke my heart all those years ago. Later, stupidly much later, I realized that the blinding pain that resided in my chest at the time was caused by his absence. I even went so far as to ask mom to make a doctor’s appointment for me, that’s how painful it was. She didn't. I shudder to think. That would have been embarrassing. I never fully recovered by the way. It’s a pathetic thing to admit but I can’t lie to myself no matter how badly I want to.

  I reach for a worksheet but Elliott’s hands sweep toward mine so quickly I don’t have time to pull away. When our fingers brush, a sparkling flash of warmth instantly relaxes me. My eyes begin to droop in sleep. The blazing electricity dances around our bodies and climbs the walls around us. I yank my hand from his and the anxiety I was feeling fills my chest again but with it brought a new sensation, fear.

  We sit and stare at one another. Explain. Tell me it’s nothing, I silently plea. I begin to open my mouth to ask him what happened but instead Mrs. Kitt asks us to return to our seats. I peer over my shoulder and notice the entire class is trying to read our silent expressions. When we stand, the class shouts in laughs and taunts. I’m scared out of my mind. I know he’s going to want to talk to me after class but I cannot let this happen. I cannot let him near me.

  When the bell rings, I gather my books and haul towards the door. He chases me.

  “Jules!” He yells.

  “My name isn’t Jules. It’s Julia,” I yell back.

  “Julia, stop running will ya’?”

  “Why?” I ask, curious to hear his response. Curiosity killed the cat Julia.

  “Because it’s hard to run and talk?”

  Not the answer I’m looking for. I want him to say something like, ‘because I’m scared and not sure what do to’ or ‘I need you to forgive me our past and move forward with me into what seems like an obvious future together’. What? Too much?

  “Well, you see, I don’t want to talk,” I say, “I guess that means I can run all I want.” I know this is rude, but I push down the guilt. I’m denying my instincts with everything I have because if I didn’t, I’d have grabbed Elliott’s hands the second I saw him standing with Jesse Thomas and wrapped my own inside them, refusing to let go ever, and that to me, is a dangerous, dangerous idea.

  “Wait a minute!” He says.

  He pulls my body short by grabbing my arm. The lightning from earlier is definitely not a coincidence. He yanks back his hand and I flee for the lunchroom. I hope and pray that he will not approach me while at lunch. I need some time to decide what to do, to decipher what our heated physical reaction is. I go to the table in the corner that I camped out alone at all of the year prior, sit down and use my feet to pull a nearby chair closer to my body before reclining them on top of the seat. I whip out my old friend George Orwell and desperately try to escape into Big Brother’s world.

  From the corner of my eye, I see Elliott enter the cafeteria. I hold my breath in anticipation, my body wound tight, every muscle contracted. He sits with the rest of the football crowd that shares a table with the asinine cheerleaders.

  I release my breath but my heart continues to pound. I peek at their table and Taylor Williams, head cheerleader, a.k.a. the ringleader of the dumb squad, glares me down. She’s heard about my little encounter with Elliott no doubt and now I’ve begun the year doubly hated by her, I’m sure. When we were younger, I was actually friends with many of the cheerleaders including Taylor but then I got ‘weird’, quote-unquote, according to them and they were no longer interested in tainting their reputation with association. They’re all a really classy bunch, let me tell ya’.

  I feel eyes on the back of my head and turn towards Elliott’s table. He’s staring. He smiles crookedly, an undeniably adorable thing and waves. No doubt Taylor will make me pay for that later, I think. I want to jump up and lead Elliott away from the cafeteria but ignore this impulsive need and instead roll my eyes at him. There’s a double advantage to my reaction, like, maybe Taylor won’t take Elliott’s behavior out on me kind of advantage. I shift so the back of my chair faces him to send a clear message and sink my nose further into my book, a serious attempt to hide my genuine facial expressions. I cannot let him see how badly I want him to talk to me. It would only lead to heartache. I’m not strong enough to survive another heartbreak.

  I lay my elbow on the table and absently loop a strand of hair through my fingers. I feel a sudden suspicious heat creep from the middle of my chest and out towards my arms, through my stomach and then my legs. He’s mad at me, I think. I don’t know how I know this but I can say with absolute certainty that I’ve offended him. I sit up straight at the comprehension of it and sigh in disappointment; disappointment, strangely, in myself for letting him down. I’m scared of these automatic responses toward him.

  Acid bubbles in my stomach. I feel an overwhelming compulsion to flee. I must get away from him. I have to stop these involuntary answers or I’m certain
I will lose my heart. My heart is the one thing I am determined to safeguard. To protect it means I will never hurt again. Ever.

  I stand and gather my belongings. I glance his direction and notice that he’s distracted by Jesse Thomas. Perfect, I think. I run. I run and run and burst through the double doors. I find a tile pillar and take refuge behind it, panting from the exertion. I hear him toss open the double doors and still, holding a breath in my already burning lungs. I can almost feel the disappointment roll off his shoulders before he retreats back to the cafeteria. I peer down at the floor and see his pain roll past me, ethereal jumbles of invisible smoke that toss and tumble against the linoleum. I breathe one in. Elliott’s disappointment smells and tastes alkaline, like putting my tongue to the end of a battery. It makes me exceedingly uncomfortable.

  That night, I sit at my dining room table with my parents for dinner. The crushing formality of the entire process is exhausting. It’s my mother’s doing. She’s a lovely woman but incredibly particular when it comes to traditions and daughterly expectations. I love her but she is stifling. My father, on the other hand, makes life more than tolerable. He is sweet and loving and oh so very funny.

  “How was your day today darling?” My mother asks, before quietly correcting my behavior, “Elbows.”

  I remove my elbows from the table.

  “Sorry. It was fine mom, uneventful.”

  “You’re lying,” my dad cleverly catches on. No one knows me like my pop.

  I smile.

  “Okay, so something did happen today. I mean, besides the obvious taunting and teasing and hair pulling,” I tease.

  “Of course, of course,” my dad chuckles. “Alright kid. Spill,” he says, leaning into the back of his chair.

  I hesitate, “I’m too frightened to speak of it honestly.”

  His eyes brighten and he sits back up, alert.

  “Did something happen? Did someone hurt you?” He insists.

  “No,” I laugh, “nothing like that. Sorry, that was a bit dramatic. What I meant, is that I’m not exactly sure what happened today.”

  My dad settles down and my mom lets out the breath she was holding. Overprotective? Yes. I can't complain though. They love me.

  “Okay,” my mom says, “just try the best you can to explain my love.”

  I breathe deeply. I can't decide if revealing the whole shebang is exactly within the parameters of what they would consider sane, so I tone down everything that actually happened.

  “Elliott Gray,” I begin, but before I can continue my mother sucks in a quick breath.

  “No darling. No. You cannot befriend him. I will not sit by idly while he makes a fool of you again.”

  “But mom, he doesn’t know the reason I’ve been isolated by my classmates.” I pause, hating to admit it out loud. I barely whisper the rest, “He doesn’t know it’s because of him.”

  “No one could be that dense,” my mother says.

  “I don’t know,” my dad laughs, “boys are clueless when it comes to those things.”

  “Exactly,” I agree, “I’m one hundred percent positive that he is completely unaware. Besides, I never said I would befriend him again. In fact, I can almost guarantee you I will not.”

  My mother breathes easily.

  “Well, in that case, continue.”

  I sneak a grin at my dad.

  “Okay, the easiest way I can explain it is that whenever I am in the presence of Elliott I become acutely aware of myself as well as him, that I am especially attuned to him. I feel things around him that I know are abnormal and I know he feels them as well.”

  I'm deliberately vague. They wouldn't believe the details anyway. My dad laughs.

  “Oh Julia, that’s just hormones. You’re attracted to one another! Have you never been attracted to someone before?”

  I don’t blush at this as normal girls would probably do. My family is strangely open about such subjects.

  “Never like this dad. Never like this.”

  At school, I arrive at the last possible minute to avoid him. I somehow know he’ll be looking for me and want to avoid him even at the risk of being late. I stride down the main hall and catch him lingering near the main lobby. I took a back entrance hoping he would do just that. I run to my locker for the pencil case I left on accident the day before only to come upon the strangest thing.

  The entire front of my locker is a giant painting of intricate flowers but flowers you’ve never seen before, flowers that don’t exist in nature. Striped flowers, black flowers, oddly shaped flowers. Only flowers you would find, in say, a Tim Burton film. I’m a bit taken back by it and cannot understand for the life of me who would have done this. It was as if they knew everything I would have liked and filled it all in, every nook and cranny was covered. No way. No way. I wish I could stay there and admire the workmanship but I don’t have time and am forced to slip into my French class with only three minutes to spare. I arrive unnoticed, except by Sawyer Tuttle.

  “Hey Julia,” he says.

  I grab the seat next to him and throw my satchel on the ground at my feet.

  “Hey Sawyer.”

  He frowns, but not in sadness, in contemplation.

  “How come you never call me Tut? Like everybody else?”

  “That's a strange question to ask all of a sudden. I don’t know, maybe because you never looked like much of a ‘Tut’. To me, you’ve always been Sawyer. Plus, when do I do anything that everybody else around here does?”

  “Hmm,” he says, but I don’t know how to interpret this. I don’t take the trouble to ask either. My mind is occupied elsewhere. I’m anxious for the bell to ring, to make sure he isn’t in this class.

  “Waiting on someone?” Sawyer asks.

  “Huh? Me? No. Why?”

  “Just asking. You keep staring at the door.”

  “I do? I mean, I am. I wasn’t waiting on someone. No, more like hoping someone doesn’t walk through the door. Get my drift?”

  “Yeah,” he laughs. “So, did you have a fun summer?”

  “Uh yeah. I guess we didn't talk all that much did we?” I answer, slightly distracted by the fact that Elliott hasn’t entered the door yet. Why am I expecting him to enter the door? “I did. I mean, I didn’t really do all that much. Honestly? The boat trip our families made together at the beginning of the summer was the most exhilarating part of the entire thing.”

  “Really? It must have been a lame summer then.”

  We both laugh. I don’t mention the other thing that happened over the summer. It’s understood that we don’t talk about that thing.

  “Kind of. You could have come over you know? Maybe we should have gone wakeboarding on the lake again. I might have improved with time.”

  “I don’t know,” he teasingly sings. “Actually, you weren’t half bad. At least you got up on your board.”

  “Yeah, only took me what? Like fifty times?”

  We both laugh again but it’s drowned out by the tardy bell. Huh. I ignore the sinking feeling in the bottom of my stomach. You don’t want him Julia. You can’t want him.

  Elliott isn’t in second period U.S. History either and I try to swallow down the insaneness that is my wanting to know where he is all the time. I’ve discovered this insatiable appetite for the knowledge of his whereabouts. I bury these feelings. I delude myself into thinking it’s only a temporary effect of the electricity, the fluke. Only temporary.

  At lunch, I lazily stroll through the cafeteria doors darting my eyes at the football table. He wasn’t there. I scold myself for not feeling relief. I sit at my table alone, again, not that I’m not used to that or anything. My best friend is my cousin Caroline but she’s traveling across the country with her dance troupe and I haven’t talked to her in over a week which is sort of rare. She must be busy. She visits often but only in between gigs. I miss her so much. It’s hard not having her near. I find myself alone at home a lot, reading. The only other person who will even talk to me in this t
own, besides the adults, is Sawyer Tuttle and even that’s on rare occasions.

  Elliott doesn’t know this, but the reason I’m as alone in this town as I am is indirectly because of him. My mom blames him and everything but there are a few details that I’ve purposely left out. If I told her the whole story, she would just flip out on this town and that wouldn’t be good for anyone, especially me. No sense in making the black sheep any blacker.

  The truth is, Elliott started ignoring me in junior high. For whatever reason that was, he ignored me. One day, we were riding our bikes to the creek, laughing, listening to music. The next day, I didn’t exist. It broke my heart. He was my best friend, then nothing. I admit, I became sort of an introvert at first as a result of the slight and it’s also why my mom thinks I stayed that way but in reality I stayed that way because I needed somewhere to sit at lunch and was forced to associate with the cheerleaders I was sort of friends with at the time. Wait, it becomes clear, read on.

  These friendships of convenience were short lived because the girls found my personality ‘disconcerting’. I had no interest in cheering, the color pink, or any of the noise they liked to call ‘music’ but the kicker was when Taylor Williams developed her never ending crush obsession on Elliott Gray. She tried her darndest but he wasn’t noticing her and that meant there had to be a reason why.

  Apparently, according to Taylor, I was that reason. I may have even survived my complete lack of identifying within this social circle had I never been friends with Elliott in the first place because when Taylor found out that Elliott ‘dumped’ me as his friend she felt guilty by association. That meant I was the contaminant that needed flushing. Long story short, Elliott’s dumping of me was her cue to do the same. You know, a show of solidarity and obviously after that Elliott fell madly in love with her right? Anyway, they are the reason I decided that the only one I could count on was, well, myself. It is the reason I’m a loner.