When Summer Ends (9 page)

‘Hey
Cutie, missed U last night x’

I grinned and text him back that I’d missed him too. We
hadn’t spoken much yesterday, actually, we’d spent almost the whole afternoon
in his bed, barely saying a word to each other.

I pushed myself up out of the bed reluctantly and took a
long shower. My day got even more glum as I remembered I couldn’t even see him
tonight as he was going out with his brother, so I would have to wait a full
thirty-six hours and see him tomorrow night instead. I sighed and pulled on a
pair of high waist Miss Sixty jeans and a black short sleeve top which I tucked
in, I pulled on a pair of red ankle boots with an open toe and looked at myself
in the mirror, smiling my the outfit choice. I wasn’t really one that fussed
about my appearance that much, so didn’t bother with any make-up. I left my
hair down, platting my bangs and clipping them to the side. Once I was
satisfied that I was as good as I was going to look, I headed downstairs for
breakfast. My mom was cooking waffles and bacon the same as she did on the
first day of every school year.

“Hey, honey, oh you look beautiful,” she gushed, smiling at
me happily.

I laughed uncomfortably. ‘Beautiful’ wasn’t exactly a term
that I applied to myself; though lately I had started to feel prettier all because
of the way Will seemed to view me. When he looked at me with those adoring
eyes, it was very hard not to feel special. He’d definitely boosted my self-confidence
up a few levels.

“You have to say that, you’re my mom,” I replied.

She smiled and set down a plate of waffles. “No I don’t,”
she rebutted. “Anyway, here, I made waffles as per tradition.”

I forced a smile, pulling out a stool from under the counter
and sitting. I tried not to groan when I looked down at the mountain of food. I
wasn’t even remotely hungry. I held in my heavy sigh and picked up my knife and
fork. I resisted the urge to pout as I pushed the food round on my plate like a
lovesick puppy, pining for my boyfriend that I wouldn’t see for a day and a
half. It didn’t sound a terribly long time when said that way, but it was
actually the longest time I had spent away from him since we met. 

My mom sat down next to me with her breakfast. “So, are you
still bringing Will to meet us on Saturday?” she asked, smiling happily.

I felt a little thrill go through me at the mere mention of
his name. I nodded, grinning. Will had finally plucked up the courage to want
to meet my dad, so we had arranged for him to come over for a barbeque on
Saturday afternoon. My friends were coming too; they still hadn’t even met him
because I wanted to keep him all to myself for a little while before we
integrated into the social network of my friends. I also didn’t want them to
embarrass me and say something that would make him run away from me screaming.

A horn blasted from out the front. I smiled, grateful for
the fact that I didn’t have to force down the rest of my waffles. I jumped up quickly,
scraping my plate into the trash before kissing my mom on the cheek. “See you
after school,” I called over my shoulder, grabbing my bag and running from the
house to Amy’s waiting car.

As soon as I was inside, she was talking. She was
ridiculously eager for school to start again; she wanted to find a new
boyfriend. “So what do you think, will there be any hot transfer students this
year?” she asked excitedly as she drove the fifteen minutes to school.

I shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe. If there is you’d better
get in there quick before I do,” I joked, winking at her.

She smirked at me. “And what would Mr Perfect say if he heard
you talking like that?”

I grinned, I didn’t even need to think about how to answer
that question, I already knew what his answer would be. “He’d say;
‘damn, Cutie,
I must need to step up my game if you’re looking at other guys’
or
something like that anyway,” I said, grinning as I tried to do an impression of
his silky voice.

Amy laughed and shook her head. “I can’t wait to meet him. I
love that he calls you Cutie, that’s so sweet.” She sighed dreamily. “I want my
own Mr Perfect.”

“Maybe you’ll meet yours today,” I suggested as we pulled
into the parking lot.

“I hope so.” She cut the engine, grabbed her bag from the
back and swung her long legs out of the car. As soon as we were out we were
both attacked into hugs by friends and people that we hadn’t seen for weeks.
Excited chatter started as everyone exchanged summer stories.  

After a few minutes, Amy and I excused ourselves and went to
get our schedules from the office. I cast my eyes over mine quickly. Everything
looked all right, apart from the fact that I had gym first and calculus last,
which totally sucked. I hated calculus and was seriously failing last year,
actually to the point where I had to be buddied with someone to help me. To say
that was an embarrassing experience would be a massive understatement. Some
people just weren’t meant to learn math, and I was undeniably one of them.

A quick glance at Amy’s schedule showed that we had exactly
the same. I squealed with excitement that I would at least have her there too.
Hmm,
maybe she can help me with the stupid math.
“We have the exact same
schedule!” I cried.

She grinned. “Awesome! See, senior year is going to be great,
I can feel it.” She linked her arm through mine as we made our way to the gym.

Luckily, as it was our first day and no one had their gym
uniform, we were to ‘discuss our expectations of the subject and what we wanted
to achieve this year in gym class’ which essentially meant a free period to
hang out and catch up with all of the gossip over the summer.

At lunchtime, I headed over to the table of my friends and
spotted Nick, my ex-boyfriend, standing there chatting to Matt, one of my other
friends. Nick had gotten cuter over the summer; his face had lost some of the
roundness. He looked like he’d grown up a lot. His light brown hair was longer
and a little scruffy around the neck, but looked stylishly messy. His brown
eyes still held that little twinkle that I remembered so well. If I hadn’t met
Will, I would totally be thinking twice about breaking up with him at the start
of the summer.

“Hey, Chloe,” he greeted, pulling me into a hug. “You look
good,” he said as he pulled back, letting his eyes drag down me slowly.

I shifted uncomfortably on my feet. “Hey, Nick. How was your
summer?”

He shrugged, a frown lining his forehead. “It was okay, you
know,” he replied, seeming a little sad.  

Guilt flowed through my body because I was obviously
responsible for his sad expression. Nick was a genuinely nice guy, but he just
wasn’t right for me. We’d been friends for a few years, then started dating
last year. The relationship lasted just over six months before I realised it
wasn’t working for me and broke it off at the start of summer. He was actually extremely
upset about it at the time, and obviously still was.

“Yeah,” I gulped.
Man this is awkward. Please let us get
past this uncomfortable stage
! “We can sit together, right?” I asked,
hoping he would say yes. I didn’t want to chase him off out of our group of
friends, and I didn’t want to have to leave either.

He nodded quickly, pulling out a chair for me, and then
sitting in the one next to it. “Yeah, of course,” he answered. I smiled and
felt my body relax. “I was just telling Matt about my disastrous morning,” he stated,
turning his nose up distastefully.

I sat down in the chair he’d pulled out for me, ripping open
my sandwich. “What’s so bad about it?” I asked, eating quickly.

He sighed dramatically. “My schedule sucks big time. I went
to the office to try and change it, which made me late for Biology, so I now
have a detention after school. I forgot my locker combination so I didn’t take
the right books to English, so now I have to do an essay tonight about ‘the
importance of bringing the right reading materials to class’,” he grumbled,
crossing his arms in frustration.

I smiled. “You got a detention from your first class? Surely
that’s some type of record for the school,” I teased. “Maybe you’ll have your
name immortalised in the book of delinquents. You should be proud.”

He made a scoffing noise in the back of his throat. “Ha ha.
I forgot how funny you were… not.” He jabbed his finger into my ribs playfully.
I squealed and jerked away quickly. “At least calculus was okay, we didn’t do
anything at all. The new teacher is pretty cool, even though all the girls were
drooling over him instead of me,” he said, looking a little put out.

“Oh are you talking about the new calculus teacher?” Emily
interjected. A dreamy expression crossed her face. “Oh my goodness he is so hot
I swear I almost climaxed just listening to him talk,” she gushed, fanning her
face dramatically. Practically every boy at the table puffed out their chests
unconsciously.

I burst out laughing as other girls started joining in with
the hot comments, gossiping about how calculus was now their new favourite
subject. Some of the sluttier girls were planning how they could get themselves
in trouble just so they could hear him shout at them in his sexy voice.
Pathetic.

Amy groaned. “Oh man, and we don’t have it until the end of
the day! I want to look at him too,” she whined, standing up and grabbing her
empty food cartons.

I linked my arm through hers. “Come on, the bells about to
ring and I need to get my Spanish books from my locker. You can see the hot new
teacher in two classes’ time,” I insisted, rolling my eyes and pulling her away
from the table, throwing my bottle and sandwich wrapper in the trash can on the
way past.

The rest of the afternoon passed the same, people were gossiping
in the hallways, fantasising about the hot young teacher falling in love with
them. I didn’t join in with it, to be honest it all seemed a little ridiculous
to me. But then again, maybe I would have been joining in with them if I didn’t
have the perfect boyfriend already. I had gotten a little homework already but
not too much, so I would still be able to spend an hour on the phone with Will
tonight before he met up with Sam.

For the last lesson of the day, I made my way to calculus
and sat in the middle row with Amy. She was practically bouncing in her seat
with excitement. I looked around the room, noticing that girls were fixing
their hair and applying fresh lipstick. I sighed, slumped down in my seat and waited
for the most painful hour of my life to start. Hopefully he wouldn’t single me
out for any answers and then I could just speak to him after class about how
disastrous this subject was for me. If he was nice, then maybe he would be a
little lenient this year.

After a couple of minutes, the door opened. Immediately the
girls in the room sat up straighter, smirking at each other with wide hungry eyes,
whispering and giggling. Amy elbowed me roughly in the ribs making me hiss
through my teeth at the sudden pain.

I looked up to the front of the classroom, curious to see
what all the fuss was about. My curious eyes landed on Will. He was standing there,
smiling, seeming a little nervous. He looked handsome as ever in black pants
and a short sleeve white button down shirt.

Panic rose in my chest.
Why the hell is he here? Has
something horrible happened to my parents, and he’s come to collect me and take
me to the hospital?

Just as I started to stand, he spoke. “Okay class, settle
down and let’s get this show on the road so you can all go home,” he said in
his sexy voice.

I looked at him, shocked.
Class? What the hell?
I was
half out of my seat, frozen in place as realisation suddenly washed over me
like a bucket of cold water. My boyfriend was the hot new teacher that everyone
was swooning over. I couldn’t breathe. His eyes roamed the room and met mine. I
saw his easy smile fall from his lips. His eyes widened in shock as his whole
body tensed up.

Chapter Five

I stood there looking at him for hours, well, it felt like
hours, but in reality, it was probably only a couple of seconds.
This has to
be some kind of sick joke or something. He’s a bartender and works as a ski
instructor, he isn’t a teacher. He especially can’t be my teacher, that’s
impossible.
I still hadn’t taken a breath and my lungs started to burn.

“What are you doing?” Amy hissed, grabbing my hand and
pulling me back into my chair, giggling.

I couldn’t look away from him; he was just staring at me
with wide eyes. Suddenly his face tightened, his eyebrows knitted together and
his teeth snapped together with an audible click. His eyes turned hard, his
stare boring into me making my blood seem to turn to ice in my veins. I
flinched.
Is he angry at me? What possible reason does he have for being mad
at me? This isn’t my fault.

He composed himself a lot quicker than I did. He looked away
from me, moving to his desk. “So I’m Mr Morris, I’ll be taking over from Ms
Patterson this year,” he said confidently as he looked over the class. I
noticed his eyes skipped over me without so much as a hint of recognition. It
made my heart race.

This really can’t be happening to me, I knew this was too
perfect, I knew something would come along to ruin it.

“Obviously with me being new here, and this being your first
day back, we don’t want to actually do any work today, right?” he asked,
smirking at the class. Everyone nodded eagerly. The girls were watching him
with dreamy expressions, the boys slapping each other high fives. “So, how
about we play a little getting to know you game? You each get one question for
me, and I get one question for you,” he suggested, perching on the edge of his
desk, flicking his head to get his hair away from his eyes. “So who wants to go
first, or should we just start at the front and work our way through?” He
smiled his sexy little smile, gaining him flirtatious smiles in return. He
nodded to a girl who was sitting in the front row who immediately blushed and
smiled. I shifted on my seat, fighting the urge to go and rip her head off. “Just
tell me your name then ask your question.”