Read Online Yesterday by C. K. Kelly Martin - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: C. K. Kelly Martin
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still use a ride. It’s real windy out there today.” His name comes to me as he’s trying to sell me on a ride home: Terry. The guys he was hanging out with at the party were calling him something else, a jock nickname I’ve forgotten, but Nicolette introduced him as Terry.
“The cold doesn’t get to me,” I say, because Terry isn’t my type in the first place and in the second, I really don’t want to repeat what happened with Seth.
“So you’re saying you’d rather walk home in the cold than take a ride from me?” Terry recaps like the concept of a girl not being interested in him is a completely foreign one.
“I just don’t want you to get the wrong idea.” I turn to stare Terry straight in the eye. Distracting myself with a guy from school isn’t a workable concept and if it was, I would’ve chosen Seth. Meanwhile, the boy I won’t let myself actively think about is still blinking his green eyes inside my head.
“How do you know it’s the wrong idea if you haven’t given me a chance?” Terry quips, a smarmy grin taking over his face.
My eyebrows slant together in aggravation. “I guess you just have to trust me on that.”
Terry flinches and focuses on the floor. “Wow,” he mutters. “You’re pretty hostile. I think I’m starting to get why Seth dumped you.”
A startled laugh chokes up from my diaphragm. “Is that what he told you?” I smother the impulse to set Terry straight. Who cares what someone I met
once
and have never had a conversation with thinks?
I need to keep my head on straight. I need to keep my problems to myself and not let them bleed into my mother’s and sister’s lives. I need to cement myself in strength and logic, lock my brain into the here and now and forget about dreams and visions. Someone like Terry, I don’t need.
Having made that decision so resolutely, it’s doubly annoying to face a similar situation the very next day with a guy I get paired up with in English class for a short assignment on Greek myths. Kyle’s not a jock or any other obvious thing and I like the sound of his laugh as we joke together about King Minos, Prince Theseus and Princess Ariadne but then he spoils it by telling me how cute I am when I smile. “Well, you’re cute all the time,” he says. “But especially when you smile.” Then he pauses, slouches down in his chair and adds, “Maybe I shouldn’t say this but I was glad when I heard you weren’t with Seth anymore.”
“I was never with Seth,” I correct. Not that it’s anybody’s business.
The guy nods slowly. “Better still.”
I bite down on my pen cap and scan the story of Theseus and the Minotaur as Kyle, in his long-winded and self-deprecating way, proceeds to ask me out. There’s a part in Theseus and the Minotaur where Princess Ariadne writes to Prince Theseus. Her letter begins, “I am a beautiful princess as you probably noticed the minute you saw me.” A couple of minutes ago Kyle and I were kidding around about how conceited Princess Ariadne was to note her own beauty but from my first day at school so many people seemed to have judged me by my appearance.
I’ve gone from being unnerved by it to slightly flattered (on occasion) to feeling straitjacketed by it and when the final bell rings on Friday afternoon I dash for Christine’s locker with a special request. If people can’t get past how I look without a shove, I’ll give them the push they need. Maybe Princess Ariadne was cool with guys fawning over her for the wrong reason but I’m tired of it.
Christine’s head is down and she’s yanking on tall boots with a zillion chunky straps down the front. Her black top hangs on her like a piece of drapery, cinched at the waist and then falling in pleats halfway down her thighs. She doesn’t notice me until I’m right next to her. “Oh, hey, Freya,” she says, glancing up at me. Her shock of heavy black eyeliner highlights the stunning light blue, nearly violet, of her irisesin a way
“The cold doesn’t get to me,” I say, because Terry isn’t my type in the first place and in the second, I really don’t want to repeat what happened with Seth.
“So you’re saying you’d rather walk home in the cold than take a ride from me?” Terry recaps like the concept of a girl not being interested in him is a completely foreign one.
“I just don’t want you to get the wrong idea.” I turn to stare Terry straight in the eye. Distracting myself with a guy from school isn’t a workable concept and if it was, I would’ve chosen Seth. Meanwhile, the boy I won’t let myself actively think about is still blinking his green eyes inside my head.
“How do you know it’s the wrong idea if you haven’t given me a chance?” Terry quips, a smarmy grin taking over his face.
My eyebrows slant together in aggravation. “I guess you just have to trust me on that.”
Terry flinches and focuses on the floor. “Wow,” he mutters. “You’re pretty hostile. I think I’m starting to get why Seth dumped you.”
A startled laugh chokes up from my diaphragm. “Is that what he told you?” I smother the impulse to set Terry straight. Who cares what someone I met
once
and have never had a conversation with thinks?
I need to keep my head on straight. I need to keep my problems to myself and not let them bleed into my mother’s and sister’s lives. I need to cement myself in strength and logic, lock my brain into the here and now and forget about dreams and visions. Someone like Terry, I don’t need.
Having made that decision so resolutely, it’s doubly annoying to face a similar situation the very next day with a guy I get paired up with in English class for a short assignment on Greek myths. Kyle’s not a jock or any other obvious thing and I like the sound of his laugh as we joke together about King Minos, Prince Theseus and Princess Ariadne but then he spoils it by telling me how cute I am when I smile. “Well, you’re cute all the time,” he says. “But especially when you smile.” Then he pauses, slouches down in his chair and adds, “Maybe I shouldn’t say this but I was glad when I heard you weren’t with Seth anymore.”
“I was never with Seth,” I correct. Not that it’s anybody’s business.
The guy nods slowly. “Better still.”
I bite down on my pen cap and scan the story of Theseus and the Minotaur as Kyle, in his long-winded and self-deprecating way, proceeds to ask me out. There’s a part in Theseus and the Minotaur where Princess Ariadne writes to Prince Theseus. Her letter begins, “I am a beautiful princess as you probably noticed the minute you saw me.” A couple of minutes ago Kyle and I were kidding around about how conceited Princess Ariadne was to note her own beauty but from my first day at school so many people seemed to have judged me by my appearance.
I’ve gone from being unnerved by it to slightly flattered (on occasion) to feeling straitjacketed by it and when the final bell rings on Friday afternoon I dash for Christine’s locker with a special request. If people can’t get past how I look without a shove, I’ll give them the push they need. Maybe Princess Ariadne was cool with guys fawning over her for the wrong reason but I’m tired of it.
Christine’s head is down and she’s yanking on tall boots with a zillion chunky straps down the front. Her black top hangs on her like a piece of drapery, cinched at the waist and then falling in pleats halfway down her thighs. She doesn’t notice me until I’m right next to her. “Oh, hey, Freya,” she says, glancing up at me. Her shock of heavy black eyeliner highlights the stunning light blue, nearly violet, of her irisesin a way
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