He was in Calculus and once again, not paying attention. How he coasted through on the grades he had was beyond me.
Also, in Calculus was one of his friends, Mason Tucker. I had tried to keep my feelings about Jagger’s friends well-hidden. Mason was a fellow football player and, to be frank, he was an asshole. He used girls, and what was worse, they let him. They knew he was only after the big “one thing.” Despite that they all thought they would be the one to change him, to make him see the error of his ways. Mason was such a player. The thing was, not all the girls were totally innocent either. Some of them only used Mason to get closer to Jagger. They all wanted to nab my bestie. I couldn’t say I blamed them. He was pretty awesome.
Jagger was a serial non-dater. He would take girls to dances or parties, but he wouldn’t take on a girlfriend. Half the girls in school were crazy about him. They wanted to change his mind, too. It wasn’t very likely, considering he was waiting for me. Knowing that secret was a bit of a power trip, to be honest. The most popular guy in school was saving himself for me. Of course, there were girls who claimed to have been intimate with Jagger, which made me crazy, especially since a few of them weren’t lying. Jagger was, after all, a red-blooded, horny, teenage boy, not a monk. He also wasn’t a virgin.
Unfortunately.
I could own him though, which was precisely why I didn’t. I never wanted to change him, conquer him, or use him as a status symbol. I wanted to curl up on the couch with him in the same room and watch a movie. I wanted to hold his hand. See him waiting for me outside of class, smiling in anticipation of the moment I appeared in the doorway.
Although more than anything I wanted to keep him protected. If we were together, we would have to make a point of speaking out loud for the benefit of others. Wouldn’t it look strange to watch a couple who didn’t speak to each other but yet seemed so in tuned with one another? We would have to train ourselves to look normal to the outside world. I firmly believed our chances of discovery were greater if we were a couple.
I tried not to follow Jagger too closely during the day. I had my own classes to pay attention to. The hardest thing to do was not stare at him in the cafeteria. I sat on the other side of the room, but if I didn’t sit with my back to him, I found that I couldn’t stop looking at him. He sat with the happening crowd, so naturally, people tended to look at him. I could handle some ribbing from friends I sat with about having a crush on Jagger. What I did not want was Jagger to scan the cafeteria, as he often did, and catch me openly staring. It was the same issue I had in the two classes we shared, but that was a little more manageable as I usually sat behind him.
This was my daily life, and it was pretty exhausting.
The cafeteria was my least favorite place to be. Unlike Jagger, I could hear anybody I decided to tune in to. The things teenagers worried about were ridiculous. I had actual problems and did not have time to worry about clothes, hair, and makeup. I was not trying to catch a guy and didn’t care if my usual uniform of jeans and sweaters or t-shirts was or wasn’t acceptable. On the other hand, I did not want to stand out in a bad way either. I’d perfected the art of blending in. It was imperative that I was not remarkable. I showed up to school, went to my classes, did my work, and went home. Occasionally, I stayed after to work on one of my art projects, but I mostly did that at home.
Unlike the other girls who were worried about their hair, clothes, and ability to get a date for the prom, I wasn’t even going. I’d attended Jagger’s games, but that was as far as my extracurricular participation went.
Now, I was listening to Chloe Michaels blather on and on to Jagger about being her date to the dance. She’d wanted to get to him before the other girls, so she cornered him. She had been stalking him all day.
Jagger decided to accept her offer, which was another pinprick on my heart. Each time he did this, it was because he was trying to get a rise out of me. He was hoping if he instilled enough jealousy in me, I would out myself. To be honest, he could be a bit of a jerk like that.
Listen, I never said Jagger was perfect.
Instead of following my normal routine of sitting with my back to him in the cafeteria, I sat directly facing him. It was risky, but I was worried about him today. He was not acting like his normal self.
“And there she goes,” Megan Richards said. “Drooling after Jagger DeWinter.” I shook my attention away from Jagger and back to my friends. I even had the good grace to blush. That was exactly why I usually sat with my back to him—less temptation that way because I could literally look at that beautiful boy all day.
“Girl,” Stacey Martin said. “He is way out of our league.” She turned to look over her shoulder at Jagger’s table. “He’s even out of their league.”
“You’re never going to catch him,” Megan said, sympathetically. “He doesn’t even know you exist.”
Oh, but he did know. Besides if I wanted him to fall to his knees in front of me to claim his undying love and devotion, he would. Not that I would ever make that kind of scene or use his feelings for me that way. I loved him too much for that pettiness. Moreover, that is something that none of these girls will ever have—the love and absolute loyalty of the most popular boy in school.
“It’s a shame, really,” Megan continued, shaking her head. “He’s hot, and by staying in his little group of friends there, he’s missing out on some really great people.” The thing was, lately, Jagger didn’t really like those people very much, but he seemed stuck and unable to break away from them. Who would he go to if he couldn’t come to me? Jagger DeWinter suddenly having no friends? It would be a scandal.
Stacey jumped in next. “It’s like you know if they just gave you a chance, you’d be great friends. But I don’t wear the right clothes so instead I’m weird.”
That was a surprise to me. I didn’t know Stacey longed to be in with the in crowd. With the exception of Jagger, they all appeared pretty shallow and fake to me. I could see into their minds and could say with authority, there was not much going on in there. Not to say that they weren’t intelligent. Some of them were in honors classes and straight A students. Other than that, they constantly thought about boys or girls, clothes, hair, what to wear to the prom or if they should get a limo so they can all ride together.
There was actual depth to Stacey. She was an artist like me, and introverted, which was why I could not understand why she would want to be in with the popular crowd. They were always doing things, going places, and they were really chatty. That wasn’t Stacey’s scene—or at least so I had thought.
Stacey only had me and Megan as friends. There were some people she associated with in her art classes, but she never socialized with them outside of school or sat with them at lunch. I thought about taking a dip into Stacey’s head to see what was up, but I tried very hard not to do that to people I was close with unless I absolutely had to.
I followed a certain set of ethics when deciding whether or not to invade someone’s privacy. Sometimes I found it necessary—and those particular reasons have changed as I have gotten older. Sometimes someone was projecting so loudly I didn’t have any choice. I’ve learned to block things out, so I didn’t go crazy, but I hadn’t learned how to sever a link.