Old Wounds (3 page)

“You must be Sophia!” I cringed as I turned to the dark-haired guy with pimples and braces. “I’m Connor.” Good for you. Now what do you want?

“It’s Sophie, actually,” I corrected, deciding that being nice, or at least not being so shitty to everyone, would help with my two priorities of scoring a little weed and finding rides to and from school.

“Do you need help finding your classes?”

I gave him a tight-lipped smile and did my best to calm myself. After all, it was probably fairly irrational to be upset with someone offering me help. “I think I can manage.”

“I can fill you in about Damascus High if you want.”

Seriously? What did I need to be
filled
in about? It was high school, right? There were cheerleaders and jocks, nerds and geeks, thugs and punks, loners and delinquents. I could pick them out all out by myself and certainly didn’t need a pimply puppy following me around. I sighed. “My first class is English.”

Connor peered at my paper in a totally intrusive way, scanning all of my classes, teachers, and room numbers. “Right this way,” he said, as he started to lead me down the same path I’d already been on.

“Hamill! Finally get a girlfriend?”

Again, I cringed. Two minutes standing with this fool and already I was his girlfriend? Scowling, I turned to look at the other boy who came running up. Obviously a jock, but not a first-string jock. Looking at his expensive clothing, I deduced that he probably only made it onto the varsity teams because his daddy was some local Big Name Guy. He had shaggy brown hair that looked like he worked
really
hard to make it look that unruly.

“Oh,” he said, as he took me in, his eyes scanning every part of my body, making me feel like I’d just been visually violated. “Hi. I’m Chris. You’re Sophia the new girl, aren’t you?”

Before I could correct him or even sigh in annoyance over the use of my proper name, Connor smiled at Chris and said, “It’s actually Sophie, and I’m taking her to her first class.”

Chris smirked and took the paper from my hands. My jaw clenched. I hated when people touched my things. “I have English with you. Hamill has Econ, but it’s in the other direction. Come on, I’ll show you.” He scanned the list again. “Oh, we have Horticulture and P.E. together too. Too bad about Reese’s class though, the only open seat is next to—”

“Chris,” the other guy began, “Sophie and I were involved in a very personal conversation which you very rudely interrupted.”

The sleaze smiled at me.

With a frown on my face, I grabbed my schedule back from the idiot named Chris, rolled my eyes at Connor the brainless wonder, and started toward my class. This was exactly what I needed; a dork and a jock already fighting over who could walk me to class.

Neither of them would have a hook up, and even if they drove, I didn’t think I would be able to stand two minutes alone with either one of them.

They both trailed after me, trying to engage me in some form of conversation or another, but I ignored them. It wasn’t until someone ran into me, knocking my bag off my shoulder and my schedule out of my hands, that I stopped and let them catch up.

“Jesus Christ, D-D-Dalton. Can’t you watch where the fuck you’re going?” Chris snarled at the boy who bent down to pick up my fallen bag while Connor ran after my floating schedule. I wondered briefly why Chris had drawn out the kid’s name like that.

The boy looked up, first at Chris and then at me, and froze for a moment. “S-sorry,” he mumbled.

He stood up straight, holding out my bag to me. What the hell was
this
guy doing in Podunk, Maryland? And why the hell did he take shit from the likes of this Chris guy? The Dalton kid was obviously so far superior in every way. His dark, rusty-red hair fell naturally over his eyes like a shield, but managed
not
to look messy. I felt the urge to run my fingers through it just to dishevel it. He had a perfect face, all straight lines, hazel eyes, and long lashes. And he was tall. I was only five foot five, so it wasn’t hard to beat that.

“Why you gotta be such a freak?” Chris kept up, roughly grabbing my bag from Dalton and handing it back to me.

I was just about to tell Chris to knock it the hell off when the biggest high school kid I’d ever seen came around the corner. My eyes widened as I took in the anger etched on his face. He stopped right next to the rusty-haired god with low self-esteem and shot daggers at Chris. Instantly, Chris’s body conveyed his nervousness. On instinct, I stepped away from the three boys, suddenly realizing that Connor had frozen in place behind me.

“What is your problem, Anderson?”

“Um, hey, David,” he said, carefully, his voice quivering as he spoke. “Nothing. Your, uh, your brother just nearly knocked the new girl over and I…”

“Thought calling him a freak would be an appropriate response?” David took another step closer to Chris. This was kind of interesting. The big guy was the rusty guy’s brother, and while Chris seemed to enjoy being a prick to the rusty guy, he was absolutely terrified of the big guy.

I hoped Chris pissed his pants.

I shook my head. What the hell was I doing? Why did I give two shits about the happenings between these people? I had to remember my priorities. The rusty guy seemed absolutely too weak to give me a ride anywhere and I wouldn’t be in a confined space with the big one if someone paid me loads of money
and
weed. Also, neither of them could be dope smokers. I could tell.

Grabbing my schedule from Connor, I walked away, not missing Rusty Dalton’s eyes carefully following my actions.

God, his eyes. They were the most beautiful hazel eyes I’d ever seen.

Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster for Study Hall. I enjoyed Photography a little, but everyone had nicer cameras than I did and it made me jones for some pot even more. I got to the library and took a seat at a vacant table. No one else seemed to be here yet. I was hungry, so I quickly checked my blood sugar, trying to be discreet about it, before I pulled out my bottle of water and Pop-Tart. Ah, the snack of champions.

Before I knew what was happening, the empty table I was sitting at filled up with people I had seen in various classes. If that didn’t sour my mood, Chris sitting down next to me surely took my mood from sour to unbelievably tart and acidic. Suddenly a girl started whispering, “Oh my God, Sophie, I cannot believe that we haven’t had a chance to talk yet. You’re in my English and Calc classes. I’m Megan. Connor said you like Sophie rather than Sophia, and I totally agree; there’s something just so beautiful about the name Sophie and something so stuffy about Sophia.”

I turned to the girl sitting on the other side of Chris. Jesus, she could talk, but I couldn’t remember her from even one of my morning classes, let alone two. “Hi.”

Her eyes widened as if she was shocked that I acknowledged her. “So, how do you like Damascus? Are you getting around okay? It must suck to have your dad drive you around. If you want, I can take you. I have a Honda. It kind of sucks, but I think my parents are planning to get me something new when I graduate. Too bad that’s a year and a half away, right?”

I smiled, but scanned the other people in the library. I stopped at the table where Rusty Dalton was sitting with Big Dalton. There were several other people sitting with them: A beautiful strawberry-blonde, obviously a cheerleader, hanging all over Big Dalton. Another girl who looked like one of those waifish models. She wasn’t short, but not really tall either; thin, but not skinny. She had about six earrings in each lobe, and an industrial piercing through the cartilage of her right ear. I couldn’t see if she had any other piercings, but she definitely seemed edgy for Damascus. Also, I liked her hair. It was so different for this little town, with big white frosted streaks cutting through the jet black. She was holding hands with a tall, lean boy who was laughing at something. There were two other cheerleaders and three more jocks sitting with them.

Rusty looked so uncomfortable.

“I see you’ve discovered the Daltons and their entourage. Everyone loves David and David only loves Rebecca. The weirdo with the crazy hair’s Jane. She’s spastic. They say her name’s Jane because she’s a Jane Doe. You know, like, she doesn’t have a real family or whatever. David and Elliott are her adopted brothers. Someone said she was rescued, or whatever, from some hill-billy family up in the mountains, but I don’t think that’s true. That’s her boyfriend next to her, Trent Cooper. He is like,
so
hot, but a total hellion. His mother works with my father and he says that ‘he cannot be controlled,’ and goes on and on about how horrible it is for a single woman to have to deal with that. The guy next to him is Christian and let me tell you, he’s anything
but
a Christian. The girl next to him is Kelly and she tells
everyone everything
he does with her. Like I said, positively sinful. See the black guy with the green eyes? Yeah, contacts, but he’s
totally
fine, don’t you think?”

I had no time to answer because she kept right on going.

“Then there’s Jackie,” she said, her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper now, “She’s
real
friendly with everyone on the football team, if you know what I mean. And there’s Luke, so sexy, but he got Heather McCormick pregnant last year, so he’s kinda, sorta on the outs with most of the girls. He said it wasn’t his, but everyone can see those blue eyes on that baby.”

There was one person Megan didn’t even mention. “Who’s the redhead?”

A strange smile spread over her features. “Oh, that’s Elliott. He’s—”

“The freakiest one in a big bunch of freaks,” a blonde-haired girl next to Megan interrupted. Instantly, I didn’t like her.

“Thank you!” Chris exclaimed. “They’re all crazy or messed up in some way. That’s why they flock together like that.”

“Didn’t you and Elliott have a
thing
?” the blonde asked Megan.

Megan immediately blushed. “Oh yeah. For being a big freak, he’s very skilled. It must be those musician’s hands. Jackie says that Becca says whenever she’s over, he’s always playing music in his room.” My eyes trailed down Rusty Dalton’s body until they reached his hands. They weren’t overly large, yet the fingers were long and slender. I supposed they would be good for playing instruments. “No need for him to talk when there’s so many more interesting things to do with his mouth.”

Chris rolled his eyes and lightly shoved Megan. “Whatever.”

“Oh, don’t be jealous, Chris, you know I prefer you in the sack.”

“Ew,” another girl with a jagged haircut said, obviously feeling like I did, that we were venturing into the realm of too much information. I didn’t want to know who was screwing who here.

I turned my focus to a table where all the occupants were males. One of them was incredibly big, almost as big as David. “Who’s that guy?” I asked, letting my eyes point the way. “The big one?”

“Oh,” Megan’s voice fell into a conspiratorial whisper. “That’s Jason Fox.” For whatever reason, the name seemed oddly familiar. “Total druggie.”

That was all I needed to know. I tucked my water bottle back into my bag and stood up, looking around to see if the librarian was about to tell me to sit down again. “Where are you going, Sophie?” Chris asked, his voice anxious.

“Um…” I couldn’t find anything to say, so I just shrugged and took off, making a quick line to Jason Fox. I could feel everyone’s eyes on me as I did.

“Hey,” I said, drawing upon all of my confidence. What did I care what these people thought? None of them knew me.

Jason looked up at me, his deep blue eyes narrowing as he studied my face. Damn, he was kind of intimidating, even if he was wearing a dirty hippie Bob Marley shirt. “Hey,” was all he said. His dusty blond hair wasn’t long, but I couldn’t exactly call it short either, and man, people said my eyes were piercing blue, but this kid might have me beat.

He
had
to know that I was Sophie, the “new girl.” That he didn’t seem as happy or shocked to be speaking with me as everyone else in the school had, made me a little nervous. I shifted on my feet, shoving my bag back up on my shoulder. “Can I talk to you?”

He continued to study me. “About what?”

Ass. I knew he was holding. I could just tell. “About your shirt,” I said, using the snottiest voice I could as I narrowed my eyes back at him.