Page 1 of Sweet Tooth
1
Jessica – The First Day
The day I met him was just like any other. There was no clue what life had in store for me. Nor did I figure my life was in for much of a change.
I figured I would remain the uninteresting high school junior I saw myself as. The one who was curvier than she’d like, and definitely quieter than she’d like. The girl with evergreen eyes and red-brown hair that went into waves when it wanted to cooperate, and flyaway frazzles when it didn’t. The girl who hated giving oral presentations almost as much as she hated history.
And today, of course, I was two for two: an oral presentation on history.
As I made my way to the front, my freshly painted nails dug into my cardigan pocket to come upon a worrying discovery.
“Uh, just hang on a sec,” I said, beelining back to my backpack. Already my brain was clicking through everything I’d done the past day – got up, got dressed, ate three bowls of Honey Nut Cheerios, and I did pack the cue cards in my bag, hadn’t I?
As I rifled through every big, small, and in between pocket in my backpack, the answer became increasingly clear: they weren’t there.
Miss Weiner cleared her throat.
“Sorry,” I said, straightening up. “I can’t find my cue cards. Is it ok if I just do it tomorrow?”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” she said simply.
“But…” I gaped at her, thunderstruck. With her pop quizzes and headache-inducing assignments and tendency to drone like an old addled-mind conspiracy theorist, I’d never exactly liked Miss Weiner. But this?
“You can do this,” Tamara whispered.
And that was when I realized that the entire class was staring at me. None of the usual half-attention, covert phone checking, and dull staring off into the space reserved for Miss Weiner’s lessons, no. At the prospect of my public humiliation, every last stupid classmate of mine was absolutely riveted.
Miss Weiner’s voice rang tonelessly into the haze that had descended over my mind. “If you do not present today, your assignment will be marked as incomplete.”
Unfortunately, I would probably get worse if I chucked the contents of my pencil case at her stupid sandy bowl-cut, egg-shaped head.
The walk up to the front seemed to take an eternity. Every footfall seemed to echo. Although nothing was louder than the certainty in my chest. The one that repeated itself every time I tried to take a breath of fresh air.
You can’t do this. There’s no way.
And there wasn’t really. I hadn’t bothered memorizing the ten or so cue cards I’d prepared for my presentation. Not by a long shot. It wasn’t like the War of 1812 was top of my Very Interesting List.
Now I was at the front of the room, facing twenty-odd hungry, expectant eyes. They knew what was coming. So did I.
Don’t choke, the voice in my head laughed. You can’t do this. There’s no way.
Tamara smiled tentatively at me, Miss Weiner cleared her throat again, and it was time for me to begin.
I fixed my attention on the wall directly ahead of me, where a crumpled 72 Resolutions reproduction lay impassively.
“The war of 1812…” I began.
Think, c’mon Jess, think.
“It was a battle between Canada and the US. Rather a series of battles…” I trailed off.
God damn it, why had I been drafting the stupid cue cards at the same time I’d been sampling the honey-filled chocolates I’d just made? Would anyone in their right mind have been able to pay attention with that sweet lightness blessing their taste buds?
Gazing around dully, I tried again.
“The war of 1812…”
“Was a conflict fought between the US and the UK as well as their allies from 1812 to 1815,” a voice beside me said.
I turned to see a boy standing there. He continued to talk about the war in a bored, drawling voice, not looking at me.
Miss Weiner stared on for a few seconds, before she cleared her throat pointedly.
The boy continued on, as if he hadn’t heard, “It was instigated partially by Britain’s naval blockade, which the US contested as illegal.”
I couldn’t fathom for the life of me what this weird guy was doing. For one thing, I’d never seen him in our small high school before in my life. For another thing, he was the kind of hot that was a punch to the gut.
Slightly rumpled messy-hair-don’t-care kind of brown locks. His brown eyes were wide-set, permanently squinted. ‘Rugged hot’ was what you’d call him.
Not that that in any way explained what he was doing in our history class, still reciting more War of 1812 facts without any use of cue cards or any visible effort whatsoever.
“In the end, it resulted in a military stalemate, as well as the Treaty of Ghent.”
By now, Miss Weiner had cleared her throat three times and even said, “Excuse me.” When she rose, the boy finally quieted down.
