The Understorey, Book One of The Leaving Series Read Free Page A

my
bottled water from my bag and downed half of it. She refused to
even look at me.
        “Jules,” I said, catching
my breath.
    “Julia,” she corrected me.
    “ Julia , obviously I’m an idiot. All I
want to do is talk to you. It’s extremely hard for me to talk to
you.”
    “Then you should stop.”
    “But I can’t.”
    “But you should.”
She sat up and sighed loudly, collected her belongings and left the
cafeteria.
    I sat back in my chair. I had no idea what
had just happened. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. Nothing
came out how I’d planned them. I couldn’t stop vomiting the worst
conversation I had ever had. I didn’t understand. I never had trouble talking to girls, ever. Granted, I never shared a
literal lightning bolt with one of them or was ever really
interested in one but, just the same, I never had trouble speaking
with them. I knew Jules was going to be trouble. She was going to
give me the fight of my life but I decided right then and there
that I was not going to give up. The next time I saw her, I knew
exactly how I was going to talk to her.
    Third period I had band and it gave me a
chance to calm down a little bit, for which I was grateful and
allowed me to go to my last class of the day, chemistry, a little
bit more relaxed until I walked through the door to the classroom.
I was immediately crushed with borderline hysteria. I gulped a
breath and slid past Julia who sat at a lab table in the center of
class. I chose a table in the very back and sat with Sawyer Tuttle,
whom everyone just called Tut. He nodded a hello and I nodded back.
I set all my stuff down and just watched her.
    She reached for her bag on the ground and her
hair gracefully slid across her shoulders and back as she pulled it
onto the table. She opened the bag’s flap and felt around inside
for her notebook and pen and pencil. She closed the flap and laid
the bag back onto the floor but as she let the bag slide off her
arm and fall to the linoleum she glanced behind her to see if I was
watching. I smiled and she quickly turned her head back to the
front of the classroom. She looked. That was enough for me.
    That’s when I noticed Sawyer Tuttle. His eyes
followed her every movement. His fists tightened when she tossed
her hair behind her shoulders and I had the overpowering desire to
clobber his face. I searched for a reason to justify such a violent
reaction but there was none. Damn. He wasn’t doing anything
repulsive. In fact, I was probably the only person in the room who
even noticed him watching her; he was so subtle about it.
    Still, it felt as if he was asking me
to hit him and it was bothering me that I didn’t know why. I had no
claim on Jules. She wasn’t mine to get in fights over but I still
wanted to and had to busy my hands in order to distract myself.
Yep, Sawyer Tuttle was officially on my enemies list and for
motives I couldn’t comprehend. I was in trouble.
    I officially knew what we shared as far as
our schedules were concerned. On A days, Jules and I had second and
third period together. On B days, we only had fourth period
Chemistry together, but we shared lunches on both days, which put
some color back into the way I felt about spending time away from a
girl who essentially acted as if I were made of acid. I felt like a
bonded animal. It was comical.
    Despite her apparent hatred of me, time away
from Jules seemed such an uncomfortable idea. I felt slightly
queasy at the prospect because I had this confusing and
overwhelming urge to protect Jules and couldn’t quite put my finger
on why I felt that way. Jules was not exactly the kind of girl who
needed defending. She was spirited, feisty. I passed her house
dozens of times that first week on the way to and from school, and
sometimes not even then, looking for her teal Karmann Ghia, hoping,
no, desperate to know if she was at home. Just knowing where she
was gave me a sense of peace and appeased the unwanted