I stood outside the door and listened, waiting to overhear the inevitable comments of praise they’d make.
Jocelyn, my best friend, had tried to convince me to have a beer earlier. She’d said it would calm my nerves, but since I didn’t drink and hated the taste of beer, I refused. Besides, I’d been about to sing a song in front of two boys I basically idolized. I needed a clear head for a strong voice. I thought maybe I’d get a drink afterward, and now that it was afterward, I was really wishing I knew how to drink.
Ethan and Mark had talent—real talent—and their opinions meant the world to me. Especially Ethan’s, especially after that little kiss we shared that no one—not even Joss—knew about.
I knew those two boys would find success in the music industry someday even though they mostly just jammed in Mark’s garage and occasionally played local bars. I was two years younger than them and only a sophomore. I was lucky enough to be at their party tonight because Ethan’s younger sister, Zoey, was in my class. We didn’t socialize in the same circles, but Zoey had invited practically the entire school.
Since I knew Ethan would be there, I couldn’t miss it. He wasn’t just the senior I had a crush on. He was a boy full of mischief who made me feel tingles when he looked in my direction.
We’d spoken a few times, and that kiss...it just happened a couple weeks ago. I was walking through the hallway on my way back to class. He’d been hanging outside a classroom, one knee bent with his foot propped flat against the wall, every inch the bad boy.
“Sweet little Dani Mayne,” he’d said to me. I glanced around me stupidly. Who the heck else would he be talking to? I was the only Dani Mayne in the school. But why was this senior boy I had a massive crush on talking to me? How’d he even know who I was? It’s not like his sister and I were close.
“Y...yes,” I’d stuttered.
He chuckled, maybe at my innocence or maybe at the way my face heated as my name passed his lips. He stepped closer to me. “Shouldn’t you be in class?”
I nodded, my juvenile ponytail swinging behind me as I clutched a laminated paper hall pass. I flashed it at him to prove I was allowed to be in the hallway. “I’m on my way back. Shouldn’t you be?”
He rolled his eyes and jerked his head toward the classroom door. “That bitch in there kicked me out and I’m supposed to be waiting out here to get yelled at.” He lifted a shoulder. “It is what it is.”
“And it isn’t what it isn’t.”
He chuckled at my retort to that stupid saying. “I wasn’t even doing anything wrong.” He took another step closer to me, close enough for me to smell some mixture of lemons and sin and the stale cigarette smoke that clung to his shirt. I wanted to know why he smelled like lemons, but I was too scared to ask. “But when I look at you, I want to do all sorts of wrong things.”
He must’ve been seventeen, so it wasn’t that wrong. It might be once he turned eighteen, but he was only two years older than me. My body shuddered violently. I’d never even kissed a boy, unless you count the closed mouth nothing of a kiss my Homecoming date tried to lay on me before I pulled away.
He reached out and rolled a strand of my hair between his thumb and finger before he tucked it behind my ear and my heart hammered. Up close, he seemed so much older than seventeen, like he’d lived a lifetime already. He was mature—and he was nothing like the boys in my class. His rough fingertips grazed the curve of my neck, and my eyes closed. He leaned forward and his lips brushed mine while my body lit with nervous energy. My knees became so shaky I was sure they were knocking together loudly enough for him to hear.
His massive body blocked me from being able to see around him, but I heard his classroom door open and then the angry voice of his teacher. “Ethan Fuller, get back here right now.”
His eyes opened and he pulled back. He gave me one long, hot look, and then he rolled his eyes and moved back toward his teacher, leaving me a mess in the middle of the hallway as I forced one leg to move in front of the other to hurry back to my classroom.
I thought about that kiss every second of every day. I dreamed about his lips on mine. I thought about singing a song while he played the drums, about holding his hand, about life after we both graduated high school and what our future could hold.
We hadn’t had another encounter since that one. In fact, I hadn’t even seen him since that day—and not because I wasn’t constantly searching down every crowded hallway and peeking into classrooms I knew he was supposed to be in.
That was why I had to go to the party.
The only thing we had in common besides that kiss was music. We’d never had a real conversation, but he somehow stripped a piece of my innocence that day. And I needed more. I needed to find a way to get him to notice me. I wanted to hand over the rest of my innocence to him so he could do whatever he wanted with it.
While I loved singing, was a proud member of the school chorus, and pulled the lead in every school musical despite my age, he was the opposite. He didn’t get involved in anything music-related at school. Instead, he and Mark played bars where they couldn’t even stay afterward to drink because they were underage, though I’m sure he found a way to sneak a beer anyway. He had less than six months until he was done with North Chicago High School. He was going to leave this place and do great things with his life—anyone could see that from just looking at him.
I knew about Ethan’s rough upbringing, his imprisoned father, the revolving door of men his mother introduced to her kids. I’d seen him getting talked to by teachers after class, serving time in detention, and making out with girls under the bleachers. My naive mind never imagined he took it further than that, but maybe he did. What did I know? I was just a little girl who loved singing and had all the school spirit in the world...and had a massive crush on a senior boy.
It was the last day of final exams, and we had two weeks off ahead of us—two weeks of sleeping in and lying in our pajamas without homework, practice, or any other responsibilities weighing us down. Two weeks to daydream about a stolen kiss in the hallway and wonder with nervous anticipation whether there’d be more.
And now, I’d have two weeks with Ethan’s words rolling over in my mind.
It had been my idea to do a little Christmas caroling. A few of my chorus friends were at the party, too, and they’d been drinking. I nudged Monica and told her we should sing the finale of our Christmas concert, and she was on board. She got Lizzie, Mark’s sister, on board, too. I had a long solo during the finale, and I was set to impress the boy of my literal dreams.
We sang our song, and I crushed my solo with my eyes on Ethan the entire time. I swore he was looking back at me with something akin to admiration. It couldn’t have just been my imagination.
I was sure this was going to happen for us. I felt it, and the way he looked at me...I was never more certain that he felt it, too.
I was going to make my move. I wasn’t sure how, but I was going to listen to him talk to his best friend about how amazing I was, and then I was going to work up the nerve to tell him I liked him.
It sounded so juvenile, and it was more than just like...but I had to start somewhere.
I excused myself after we finished singing and I exited the doors next to where Mark and Ethan stood. I was just on the other side from them, able to overhear their conversation since I left the door cracked open. My ears perked up when I heard my name leave Mark’s mouth.
“Dani has quite the voice,” Mark said. He was cute, but he didn’t make my heart race the same way Ethan did.
We all have moments that define us, and Ethan’s reply to Mark was one of mine. It was harsh and grating and memorable, and it set a completely new course for the rest of my life. His words came with a resolution to be better and a lifelong quest for revenge.
“If Y2K doesn’t kill us,” he said, “listening to that talentless pig sing another solo might.”