Take a Chance Ch. 01

Author's Note: It's been a couple years since I last submitted, but that doesn't mean I've stopped writing. After some of the feedback about my previous story moving too quickly, I've been trying a couple of different things, but this is the first one I felt a strong desire to publish. I don't currently have an editor (if you're interested hit me up, I'm looking) so I apologize if I've missed any typos, etc. I have ideas for where this goes, but I wanted to try responding to reader feedback as I write the chapters of this story. So, three potential romantic interests for our protagonist are introduced here; let me know who you'd like to see developed further!

Regarding accuracy: this story is set in Massachusetts, but I have fudged a few inspirations together rather than use a real town whole-cloth. If you recognize the pieces, good on you :)

All characters who engage in any kind of sexual activity are age 18 or above; any resemblance to any real people is purely coincidental.

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Take a Chance

Chapter One

When my iPhone alarm goes off at five in the morning, I roll out of bed without any of the whining or moaning that television shows would have you expect from a teenager. For a moment, I'm still disoriented, and I stumble over a dresser because I'm not use to this bedroom yet, but in under ten minutes, I'm out in the August predawn darkness, my sneakers pounding the street while my earbuds pound metal. I can smell the salty-ocean smell of the Atlantic to the east, just out of sight, but we're just far enough away that I can't hear the waves crashing.

I don't really know the neighborhood yet, so I just go, picking streets basically at random for fifteen minutes and trying not to get lost. I can always use the GPS on my run back if I need to. This town - Bellrock - doesn't look like where I grew up; a lot of the houses - especially as you get closer to the shore - look old and small. They have some kind of wood siding which has been weathered to a uniform gray, and many of the driveways aren't paved with anything but ground up white clam shells. Other houses - the newer ones - are raised on ten, fifteen foot concrete pillars, and these houses are much larger, with balconies and picture windows. To me, the air feels a little colder than it should, though I know coastal Massachusetts isn't really far enough from where I used to live in Connecticut to make a difference. Maybe it's the wind off the ocean. Today is the Wednesday before Labor Day weekend, the first day of school in my new town, and though I made the choice to transfer here for my senior year, I can still feel the fluttering at the bottom of my stomach that comes from knowing I'll be walking into an entire building of strangers in two hours.

You can't afford to let that scare you, I remind myself. You're going to need to be ready to meet a lot of people.

My phone buzzes fifteen minutes, and I turn around to head back. I'm living with my aunt and uncle, and I've been moved in for about a week. This time, I don't need the GPS to find my way, and now that I've put my half hour in, I walk up and down the driveway for another ten minutes or so to cool down and stretch. It's only after that I head in to take a shower and dress for school; once I've thrown on a nice, new pair of jeans and a Bullet Club t-shirt - the black one with the original skull and crossed rifles on it, from before they started making a million different designs - I fill up a water bottle in the kitchen, toss a couple of protein bars in my backpack for breakfast, and head out to my car. My uncle's car is gone, and neither my aunt nor my little cousin, Marie, is up. The bus won't come for kindergartners for over an hour yet.

Yeah, you heard me right: my car. It's nothing fancy - an '12 Ford Fusion in charcoal gray - but it is all mine. It wasn't worth what I paid for it, and I'm not talking about money. Anyway, I'm leaving nice and early to make sure I have plenty of time to get to school, so I actually see other people heading to bus stops to wait. One girl, waiting at the corner of my street, catches my eye. She's small and slim, with long black hair that falls past her shoulders, and she's wearing what I'd call a summer dress if it wasn't black. No, not all black, I realize; the bottom is dyed the color of dead leaves. I have a hard time not staring, and I have to shake myself to pay attention to the road as I drive past. For a moment, I consider pulling over and offering her a ride. Yeah right, I tell myself. Good way to come off as a creep at best, potential rapist at worst. She doesn't know you.

It takes me about ten minutes to get to Van Buren High School, which looks like it's been around since the 19th century and is perhaps inhabited by a couple of vampires. No, I'm really not kidding: the place looks like a castle, with a bottom floor of gray stone, then two more of brick stacked on top of it leading up to peaks and gables and a green bell tower in the center. There are some newer, red brick structures off to one side, but its the old part that draws the eye.

I'd been by the school three days ago to fill out paperwork for a parking pass and to get my schedule, locker, and all the rest, but then it had been empty and now it was packed, with buses disgorging underclassmen in waves while seniors fought to get parking spaces. I find a spot where I can and merge with the crowd heading into the building, then grab a quiet corner of wall and open up the photo I took of my schedule. The first day opens with a homeroom - they call it an 'advisory group' here - and I'm sure I'm going to be given more forms and papers than I'll have any idea what to do with. "C-211," I mumble to myself, and flick forward to the photo I've taken of the school map. Now to find the place.

There's a knot of big guys in shorts and t-shirts hanging around together and blocking up the hallway; a whole bunch of them are carrying plastic gallon jugs of water, and I know I've found the football team. They've got that look - a lot of bulk on top. "Excuse me," I say to the mass of them, trying to find a way through, though they seem not to hear me over their own joking around. A couple of smaller freshmen waiting to get by are starting look look panicked at the thought of having to find a different route and go around these guys. Getting a bit frustrated, I raise my voice. "Hey, guys, can I get through here?"

That gets their attention. One dude - he must be the quarterback, that's how this works - steps forward. He's a bit slimmer than the rest, but they move aside for him. Most of them have some variation on buzz cuts, but he's got a fade with long hair pulled back on top. "Who's this kid," fade boy says, stepping right up to me.

"Hi," I say, sticking out my hand. "Ben."

He looks me over good, and it's not like I'm hiding my muscle, wearing only a tight black t-shirt. "You lift?"

"Yeah," I admit, keeping my hand up.

"Ray." He takes my hand and gives it a squeeze. "You play football?"

I shake my head. "Wrestling."

At that, the guys laugh. "Enjoy that ringworm and shit," Ray says, dropping my hand like a hot potato. "You want to play something real, come out for the team. We could use a guy built like you."

"I'll think about it," I say, with no intention of doing that at all. I don't need to get busted up playing a sport that isn't going to help me toward where I'm going.

"Let him through, guys," Ray says, and then I can pass. A couple of the freshmen manage to sneak through behind me before the Ray and his goons close ranks and block the hall up again.

It takes me a bit to find a stairwell up to the second floor, and once I do I'm in the wrong hallway, but at least the classrooms are all labeled. Once I manage to get from the B hallway to the C hallway, it gets easier, and while I'm not the first person to have arrived, I'm also not the last. I grab a seat toward the back, because that seems safest, and then flip back to check my schedule again.

It would, I was sure, make no sense to anyone but me. The guidance counsellors had had a fit when I was here three days ago; what career, what college, was I planning on going into, anyway, with this mix of classes, they kept asking. I'd tried to evade answering the question, because I knew it just would not compute in their brains.

"Hi," a voice jumps out at me from just in front of the desk. I look up to see a bespectacled girl my own age, but much smaller, standing just in front of my desk. Her long, luxuriant hair is a deep brown, like stained wood furniture, and shines in that mysterious way that a guy's hair never will. She's wearing a white blouse and a patterned brown skirt that ends just above her knees. "I'm Mia," she continues. "Mr. Gerhardt asked me to help you find your classes today."

I glance up to the front of a room, where a long stick of a man who has to be in his sixties or older is watching us from his desk. Maybe he's one of the vampires. I give him a nod, then stand up and offer Mia my hand. "Ben," I introduce myself. "Ben Emmons."

Mia's mouth forms a silent 'o' as she takes my hand. Her skin is smooth and cool, and I doubt if she's ever done a hard day's work in her life. The top of her head barely comes up to my chin. For a moment, her hand lingers in mine, and then I let her go. "Thanks," I tell her. "This place is a bit confusing. Even with the map."

"Can I see your schedule," she asks me, pulling over the desk next to mine, and I hand her my phone. When I sit down next to her, I can smell the sweet, woody smell of her perfume, but I can't place it as any particular scent. When she leans over my phone, using two fingers to zoom in on the photo I took of the paper schedule, I have to avert my eyes to not stare down her blouse at the upper slopes of her large breasts. Her skin is a warm tan even there - as far down as I can see, actually, before I look away.

"Public Speaking first," she reads out loud. "OK. Then Consumer Math, Psychology... Exploring Theater?" Mia's voice becomes more and more confused as she continues. "Anatomy and Physiology, and Adventure Sports? What... I'm sorry, I shouldn't ask," she catches herself.

"No, it's OK," I tell her. "I get it, it doesn't seem to make much sense."

"Yeah," she agrees. Is that a faint blush in her cheeks? "I mean, Consumer Math and Adventure Sports make sense together, if you're just interested in playing football and keeping your grades above a seventy. But then why are you taking Anatomy?"

I nod. "My plan for after graduation doesn't involve college, so I don't care about my GPA or taking AP courses to look good on a transcript. I'm choosing classes only based on what might come in useful in my career. And no, I'm not a football player," I finish. "I don't need to break my collarbone getting tackled. I'm a wrestler."

"A wrestler," Mia repeats. "We have a wrestling team?"

"Yup," I say with another laugh. "I checked before moving here. You do. Season starts in the winter, until then I'll just lift and run on my own." Am I going to get through this without having to tell her what I'm doing after high school, I wonder, and for a moment I really think I might.

"OK," Mia says. "So then what are you going to do for a career, with all these different classes?"

I try not to wince as I answer. "I'm going to be a professional wrestler."

For a long moment, this beautiful girl next to me is silent. Maybe she's a closet fan.

"Isn't that all fake," she asks, and my heart breaks.

"It's scripted, if that's what you mean," I say, falling back into the same tired old explanations that no one who isn't already a fan gets. "It's telling a story, like in a television show. Except that all the stunts, the fighting, it's all done live."

Fortunately, Mr. Gerhardt chooses that moment to stand up and take attendance, and that puts an end to talking. After that, its passing out student handbooks, computer use agreements, free lunch applications that everyone gets because the school doesn't want to look like it's singling out the poor kids, and a bunch of other papers no one is going to read. Whatever. It saves me from the rest of this conversation, and I'm sure Mia is grateful too. I've now been classed inside her smart, preppy girl worldview as not only a dumb jock, but also some kind of freak.

When the bell rings, she dutifully leads me to my public speaking class, where she drops me off at the door. "I'll be back at the end of the period," Mia tells me, clutching her binders and notebooks to her chest.

"It's OK," I tell her. "I don't want to keep you running around all day. I'm sure I can find my way around from here."

"No!" Mia puts a hand on my arm for just a moment, and I freeze. "It's your first day. Anyway, nothing happens today except that teachers talk at us and hand out syllabuses. I've got a pass to leave each class early and come get you. I'll see you at the end of the period. Good luck!" With a cheery wave, she turns and heads away. I know I don't have a chance in hell, but I watch her go anyway. The way that skirt twitches as she walks keeps my eyes glued to her ass until she turns down a side hallway, and then I'm able to shake myself and step into class.

And forty-five minutes later, when the bell rings, there she is.

"You were right," I admit. "There's not going to be anything important happening today."

"Yup, I told you," Mia says, pleased. "So you really don't have a backup plan or anything? You're not even going to get a college degree?"

"You sound like the guidance counselors," I tell her, annoyed.

Mia makes a face. "Sorry. It's just... it's kind of like when a kid tells you they're going to be a basketball star or something. The odds of actually making it in professional sports, or entertainment, are like one in a million."

"Yeah," I admit. "That's true. But life's too short not to try to do the things you want." For a moment, I remember my mother, then I shake my head and focus on the girl in front of me. "What about you? What are you doing after high school?"

"You have Math next, right," Mia asks me, then leads me through a turn into a hallway perpendicular to the English classrooms when I nod. "I'm going to be a chiropractor. I help out at my father's practice already, actually, and I'm taking all the medical classes they offer here. Actually," she says with a sidelong glance at me, "We have Anatomy together later today."

"Good," I tell her with a smile. "It will be nice to have a familiar face in there."

"So Anatomy is, what, so you know the muscular system?" Mia begins to scan class numbers as we pass.

"You've got it," I say. "I figure it's not a bad idea to know what my doctor's talking about if I break a bone, either."

When Mia drops me off at Consumer Math, I start to feel more comfortable. I'm not into a routine, not yet, but I can feel myself getting there. I recognize Ray and a couple of his friends in the back row, but they don't spare me a look, never mind a hello. After Consumer Math, my little tour guide helps me find Psychology, and then Exploring Theater, which takes place in the Auditorium. I'm definitely starting to enjoy the excuse to see such a pretty, bright girl in between every period, and for her part Mia seems happy enough to chat to me about the school and to introduce me around to several people whose names I promptly forget.

When I say goodbye to Mia and step into the Auditorium, I'm surprised to see that I already know one of the students here: perched on the stage, swinging her legs in a way that makes the autumn rust folds of her skirt swirl, is the girl I noticed on the way to school. You don't really know her, I remind myself. Hell, you don't even know her name. But this might be a good chance to learn it.

I find a seat, and pay attention during the roll call. When Ms. Burton, the drama teacher, calls out the name "Alyssa Bauer," my neighbor raises her hand without looking up from her phone, and I silently repeat it to myself so as not to forget it.

Unlike the teachers in all of my other classes, Ms. Burton doesn't just let us sit back and zone out while she drones through a syllabus and a review of her class rules.

"Get up," she tells us in a voice that contains way too much energy for this early in the day. "Get up! We're playing a game." The entire class grumbles, but it's hard to say no to her, and soon we're all standing in a rough circle; we've even all put our phones away. "I'm going to count you off into pairs," Ms. Burton informs us. "Once you've got a partner, find some room, either up on the stage, in front of it, or in the aisles."

She takes deliberate glee in making sure that no one is partnered with the person next to them, breaking up several pairs of friends and acquaintances who are obviously not pleased at being made to work with someone else. I could never have arranged it if I tried, but somehow, by chance, she puts Alyssa and I together. As students begin to drift off in their pairs, I take a step over to her and hold out a hand. "Hi," I say with a smile. "I'm Ben."

Alyssa brushes a strand of black hair back from her face, then regards me cautiously through just about the most striking set of eyes that I have ever seen: pale green, and outlined in dark eye shadow that give her a bit of that goth raccoon look. "Alyssa." She takes my hand, but just as I'm fumbling for something to say, Ms. Burton begins to explain our assignment: a game she calls 'Sculptor and Statue."

"One partner is going to be the Sculptor," Ms. Burton says, projecting her voice so that it rings throughout the Auditorium. "And the other will be the Statue. Right now, check to see which of you is older: that person will be the Sculptor first."

I turn to Alyssa. "July," I tell her, expecting that I'll end up the younger one.

Instead, she shakes her head. "August," she admits with a grimace.

And then, Ms. Burton is at my shoulder, pointing at a list of concepts. Emotions, actually, and her finger is over "sorrow." I think that over for a moment, and just as I'm about to open my mouth, she tells me, "Silently. Don't say anything to her while you do this." And then the teacher is gone, and Alyssa is regarding me with a wary expression.

How to do this without saying anything. I sigh, and then point at the ground. Alyssa points down, also. "You want me to get on the ground," she asks, then turns and looks to where Ms. Burton is speaking with another pair of students. "Can I talk? Do I have to be silent, too?"

"You too," Ms. Burton calls back, and Alyssa carefully sits down on the ground, using one hand to tuck her summer skirt around her legs as she does, and kind of curling her legs underneath her. That isn't going to work.

I get down next to her, and reach toward her legs, stopping with my hands an inch or two away from making actual contact. Then, I try to motion as if taking her in my hands and moving her, without actually doing it. After a few false starts at trying to get her to sit with one leg bent at the knee in front of her, we're both clearly getting frustrated.

"Two minutes," Ms. Burton calls out to the class, and I know we aren't going to finish in time. Suddenly, Alyssa reaches out for my right hand and pulls it onto her thigh. For a second, I freeze there, feeling the warmth of her body underneath the thin cotton of the dress, and then she nods at me impatiently. She's giving me permission to just move her, I realize, nod back, and then get to work.

As quickly as I can, I pose her with her right leg up, bent at the knee, nearly against her chest, and both of her arms wrapped around it. The entire time, I try to ignore the fact that I'm touching this girl I barely know, that I'm close enough to smell the fruity scent of the shampoo she used when she washed her hair, and something else,something sharp and minty. When I step behind her, I surreptitiously shift myself with one hand to be sure that my excitement isn't showing, and then I arrange her so that she's bent, bowed with her head down. I take a step around in front of her, then point at my face. I put on my best expression of sadness, and then point to her. Just as Ms. Burton is calling time up, she nods and mimics my expression. Unsure what to do with myself, I get up and stand a couple paces away from my beautiful 'statue.'