There was a particular line Beau Algernon liked to pacify himself with. Sometimes once a day. Sometimes twice. Other times thrice.
I'm done battling my demons.
He'd said it like a mantra and even put it in song form. He was done making mistakes, done being the one at fault all the time, and now he was starting afresh.
No Cherie. No Olivia.
"I'm not even gonna ask," said Fleur, watching him smile wistfully out the windshield at Wyland's grounds. She found nothing particularly interesting about the lanky freshmen catching up with their middle school acquaintances. "Just make sure you give me my two dollars back. I'm not letting this one go."
"It's just two bucks, Fleurie," he said, acknowledging her seldom used nickname. Fleur didn't do nicknames, unlike some girls he knew. She saw Fleurie as too cute, only appropriate for a five-year-old and not a grown-ass lady like herâher words, not his.
"Two bucks that helped complete your guitar strings fee," she reminded, opening the door of the car and getting out.
"Stop whining, I'll pay you back." He wasn't going to pay her back. Obviously.
"You better."
He smiled, turning away when she shut the door, and almost immediately, something caught his eye on his left.
Her.
He was absolutely sure his heart catapulted out of his chest for a second there. It was cliché, he knew, but the sensation was similar. His stomach lurched, excitement building in his core before traveling all the way up and claiming him.
His eyes followed her after she got out of her brother's car and headed towards their high school's main building, and he noticed that she looked a little pissed off, but that wasn't new. Bella was like the blank page of a new song. Filled with uncertainty and trepidation at first, but phenomenal when words filled it. Their only form of interaction so far was lingering glances across hallways, the goddamn winks he sent her way when he was feeling extra romantic, and the adorable blush she gave him in return when she was in a good mood.
Every timeâevery freaking timeâhe'd promise himself to talk to her next time and get it over with. He'd even gone through the mortifying effort of consulting wikiHow, but Bella would appear, and he'd either subtly stare and marvel at how breathtaking she was until she caught him, wink like the sap he was, or pretend he didn't see her and regret it later.
Next time was a grade ago, and he still hadn't made a move.
But that was going to change this semester. It had to, or he'd spend the rest of his life moping and thinking about how things would've been if he'd just talked to the girl he was in love with in his teens.
Beau swore right there in his car that before he graduated, he'd do something about this more-than-crush.
When he walked into that empty classroom where most of the junior and senior boys hung out during their free time and Jayden whooped like he'd been waiting for him, cueing the other boys, he couldn't help but smile.
"We own the freaking place now, Algernon!" he exclaimed loudly, now having the Proud Wyland Senior title next to his usual NFL-Bound Linebacker.
"Yeah, congrats," Beau said, taking in the room and the familiar smell of testosterone, cologne and sweatâthe latter which was present because guys just knew how to sweat, be it as a result of ego-fueled fights or heated games of unprofessional free-period desk ping pong. He was going to miss this room.
"So," Jayden continued, shifting his weight on the dwarfed desk he was sitting on. It looked like it would snap beneath him any second. "We have a proposal." He gestured to the other boys staring expectantly at him.
Beau already had AP Math to worry about, so he didn't even want to know what this "proposal" of theirs was about. But if he refused to listen, they wouldn't let him blink twice without interfering. "Why do I have a feeling I'm not gonna like it?" he asked, walking further into the room and straddling a chair so the back faced his chest.
"You don't have to like it," Jayden said, pulling a wad of cash from his backpack. "You're gonna carry on with it anyway."
Beau eyed the small stack of dollars. "Um, I play guitar and don't know how to handle any other weapon, in case you were wondering," he said, running a palm along the strap of the guitar clinging to him for emphasis. Some of the boys chuckled in response.
A smile softened Jayden's sharp features. "Fifty bucks on you and that Quincy girl."
Beau raised an eyebrow, his heart pumping blood two times faster when he recalled the girl his friend was referring to. "What?"
"She's ruining your love life, man," said Atlas, Jayden's wingman. "And your sex life."
Unlike the majority of them, Beau wasn't interested in wild nights out and partying and sleeping with as many girls as possible. He had a music career he wanted to pursue, he still had this high school thing breathing down his neck, and between that and his gigs at TBC, he barely had time to think about relaxing. Needless to say, he had a nonexistent sex life, and he was honestly unapologetic about that.
"Pfft. She's not ruining anything," he objected.
"Marhly's after you, Beau, and you ignore her. Marhly."
Marhly was prettyâhot to someâso what? He only had eyes for one girl. One very unpredictable, breathtaking, heart-stopping girl whose eyes rudely invaded his thoughts and dreams. He was almost positive that Bella was driving him crazy, and he hadn't even had a proper conversation with her yet.
"So?"
"It's senior year," Jayden said, "and you need to get this thing over with."
Beau almost laughed. Wasn't that what he was just telling himself in the car?
Before he could respond, though, a group of boys loudly walked in, holding a breathless-looking Ashton by the collar of his shirt and pulling him into the room.
"We found him!" one of them announced, clearly proud of his achievement. "Though he offered some resistance, hence the disheveled-ness." He shoved Ashton into the chair next to Beau, and the poor guy dropped into it with a huff, stretching out his long legs.
Beau stared at him, amused, waiting for him to catch his breath and notice him. Ashton fixed his collar and smoothened his tousled hair while glaring at the cluster of boys in front of him, then turned to look at Beau.
"They dragged you across campus, too?"
"Nah, I willingly came here."
"Lucky you."
"We're placing fifty bucks on the guy we think can win this girl's heart before Christmas break," the guy that pulled Ashton inâRandallâsaid, producing a similar wad of cash and placing it on the desk beside Jayden. "I'm with Ashton. We're," he gestured to the guys behind him, "with him."
Beau cocked an eyebrow at them, feeling wounded beyond repair that more than half of his friend group didn't think he could pull this off.
"No offense, but you have no game," Randy expanded, and Beau chuckled. He did have game; he just didn't like to show off his moves. How else did he win Olivia's heart when he was fourteen? Okay, maybe that wasn't the best example, but the girls at TBC thought he was worth their time, so that had to count for something. Right? "Ashton here, though . . ."
"Don't injure me any further," Beau interjected. "I get it."
"We're with you, though," Jayden said, grinning at him and keeping his wad next to Randy's. "Win her heart, we split the hundred bucks. It's a win-win."
"Guys, I told you. Her brother's my best friend."
Jayden lifted his eyebrows as if asking, So?
"I can't do this. He'd kill me if he finds out we placed money on his sister."
"He doesn't have to find out," Atlas intervened. "We'll keep it lowkey, just between us."
"That's not winning me over."
"It's not winning me over, either," Beau added.
"You two are such chickens. You," Atlas pointed to Ashton, "go to her house virtually everyday and you have nothing to show for it. And you," he pointed to Beau, "who still winks?!"
"Me, apparently."
"Well, it's gross. You two experience physical pain because of some freshmanâ"
"Sophomore," Beau and Ashton corrected in unison.
"Whatever. You're in pain, especially you, Ashton, who gets to be in close proximity with her. You're gonna regret this."
Beau thought about it for a minute. He'd never seen Ashton as competition even though he was aware that he also liked the girl of hisâliteralâdreams, but now that he thought about it, he realized that he'd been extremely reckless about this. What if Bella liked someone else? What if she liked Ashton and he just didn't know it? What if she only blushed back at him because she felt flattered or overwhelmed, or because that was just how she was?
He felt challenged then. Like he was losing a battle and knew it. What would he say in, say five years, if he didn't give this a shot? If he let her go before even trying? It'd been one freaking year, and these emotions had made it clear that they weren't going anywhere.
It'd started out slowly and painfully, right from the first time they met.
She was a starry-eyed freshman, he was a disheveled junior, and he'd almost tripped over her as he turned that corner leading to one of his AP classes in a hurry. She was smallish, not as tall as the other girls, so he barely realized someone was there until he was about barreling her down. He remembered panicking for a second at the thought of hurting someone smaller than him, then he remembered grabbing her with all the energy he could gather as they staggered back, remembered the little whimper that left her lips at the shock of it all.
He remembered meeting her eyes first before actually seeing her. There was an entire solar system in those eyes. He'd been completely mesmerized by them for a minute, before he looked at her.
Her lips were slightly parted, her body tense at the way he was holding onto her upper arms, and he didn't quite know what to do for a heartbeat.
"Sorry," he'd said, slowly and finally letting go of her, and she relaxed, clutching the books she was holding tighter to her chest.
"It's okay. I had a weird feeling about this corner, anyway."
He'd smiled at her voice, because in that moment, everything about her was beautiful. "Yeah. I was on my way to a class. Hope I didn't hurt you."
"No, I'm fine. I'm okay." He'd wanted to say something elseâsomething he hadn't thought of yetâbut then her friend arrived and plucked her arm, looking a little distracted, and he had to walk away after apologizing again.
He'd moved a reasonable distance away before looking over his shoulder at her, hoping for another movie-like moment, but she was already gone, her smellâlike ice cream and sugar, he realized nowâand the irregular thrumming in his chest the only reminder that she'd been there.
Two days later, he found out that she was Cody Quincy's younger sister, and man, he was protective of her. Do as much as look at her wrong and he'd cut your ear offâwith words, of course. Beau didn't blame him, honestly. He had a sister, too.
Barely three hours after the revelation, he spotted her in the cafeteria for the first time, and from there, she was everywhere he turned.
Beau wasn't even sure Bella remembered their first encounter. Maybe it was unmemorable for her. And the thought of that made something flare in his chest. Hurt? Uncertainty?
Jayden and the others were staring at him and Ashton, waiting for their responses, but they remained quiet, the latter looking a little too hesitant.
"He's gonna kill me guys," Ashton eventually said, but this time he sounded less terrified, almost like . . . he was warming up to the idea.
"Like I said before, he doesn't have to find out."
The bet was looking more and more like an option to move his plan forward as the seconds passed, and Beau almost slapped himself for thinking such a thing. This was Bella they were talking about here. They couldn't play with her like that. It was wrong.
"Can't we think about it?"
At Beau's question, Jayden and Atlas shared a look before the former said, "If you want to think about it, then that means you're considering it, so go ahead and do just that. Rememberâthe girl and a hundred dollars."
Beau was on his feet before he said something he wouldn't like, heading to the door and grabbing the neck of his guitar so it wouldn't slam into the wall. "Whatever. I have stuff to do."
He didn't have stuff to do. He just wanted to think.
Virtually all the seniors were talking about college and the other adulting stuff they were planning to do, but his mind was far away. He sat half-present through all his periods before lunch, not noticing Marhly in the last one until the bell rang and she was standing in front of his desk.
"If I didn't know better, I'd say you're ignoring me," was the first thing she said to him, and he chuckled awkwardly, gathering his books and stuffing them into his backpack.
Not again.
"I didn't notice you," he said, rising to his feet. "Sorry."
"So I heard about this bet thing between you and Ashton."
He almost slammed a palm over her mouth and shushed her in embarrassment. He didn't want to be known for something like a bet. By the way, how did she find out?
"That stuff's already going around, isn't it?"
"You're not gonna do it, are you?"
Silence.
Marhly chuckled, mimicking his own from earlier. "That girl could be your baby sister, Beau. This doesn't make sense to me."
"I don't want to talk about it." He internally shuddered at the words 'baby sister'. Bella wasn't his baby sister. She was Cody's, and that was all right, but just . . . no. No.
Besides, why did age matter? He was seventeen until February, anyway.
"And, please, don't go around saying that. Please?"
He walked past her, ignoring her bewildered expression as he nudged the door open with his shoulder, and headed to his locker. Marhly had a train of boys at her doorstep, so he didn't understand why she was so focused on him.
You have a train of girls at your doorstep, something told him, bringing all the girls at TBC to his memory, so why are you so focused on her?
Good point.
He stopped by his locker first, pausing for a second to read Fleur's text reminding him of her two dollars. Couldn't he just buy her lunch and forget about this? Then he moved to the music room to get his guitar, before going to the cafeteria.
An impressive number of juniorsânow seniorsâwere in one corner, loud and carefree. They usually had lunch in the quad, but this was probably a claim of territory. They were in charge now and they wanted to make it known. He looked around for Bella but didn't see her, and, a little disappointed, he went to join his friends.
He was greeted with hard pats on his back and shoulders, and even one slap on the back of his head, and Jayden, whose backside claimed a quarter of their table, kept giving him a look as he searched his backpack for his guitar pick. He was a little careless with that thing, but if he didn't look for something in twelve hours, it wasn't him. He had a gig soon and was doing a cover for the first time. It admittedly made him a little nervous, so he needed all the practice time he could get.
"Have you thought enough?" Jayden finally asked, looking at Ashton, who sat with Cody two tables away. "He's been avoiding us."
"Nope."
He sighed in disappointment, then shook his head. "If you two aren't gonna do it, I will. She's cute."
At that, Beau looked up, narrowing his eyes at him. "Don't you dare."
"Scared she'll fall for me?" He wiggled his eyebrows, irritating him even more. "I know what girls like her want."
"Stop stereotyping."
"She looks like that, and has a YouTube channel with thousands of subscribers."
"So?"
"I know what she'd want in a guy. Why do you think I'm rooting for you?"
Beau rolled his eyes and finally found his pick, proceeding to tune his guitar. "You're probably more interested in the cash," he said.
"I'm offended." Jayden touched a hand to his chest in mock hurt, but he didn't look offended at all, confirming Beau's suspicion.
"You're not."
"Just win for us, Algernon. Please. I'll give you my liver if you do it."
"I'm pretty sure my liver's better than yours."
"Because you've only had, like, a quarter of a glass of beer in your entire life?"
Beau laughed at the blow, remembering how intense the peer pressure had been in his freshman year. He produced the first notes of the song he'd be playing in a couple of days, and, to his surprise, it drew attention. People were usually intrigued when they saw him with his instrument, and some of them would launch into tales about how they'd wanted to learn how to play when they were young but their parents thought it was a waste of money and time, but he'd never gotten used to it.
At The Bikers' Club, a redhead had walked up to him after one of his performances and said she loved guitar guys, and he remembered feeling a little offended because he didn't want to attract girls by reason of his voice or his guitar game, or even his hometown. He wanted a girl to like him for him, which was one of the reasons why he felt hesitant about this music thing sometimes.
Everyone in the cafeteria was listening to him play, watching, and maybe it was because it was a popular song, but the moment he struck the last note of the song, he received applause that made him feel overwhelmed.
He finally looked away from his fretboard, then he saw dark brown hair peek out from behind someone a few feet in front of him before his eyes fell on her. She was leaning backwards in her chair, curious, and her hair was like a small waterfall behind her. He couldn't tell how many times he'd imagined stroking her hair, running his fingers through it until they were lost.
Bella's eyes gleamed beneath the fluorescent lights in the room, and he couldn't help but smile wide and . . . yes. Wink. He saw her fighting a smile not too long after, and it warmed him so much that his lips stretched even wider. When she shook her head and looked away, he felt accomplished. Happy.
"You're completely whipped, man."
He'd forgotten Jayden was sitting there, and at the sound of his voice, he tried to compose himself, but to no avail. He was whipped. And he really liked how it felt.
"Mind your business, Jay," he said, glancing back at her, and for the first time, he caught her looking back. And she was still wrestling that smile.
"Just tell me you're gonna do it."
Beau watched Bella talk to her friend for a beat, paying more attention to her than ever. She was even more beautiful now, and he found it hard to understand how much she'd bloomed over the summer. For some reason, that made him realize how fast time flew. She was no longer a caterpillar in a cocoon, now a gorgeous butterfly, and he wondered how long until she flew away and he lost her.
It's senior year, Beau, he told himself. Get it over with.
Looking back at Jayden, he said, "Okay. Fine, I'll do it."
His friend only gave himself a high five and pulled his phone out of his pocket, probably to give Atlas the news, and in that moment, Beau felt proud of himself. Extremely proud.
Our baby hit 30K, and I thought we'd celebrate with a bonus chap! Thank you guys once again for the neverending support!
I plan to do a Q&A in the future, so if you have any questions, whether about the story or my writing process/hacks, either leave them here, on my wall, or DM me if you prefer.
Show of hands, who remembers Marhly? Hint: Marhly's gonna drop when she sees this.