Carter Ortese is Trouble - completed (The Boys #1)

Chapter 6: Emma

My knee bounces up and down rapidly as I wait for my turn in the guidance office. The guy behind the reception desk keeps leering at me, and I want to tell him to stop being a perverted creep, but I don't. That would have required yesterday Emma's strength, like when I asked Carter out. But I don't have that, not normally.

The girls are right. Even though I did ask Carter out, I have no idea what I'm doing.

I try to make myself look busy, but since I didn't bring anything with me, I stare at the teal handmade vase and pretend to be fascinated by the glaze. It's odd that this office only has one piece of noticeable color, and they decided to go with teal.

Another minute ticks painfully by on the clock above the exit. I glance sideways at the guy behind the counter, and he's still staring at me. Goosebumps rise along my skin.

Mr. Cannes comes out of the middle office a few moments later, and he waves me inside like I'm on parade. When I get up, the guy behind the desk watches me, his gaze getting lower and lower. He misses the sneer on my face when I pass. I'm grateful once the door is shut behind me. By the time I sit down in the plush chair across from my counselor, I'm shaking from nerves and frustration.

"Nice to see you again, Emma."

He's been my counselor once a year for the past two years, but he always says the same thing. Nice to see me again, as if I've been here a lot.

"I had a long talk with your father about your schedule for next year, and what he envisions for your future." Mr. Cannes uses his long slender fingers to type on his computer. He looks young for a middle aged man, and I'm only aware of his age from the dates on his diplomas. He keeps his dark hair cropped short and a constant stubble across his dark skin.

I blink, taken aback that my father talked to my counselor before I even had the chance.

"He noted that you wanted to go the route with more sciences and engineering, so I took the liberty of starting your schedule."

I am going to scream so loud that my guidance counselor will have to get his own counselor to heal from the trauma. I will explode. A wish to spontaneously combust washes over me, strong and powerful. Anything would be better than the alternative of sitting here and listening to my future—my future that someone else has planned on my behalf.

Have I been asleep for the last seventeen years of my life? Have I even lived at all? Does anything I do matter, or am I a puppet, controlled down to every last string? I feel as though I've been following each order my parents have given me my whole life, but this ... this is the last straw.

Explosion in three ...

"I examined all of the electives we had to play with. I took out the art class, because you've already surpassed your necessary art credits to graduate, and I managed to fit in Practical Engineering."

Two ...

"Honors, of course," Mr. Cannes continues, clicking a few more buttons on his computer. "And I had no idea where to put AP Physics, so I had to take out band. Your father assured me—"

One ...

"No," I try to scream the word, but it comes out as a squeak, like a lit fuse being snuffed out. My voice sounds foreign, belonging to someone else. "No," I say again, but this time, it comes out with a little more strength.

I am the girl who asked out Carter Ortese. I can do this.

I stand up. The chair skids against the linoleum floor, making a horrible noise, worse than when I break a reed. "Do whatever else my father wants with my schedule, but I am keeping band." I place my hands on the desk—the desk that so perfectly matches the rest of the decor in the room, right down to the frames on the wall. "I will never give up band."