━━ 𝗔 𝗛𝗔𝗥𝗥𝗬 𝗦𝗧𝗬𝗟𝗘𝗦 𝗙𝗔𝗡𝗙𝗜𝗖𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡
I feel her before I see her, the hairs on the back of my neck stand up in attention. When I shut my locker, she's parting the crowd like the red sea. Imogen Greene is looking right at me, a smirk po...
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THE air is cold in my lungs as I push the front door open but thankfully the sun is muted behind a hazy sky. It's too early to be up on a Saturday, just past 8 o'clock but Austin called me with an emergency twenty minutes ago. Now, he's drumming his fingers anxiously on the steering wheel while his car idles in the middle of my driveway. I try my best to fight a yawn, the two hours of sleep I got last night sits heavy on my chest as I drag myself to the passenger side door.
"I need coffee," I groan, dropping into the seat next to him. He nods quickly.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm working on it."
"What's the big emergency?"
"I think I'm going on a date with Grace," he nearly shouts, his face simultaneously paling and reddening. My eyes widen, this news shaking the exhaustion off of me.
"What?"
"We were just talking last night; you know how we've been talking on the phone?" I nod, having dealt with his anxiety over calling her for the first time over a week ago.
"Okay, well she was telling me about this band that she loves and about how they're playing in PA tonight and that she doesn't have anyone to go with and my idiot ass was like, oh I love them, I was thinking about going if you want to go together. AND THEN SHE SAID YES AND DUDE, I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT BAND IT IS. SO LONG STORY SHORT, I GET TO LOOK LIKE AN ASSHOLE ON MY FIRST AND PROBABLY LAST NIGHT WITH THE LOVE OF MY LIFE."
I laugh so hard that I cry as Austin breathes heavily the entire way back to his house. He keeps throwing me betrayed glances and when he parks in the street in front of a small, brick ranch, he looks as though he could die on the spot. I take a deep, shaky breath.
"Okay, first of all, you need to chill the fuck out, you're gonna kill yourself. Secondly, we'll figure it out. Don't worry. Just take me to a computer." He nods solemnly and pulls the key out of his ignition.
* * *
Two hours later, we're laying on his living room floor and I've had almost an entire pot of coffee to myself. I'm jittery, my eyes scanning the patterns in his ceiling. After some minor Googling of events going on tonight in Port Angeles, the discovered that the name of the band is Bad Bad Hats, which is completely ridiculous but thankfully, their discography is pretty minimal. We've been listening to it on repeat so he can learn the words.
Some of the songs are familiar, having heard them during my study hall listening sessions with Grace over the last few months, I recognized it at first by one of the album covers-a full moon.
A little over a month until the eclipse, I've started a countdown and am scouring forums and discussion boards for any information I can find on optimal viewing times. I've been checking eBay for some better telescopes.
I'd mentioned it to Imogen the other night when the moon was unobstructed by clouds and was shining brightly in the dark sky. She'd closed her eyes, fighting a frown.
