Saving Noah

Chapter Six

Grateful I’m the type of person who only needs about four hours of sleep, I pull on my running shoes at five-thirty. Mom’s in the shower and Noah is snoring, tangled in his sheets.

The streets are still a little slick, but the sun has kissed the horizon, so it’s a beautiful morning. I breathe in deep and begin. The rhythmic movement relaxes me and by the time I’m on mile three, the negative feelings from the night before have rolled off me and have fallen into the puddles on the side of the street. By mile four, however, I get the feeling someone is watching me and I’m on-guard and looking over my shoulder for the last two miles.

From around a corner up ahead, a boy my age runs at me. I’ve never seen him before, but when his eyes land on mine I’m zapped with a feeling of recognition. We both slow. He nods as he approaches. He’s got black hair that’s sweaty around the edges. His eyes are intense. I can’t see their color in the pre-dawn light.

“Good morning,” he says.

“Morning.”

He doesn’t smile, but looks around and then continues his jog.

Weird.

I pick up my feet and race home.

*

The morning is pretty much a mirror image of the day before, minus the coffee cup crashing incident. And instead of being draped in royalty, I find a garden of flowers adorns my locker and the floor outside it.

“What the—,” Mitch says.

I roll my eyes. “Oh, who knows.”

I start to pick up the roses, daisies, and gladiolas that spread across the small squares of floor, just so I can open my locker and get to class on time. I have a test and I’m worried all I studied will fall out of my brain unless I can get there and begin pronto.

I stash the armful of stems and petals on top of my locker and try to work the combination without disturbing the vines weaved intricately across my locker door.

“Er, Jules,” Mitch says, stepping closer to me.

“Hm?” I say, relieved to be grabbing the books I need for my first two classes. I slam the locker shut and whirl around, into the brilliant morning eyes and kissable lips of Cole.

“Ah!” I yelp, surprised and step back, hitting against my locker.

He’s got a long-stemmed rose between his teeth, which he removes and hands to me.

“For you,” he says. Then he points up and at that moment music begins playing over the PA system. It’s the song I had playing in the car the night before.

The rest of the student body shrieks in delight and there is dancing in the hallway.