Status: I don't think I'll continue writing this, so most likely discontinued. :/
It's a Love Story
"i love the rip of nerves, the rip that wakes me"
Juliette's POV:
“Hey, guys!” Wolff called out to everyone as my class herded out of the buses and spilled into the marble front entrance of our school. “Before you all run off, I just want to say a couple of things.” He waited until everyone had more or less shut up before continuing. “Thank you for not giving me hell and being so well-behaved today. I hope that you had fun and at least learned a couple of things at the same time so… Yeah. Have a nice weekend. Be safe.”
Connor appeared next to me as the throng began milling around. “Can I talk to you?” he asked quietly.
I looked up at him, surprised. “Sure.”
He took my hand and led me through the crowd of pushy kids trying to get to their cars. We passed by his twin sister Nicole, who scowled at me and ordered, “Make it quick, Connor.” Connor ignored acknowledging her, but I threw her the dirtiest look I could manage, which she easily returned.
“Why does your sister hate me so much?” I grumbled as we came to a stop in a relatively secluded corner.
Connor grimaced. “No idea. She’s just…whatever. You shouldn’t care.”
“I don’t,” I immediately defended myself, though I could think of a few choice adjectives to finish his sentence. She’s just… A stuck-up, spoiled bitch who loves being nasty for no reason, maybe? I switched the topic. “What did you want to talk about?”
He rubbed his left earlobe, a habit I knew he always did when he was nervous. “Um, I just wanted to ask…is everything okay?”
I blinked at him, taken aback. “Yeah. Why?”
“I mean…” He hesitated, then went on. “You were so quiet on the ride home. And we haven’t really talked in a while. I just wanted to know if you’re mad at me or something.” His large, light blue eyes looked worried, and more than that – sincere. I felt a wave of guilt. There were times when I was the bitch and brushed him off as being too immature for me. And then there were times like this, when I realized that he genuinely cared for me. I gave him a small smile. “I’m not mad at you, Con. I promise,” I assured him.
His face broke into a relieved grin. “Okay. Good. I was worried.”
“Don’t be.” I gave him a light kiss on the cheek, wracking my brain to think of an excuse for being so absent lately. It’s not like I could tell him about my mom and her problems that I was busy trying to fix. “It’s just college applications,” I settled on. “It’s stressing me out.”
He gave me a quick hug. “I’m sorry,” he said earnestly. “You should relax a little bit. Come with me tonight, there’s a party at Jeremy’s place. I feel like you haven’t been out in a while.”
I cocked my head, thinking. A party didn’t sound bad. “I’ll see,” I told him. “I’ll definitely try.”
“Great.” He leaned forward to give me a kiss on the lips. A couple of seconds later, an irritated voice interrupted.
“Let’s break up this make out session.” Nicole was standing a few feet away, tapping her foot and looking bored. “Come on, Con.”
“Hold on, Nicole,” Connor sounded exasperated. “Do you need a ride, babe?”
No way do I even want to be in the same space as that bitch for even a couple of minutes. “No, thanks, my mom is picking me up,” I told him truthfully.
He nodded. “If you’re sure. I’ll see you tonight!” He waved as Nicole dragged me off. I waved back, then rolled my eyes at Nicole’s antics.
I made my way back to the entrance and sat on the well-tended steps, thinking. I had made my mom promise to pick me up, not because I couldn’t drive, but because I had gathered up the courage for a confrontation. You drink too much, Mom, I practiced in my head. And I’ve been really worried lately. I sighed, playing with a loose string on my navy uniform skirt. I really hoped she would listen. I knew the source of my mother’s woes, of course – my dad. A couple nights ago, he was supposed to finally come home from a never-ending business trip and take my mom out to a fancy dinner. I came home that night to find my mother sitting on her bed in a beautiful red Versace dress, silently drinking as she watched the weather channel announcer talk about clear and sunny skies in Chicago, where he was supposed to come from, while the answering machine played over and over a scratchy message from him that hurriedly gave the excuse of a terrible thunder storm that was preventing the plane from taking off. It was heartbreaking, to say the least. My dad was an asshole for standing her up again, but I knew she suspected what was probably true – the c word. And no, not that word. Cheating.
“Everything alright?” a voice above me asked quietly.
I raised my head to see most of the parking lot empty, albeit a few stragglers just getting into their cars. Wolff sat down next to me. “You okay?”
“What? Oh. Yeah, I’m fine.” I wondered briefly if there was some kind of sign across my forehead that was prompting everyone to ask me the same question.
He gave me his crooked smile. “You’re the last one here,” he pointed out.
“Um, sorry?” I wasn’t sure what he was getting at.
He stretched out his legs and rested on his arms, tilting his head up to catch the remaining rays of the sun. “I have to wait for you to leave before I can go,” he explained. “School protocol.”
“Oh. Let me just call…” I pulled my phone out and dialed my mom’s cell number. No response. I tried the home phone. Nothing. I crinkled my forehead, confused. Even if my mom wasn’t home, Delilah, our maid, would usually answer by the third ring. I tried again. Still nothing. “Weird,” I muttered.
“What?” he asked, his eyes closed.
“Nothing, I just can’t get through with my mom.” I felt frustrated, and a little confused.
“You need a ride, doll?” he drawled lazily, his eyes shut as he remained in his nonchalant position on the steps.
“No. I’m sure she’ll be here in a minute,” I said patiently.
But a minute passed into five minutes. Then seven. Wolff stood up and began pacing. “I’m sorry,” I broke the silence. “I have no idea where she is…” Inside I was furious. How dare my mom just forget about me like that? I know I was seventeen, and very capable of taking care of myself, but jeeez. You’d think I hadn’t told her a hundred times that morning to pick me up so we could talk.
“Come on.” He pulled out his car keys. “I’ll give you a ride.”
I cast a look at the empty parking lot, seeing no sign of anyone coming, and stood up to follow him. “Thanks,” I mumbled, feeling totally embarrassed, like a kindergartener that still needed a teacher to walk them to the bus.
“Don’t think about it.” He hummed absent-mindedly as we reached his car. “Get in.”
I slid gracefully into the familiar front seat as he ripped off his tie and stiff school jacket with an air of relief and tossed it in a bundle into the back seat. I smiled slightly. “You don’t like the uniform?”
“Does anyone?” he answered as he pulled out smoothly. “I went to a public school in Boston – not a fancy school like this. I’m not used to it.” He glanced at me. “Why, do you?”
I gave a delicate shrug. “It definitely makes getting up in the morning easier,” I admitted. “But I don’t know… It just makes everyone look the same.”
“Not you,” he seemed to say without thinking. He threw me an embarrassed look and cleared his throat. “I mean, you’re different than, you know, all those other girls.” He bit his slightly chapped lips, as though contemplating whether to go on. He appeared to reach a consensus in his mind and continued. “You’re something special, Juliette.”
I turned my head to look at him, completely flattered. “Wow. Thanks, Wolff.” His compliment, in a bizarre way, made me feel a rush of tingles. He didn’t say anything in return, but I could almost see a pink blush appear at the apple of his cheeks, and I had to smile, awwing inwardly. He turned his face slightly, and all I could see was the profile of his face. His sharp cheekbones jutted out, catching the weak rays of the early November sunlight streaming through the window, with several-days-old scruff that I hadn’t noticed before. I suddenly noticed how abnormally long his eyelashes were, how slightly crooked his nose was, almost as though it had been broken once, long ago, and never been fixed, how strong his jaw line was. Masculine and feminine, mixed together in one face in a strangely beautiful way.
Out of his teacher’s uniform and off school premises, Wolff seemed much younger, different. More informal, I would say. I’d never be caught dead ever accepting a ride from one of my other teachers, let alone accepting one twice, but nothing about Wolff made me feel uncomfortable, or awkward in any kind of way. With this thought in mind, I unconsciously kicked off my stiff heels and raised my legs to rest my feet on his dashboard. “What?” I said when he shot me a look.
“Get your feet off my dashboard,” he told me, looking like he was trying not to laugh.
“No!” I protested. “My feet are killing me.”
“Who told you to walk around in heels all day? I don’t understand girls,” he muttered, shaking his head.
I smiled, tilting my head back as I cranked the window open while he came to a stop at a red light. Light wind whipped my blonde hair around, and out of the corner of my eye, I definitely, definitely saw him taking a good look at my exposed legs. I almost raised an eyebrow in surprise.
He’s not actually…is he?
I stretched out a little, intentionally raising my skirt a centimeter or two, turning my head to pretend to gaze out the window. His eyes remained glued. I felt my breath catch in my throat a little bit, feeling a thumping beat stagger in my chest, and a warm feeling spread in my body. Oh, shit.
The light then turned green and Wolff’s eyes darted swiftly back up to the road. I leaned back in the seat, closing my eyes slightly, trying to convince myself that my teacher was not, in fact, checking me out, and that it was all in my head. The next couple of minutes passed in silence, until I heard the gravel grumbling beneath the wheels and I knew we had reached my driveway.
“Thanks for the ride, Wolff,” I said, reaching for the door handle.
He gave me a quick smile. “No problem, Juliette,” he replied easily as I slid into my shoes and stepped out of the car. “Have a nice weekend, doll.”
I waved as I headed up my walkway. Unlocking the front door, I slipped into my house, mentally preparing myself for a serious talk with my mom. The house seemed cold and vacant. I frowned, flicking on the lights. “Mom?”
Not too unusual. I knew she was typically in her room. I wandered into the kitchen. No one, not even my housekeeper. Now that was weird. Huh. I made my way upstairs. “Mom?” I dropped my bag off at the top of the extravagant stairs and kicked off my shoes. The plush Persian carpet muffled my steps as I marched to my parent’s suite, gathering up courage with every step. Mom, you have a problem, I rehearsed again in my head. I pushed the door open. “Mom? It’s me, Juliette,” I called out, standing at the threshold. I was met with nothing but an icy silence.
I looked around the room, confused. The lights were on, TV was working, bed was rumpled…all normal signs. But where the hell was she? I moved into the room, now feeling worried.
And then I was met with a petrifying sight. My breath almost stopped as I gazed down at my mother passed out on the floor with two empty bottles of vodka beside her. Her face was deathly pale, her lips turning blue –
“Mom!” I yelled, dropping to the floor. I grabbed her wrist and pressed two fingers shakily, determined to feel blood pumping through those telltale green veins erupting from her pale skin. But my hands were trembling too hard to feel anything, and I let out a gasping, terrified kind of scream, scratching through my pockets to find my phone.
Dialing 911 would take too long, a somewhat reasonable voice in my head told me. By then, she could be… I shut that voice up as I accidentally was directed to my recently added contacts. Wolff. I hesitated for only a millisecond before jabbing the call button. It rang once, twice –
“Hello?” he sounded confused. “Who is this?”
“Wolff, it’s me. Juliette. Can you please come back.” I struggled to steady myself enough for him to hear me. “There’s an emergency.”
“Hey, guys!” Wolff called out to everyone as my class herded out of the buses and spilled into the marble front entrance of our school. “Before you all run off, I just want to say a couple of things.” He waited until everyone had more or less shut up before continuing. “Thank you for not giving me hell and being so well-behaved today. I hope that you had fun and at least learned a couple of things at the same time so… Yeah. Have a nice weekend. Be safe.”
Connor appeared next to me as the throng began milling around. “Can I talk to you?” he asked quietly.
I looked up at him, surprised. “Sure.”
He took my hand and led me through the crowd of pushy kids trying to get to their cars. We passed by his twin sister Nicole, who scowled at me and ordered, “Make it quick, Connor.” Connor ignored acknowledging her, but I threw her the dirtiest look I could manage, which she easily returned.
“Why does your sister hate me so much?” I grumbled as we came to a stop in a relatively secluded corner.
Connor grimaced. “No idea. She’s just…whatever. You shouldn’t care.”
“I don’t,” I immediately defended myself, though I could think of a few choice adjectives to finish his sentence. She’s just… A stuck-up, spoiled bitch who loves being nasty for no reason, maybe? I switched the topic. “What did you want to talk about?”
He rubbed his left earlobe, a habit I knew he always did when he was nervous. “Um, I just wanted to ask…is everything okay?”
I blinked at him, taken aback. “Yeah. Why?”
“I mean…” He hesitated, then went on. “You were so quiet on the ride home. And we haven’t really talked in a while. I just wanted to know if you’re mad at me or something.” His large, light blue eyes looked worried, and more than that – sincere. I felt a wave of guilt. There were times when I was the bitch and brushed him off as being too immature for me. And then there were times like this, when I realized that he genuinely cared for me. I gave him a small smile. “I’m not mad at you, Con. I promise,” I assured him.
His face broke into a relieved grin. “Okay. Good. I was worried.”
“Don’t be.” I gave him a light kiss on the cheek, wracking my brain to think of an excuse for being so absent lately. It’s not like I could tell him about my mom and her problems that I was busy trying to fix. “It’s just college applications,” I settled on. “It’s stressing me out.”
He gave me a quick hug. “I’m sorry,” he said earnestly. “You should relax a little bit. Come with me tonight, there’s a party at Jeremy’s place. I feel like you haven’t been out in a while.”
I cocked my head, thinking. A party didn’t sound bad. “I’ll see,” I told him. “I’ll definitely try.”
“Great.” He leaned forward to give me a kiss on the lips. A couple of seconds later, an irritated voice interrupted.
“Let’s break up this make out session.” Nicole was standing a few feet away, tapping her foot and looking bored. “Come on, Con.”
“Hold on, Nicole,” Connor sounded exasperated. “Do you need a ride, babe?”
No way do I even want to be in the same space as that bitch for even a couple of minutes. “No, thanks, my mom is picking me up,” I told him truthfully.
He nodded. “If you’re sure. I’ll see you tonight!” He waved as Nicole dragged me off. I waved back, then rolled my eyes at Nicole’s antics.
I made my way back to the entrance and sat on the well-tended steps, thinking. I had made my mom promise to pick me up, not because I couldn’t drive, but because I had gathered up the courage for a confrontation. You drink too much, Mom, I practiced in my head. And I’ve been really worried lately. I sighed, playing with a loose string on my navy uniform skirt. I really hoped she would listen. I knew the source of my mother’s woes, of course – my dad. A couple nights ago, he was supposed to finally come home from a never-ending business trip and take my mom out to a fancy dinner. I came home that night to find my mother sitting on her bed in a beautiful red Versace dress, silently drinking as she watched the weather channel announcer talk about clear and sunny skies in Chicago, where he was supposed to come from, while the answering machine played over and over a scratchy message from him that hurriedly gave the excuse of a terrible thunder storm that was preventing the plane from taking off. It was heartbreaking, to say the least. My dad was an asshole for standing her up again, but I knew she suspected what was probably true – the c word. And no, not that word. Cheating.
“Everything alright?” a voice above me asked quietly.
I raised my head to see most of the parking lot empty, albeit a few stragglers just getting into their cars. Wolff sat down next to me. “You okay?”
“What? Oh. Yeah, I’m fine.” I wondered briefly if there was some kind of sign across my forehead that was prompting everyone to ask me the same question.
He gave me his crooked smile. “You’re the last one here,” he pointed out.
“Um, sorry?” I wasn’t sure what he was getting at.
He stretched out his legs and rested on his arms, tilting his head up to catch the remaining rays of the sun. “I have to wait for you to leave before I can go,” he explained. “School protocol.”
“Oh. Let me just call…” I pulled my phone out and dialed my mom’s cell number. No response. I tried the home phone. Nothing. I crinkled my forehead, confused. Even if my mom wasn’t home, Delilah, our maid, would usually answer by the third ring. I tried again. Still nothing. “Weird,” I muttered.
“What?” he asked, his eyes closed.
“Nothing, I just can’t get through with my mom.” I felt frustrated, and a little confused.
“You need a ride, doll?” he drawled lazily, his eyes shut as he remained in his nonchalant position on the steps.
“No. I’m sure she’ll be here in a minute,” I said patiently.
But a minute passed into five minutes. Then seven. Wolff stood up and began pacing. “I’m sorry,” I broke the silence. “I have no idea where she is…” Inside I was furious. How dare my mom just forget about me like that? I know I was seventeen, and very capable of taking care of myself, but jeeez. You’d think I hadn’t told her a hundred times that morning to pick me up so we could talk.
“Come on.” He pulled out his car keys. “I’ll give you a ride.”
I cast a look at the empty parking lot, seeing no sign of anyone coming, and stood up to follow him. “Thanks,” I mumbled, feeling totally embarrassed, like a kindergartener that still needed a teacher to walk them to the bus.
“Don’t think about it.” He hummed absent-mindedly as we reached his car. “Get in.”
I slid gracefully into the familiar front seat as he ripped off his tie and stiff school jacket with an air of relief and tossed it in a bundle into the back seat. I smiled slightly. “You don’t like the uniform?”
“Does anyone?” he answered as he pulled out smoothly. “I went to a public school in Boston – not a fancy school like this. I’m not used to it.” He glanced at me. “Why, do you?”
I gave a delicate shrug. “It definitely makes getting up in the morning easier,” I admitted. “But I don’t know… It just makes everyone look the same.”
“Not you,” he seemed to say without thinking. He threw me an embarrassed look and cleared his throat. “I mean, you’re different than, you know, all those other girls.” He bit his slightly chapped lips, as though contemplating whether to go on. He appeared to reach a consensus in his mind and continued. “You’re something special, Juliette.”
I turned my head to look at him, completely flattered. “Wow. Thanks, Wolff.” His compliment, in a bizarre way, made me feel a rush of tingles. He didn’t say anything in return, but I could almost see a pink blush appear at the apple of his cheeks, and I had to smile, awwing inwardly. He turned his face slightly, and all I could see was the profile of his face. His sharp cheekbones jutted out, catching the weak rays of the early November sunlight streaming through the window, with several-days-old scruff that I hadn’t noticed before. I suddenly noticed how abnormally long his eyelashes were, how slightly crooked his nose was, almost as though it had been broken once, long ago, and never been fixed, how strong his jaw line was. Masculine and feminine, mixed together in one face in a strangely beautiful way.
Out of his teacher’s uniform and off school premises, Wolff seemed much younger, different. More informal, I would say. I’d never be caught dead ever accepting a ride from one of my other teachers, let alone accepting one twice, but nothing about Wolff made me feel uncomfortable, or awkward in any kind of way. With this thought in mind, I unconsciously kicked off my stiff heels and raised my legs to rest my feet on his dashboard. “What?” I said when he shot me a look.
“Get your feet off my dashboard,” he told me, looking like he was trying not to laugh.
“No!” I protested. “My feet are killing me.”
“Who told you to walk around in heels all day? I don’t understand girls,” he muttered, shaking his head.
I smiled, tilting my head back as I cranked the window open while he came to a stop at a red light. Light wind whipped my blonde hair around, and out of the corner of my eye, I definitely, definitely saw him taking a good look at my exposed legs. I almost raised an eyebrow in surprise.
He’s not actually…is he?
I stretched out a little, intentionally raising my skirt a centimeter or two, turning my head to pretend to gaze out the window. His eyes remained glued. I felt my breath catch in my throat a little bit, feeling a thumping beat stagger in my chest, and a warm feeling spread in my body. Oh, shit.
The light then turned green and Wolff’s eyes darted swiftly back up to the road. I leaned back in the seat, closing my eyes slightly, trying to convince myself that my teacher was not, in fact, checking me out, and that it was all in my head. The next couple of minutes passed in silence, until I heard the gravel grumbling beneath the wheels and I knew we had reached my driveway.
“Thanks for the ride, Wolff,” I said, reaching for the door handle.
He gave me a quick smile. “No problem, Juliette,” he replied easily as I slid into my shoes and stepped out of the car. “Have a nice weekend, doll.”
I waved as I headed up my walkway. Unlocking the front door, I slipped into my house, mentally preparing myself for a serious talk with my mom. The house seemed cold and vacant. I frowned, flicking on the lights. “Mom?”
Not too unusual. I knew she was typically in her room. I wandered into the kitchen. No one, not even my housekeeper. Now that was weird. Huh. I made my way upstairs. “Mom?” I dropped my bag off at the top of the extravagant stairs and kicked off my shoes. The plush Persian carpet muffled my steps as I marched to my parent’s suite, gathering up courage with every step. Mom, you have a problem, I rehearsed again in my head. I pushed the door open. “Mom? It’s me, Juliette,” I called out, standing at the threshold. I was met with nothing but an icy silence.
I looked around the room, confused. The lights were on, TV was working, bed was rumpled…all normal signs. But where the hell was she? I moved into the room, now feeling worried.
And then I was met with a petrifying sight. My breath almost stopped as I gazed down at my mother passed out on the floor with two empty bottles of vodka beside her. Her face was deathly pale, her lips turning blue –
“Mom!” I yelled, dropping to the floor. I grabbed her wrist and pressed two fingers shakily, determined to feel blood pumping through those telltale green veins erupting from her pale skin. But my hands were trembling too hard to feel anything, and I let out a gasping, terrified kind of scream, scratching through my pockets to find my phone.
Dialing 911 would take too long, a somewhat reasonable voice in my head told me. By then, she could be… I shut that voice up as I accidentally was directed to my recently added contacts. Wolff. I hesitated for only a millisecond before jabbing the call button. It rang once, twice –
“Hello?” he sounded confused. “Who is this?”
“Wolff, it’s me. Juliette. Can you please come back.” I struggled to steady myself enough for him to hear me. “There’s an emergency.”
♠ ♠ ♠
I promised drama, and here it is.Enjoy. Thanks for reading. And thank you to my new subscribers!!
Also, I may potential change the name of the story, but when that happens you'll know.
Comment, bbs.