Alive Again

Reese woke up on Tuesday feeling strange. She had this stupid smile on her face and couldn’t stop herself from bouncing a bit on her heels. She felt insecure but excited—downright giddy to be going to school. A lot of that insecurity and excitement was because of John. She was insecure because she didn’t know how to act around him, and excited to just see him again.

She got up ungodly early to get ready for school, taking extra care to look nice. Clary, however, was the polar opposite. When they met in the foyer to drive to school together, she looked like she had just rolled out of bed. Reese could hardly mask her surprise at her sister’s appearance—baggy t-shirt and grey sweatpants with their school name printed on the seat. Her face was devoid of any makeup, making her appear sickly looking, and her hair wasn’t brushed.

“Don’t you want to get ready? We’re going to be late,” Reese had said with some apprehension. She didn’t particularly feel like talking to her sister—especially this strange new version. Clary 2.0 came without a manual and Reese didn’t know how to work with it.

“I am ready,” she claimed, her voice as dull as her eyes. When the Wallace sisters arrived at school, Clary bypassed her friends and walked, with her head down, straight into the building. Reese paused outside the building, scoping the parking lot for her Jolly Green Giant. She was trying very hard to be subtle about her search. In that moment, Reese would settle for seeing anyone she knew. All she wanted was to talk, to be around people and unleash all her positive energy—to share the giddiness that plagued her.

She found Kennedy at his locker. He was attempting to give the top shelf some semblance of organization—something he had been doing every morning since school started. It was a lost cause, but Kennedy didn’t seem likely to let up on the idea any time soon. Reese smacked him in the ass as she passed, using the fairly thick book she and John were reading for their English assignment.

Kennedy jumped and pulled himself away from his messy locker. He stared down at Reese with a quirked brow. Reese normally looked happy to see him in the morning, she had a tired smile on hand at all times, but she seemed to be glowing. Her grin reached her eyes, making them glint with something like mischief. Reese quirked her brow in a challenging way and Kennedy, having spent so much time with her, understood what it meant.

“I have a date on Friday,” he announced. Reese’s smile grew, so much so that Kennedy could have counted each of her teeth.

“With Sam,” Reese assessed without asking. She had left him the day before with instructions to call Sam. Kennedy wouldn’t be dumb enough to call another girl and pursue a meaningless relationship. Oh, wait, hadn’t he done that with Clary? No, it had meant something to him.

Kennedy flushed and hid himself in his locker to avoid Reese’s mischievous gaze. Reese let him be for the moment. She toyed with the hem of her shirt and tried to think of the words she wanted to say. She looked at the rapidly filling halls and it was like he was waiting for her to see him. He walked with purposeful strides towards her. His crooked smile seemed more bashful than before and she wondered if John felt half as giddy as she did. The words fell from her mouth, aware that his eyes watched her shape the vowels.

“I have a date on Friday, too.” John had made his way to Reese by the time Kennedy had comprehended what she said. He still had his head in his locker when John held out a box of Reese’s Pieces. The shyness of his offering and the memory of words and kisses exchanged made Reese nibble her lower lip. She was all too aware of how her face was flushing.

“Really, and who do you have a date with?” Kennedy asked with genuine curiosity. His head retracted from the messy depths of his locker in time to witness first hand John pressing his lips softly to the smooth skin of Reese’s pink cheek. He was stunned at not only the action but the gentleness in which John executed the affectionate side of himself.

“Holy shit,” the words fell from his mouth before he could stop them. Everyone had been waiting for this day—some people were taking bets on when they’d get together—and now it was happening. John O’Callaghan and Reese Wallace appeared to be a couple. Not just any couple—the couple! Their tenderness was a direct effect of their shyness. Kennedy felt that his shocked statement was justified. John showed no indication of being affected by Kennedy’s brash words, other than a somewhat smug smile. However, Reese looked like she had gotten a bad sun burn over the weekend but was smiling in spite of it.

“Can I walk you to class?” John asked Reese while she fiddled with the candy he had just brought her. He paid no mind at all to Kennedy. The moment Reese gave a timid nod John had picked up her bag and her hand. He was not shy about holding her hand or carrying her bag while he walked her to class. Reese was all too aware of the stares and whispers. She wanted to curl in on herself and disappear from the scrutiny of her peers.

John seemed so oblivious to it all, very calm and collected. He was smiling though, and how could he not? He had ecstatic butterflies flying around his stomach and a pretty girl holding his hand. He was on top of the world and not hesitant about showcasing that fact. The speculation continued on all day as John walked Reese to every one of her classes.

She thought that she would be alone on her way to lunch. Her classroom was right there, next to the cafeteria. As pure usual Reese bolted from her seat and headed out the door—and almost collided with John. Her mouth opened in a silent question—how?—and John only shrugged with his half smile and guided her to the cafeteria with a gentle hand on her lower back.

Reese felt a sense of déjà vu as John sat at the table and tugged her next to him. Their position was all too familiar. His arm was around her shoulder and her right side pressed into his left. Her right hand was mere inches from John’s thigh and that’s all she could think about—their proximity. She doubted anyone could slip a piece of paper between them. She was distracted by the feeling of his finger slipping under the grey fabric covering her shoulder and how his scent seemed to surround her.

She felt John shift and then the ghost of his breath along her ear. His head was bent toward her, his hair brushing her cheek as he leaned in to whisper to her, “You look beautiful today.” He continued to finger the soft fabric of her shirt like it was completely natural. Reese kept her gaze from the rest of the cafeteria, unable to handle the intrigued looks from her classmates. She allowed her head come to rest comfortably against John’s shoulder and stared at her hand instead.

“Oh shit,” she heard and felt the table slightly shift as someone joined them. She looked up and lifted her right hand to brush her bangs from her eyes. Jared had joined their table, the corners of his mouth tugged downward, not in anger or sadness but in confusion as his eyes switched between John and Reese. His eyes began to follow the movement of Reese’s right hand, all the way to where it fell out of sight under the table.

Reese tried to be confident and brave as she let her right hand fall onto John’s knee. It was much more comfortable for her to be pressed against him that way. He gave her shoulder a slight squeeze and she mulled it over for a moment before reciprocating the action. She felt the burning of John’s gaze on her and looked up.

The pure intensity of his stare caused the breath to be knocked right out of Reese. She had never felt such raw passion from just eye contact. She felt like if they didn’t look away from each other soon then she’d combust. John began to gently comb his fingers through her hair, such a gentle and soothing motion. John wanted to be impulsive, to just kiss her right there in the cafeteria. She had no idea that looking at him that way could make him lose his cool. Her half-lidded eyes and lazy smile reminded him of how she had looked when he had kissed her.

Her skin was warm beneath his finger tips. He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against Reese’s and inhaled her overwhelming scent. He leaned down to whisper in her ear, to tell her just how intoxicating she was, when Jared spoke. He had hardly noticed his friend approach the table... honestly he had forgotten after Reese had placed her warm hand on his knee. The touch seemed to burn straight through the fabric.

“So...?” Jared prodded the two. Reese immediately turned her head back to Jared, flushed and trembling. He had spoken loudly, trying to break the trance the two seemed to be under. John turned his gaze to his friend and Reese was so close that she could feel the movement. She had never been this close to anyone before. It was a completely foreign concept to her. The acts from before, the kisses and the touches, had been more like Clary than Reese and frankly, Reese was not Clary. She didn’t know how to react when John did these things to her.

She didn’t know how to be close to anyone. She had never wanted to be close to anyone before.

“Well what the hell, you two?” Jared pressed. Reese fought the urge to look to John to get them out of this. She had no answer for Jared because she felt the same way he did—confused and slightly out of the loop. After a few beats of silence, John answered like Reese had hoped he would.

“What the hell do you think, Jared?” It wasn’t exactly the answer that Reese had been hoping for.

“You boned her?” Reese blanched at Jared’s calm question.

“Jared!” Elle had arrived at the table, reprimanding Jared for his less than sensitive words.

“What?” He challenged, shrugging. “It’s a valid guess.” Elle took Jared’s words into consideration, looking to the only other occupants of the table. Her gaze flickered quickly from their intimate position to Reese’s pallid face. In a brief moment she had assessed the situation she had abruptly walked into.

“I think it’s pretty obvious,” she told her friend, and then lowered her voice for the second half of the sentence, “that they’re dating.”

The table let that conversation drop and spoke of mundane school matters and the list of things Elle and Jared wished to accomplish before graduation. However, Reese wasn’t paying attention to that. For the rest of her day, she thought about how general the term dating was. She and John hadn’t actually been out on a date yet. Did dating mean that she wasn’t committed to him? She honestly couldn’t see herself committing to anyone but him, at least in this school. Did it mean that he could see other people? She certainly wouldn’t. The closest she had come to being intimate with another person had been with Kennedy, and they had a history.

What did it mean to be dating? It sounded so casual and loose. Reese didn’t want to be casual or loose—she didn’t know how to be. She wanted a relationship and romance, something she could take directly from a book. Perhaps she’d go to a bookstore after school and pick up a copy of Dating for Dummies. That had to exist, right?

John met Reese after her last class and carried her bag to the student parking lot. He placed a lingering kiss to her cheek, opened her driver’s side door and then shut it before he went off to his own vehicle. It left her feeling rather dazed, like the whole day had been a dream and Tuesday had yet to actually start. She barely noticed Clary, eyes downcast and hands wringing in her lap, get into the car.

Wednesday happened much like Tuesday had. John met Reese at Kennedy’s locker and presented her with candy. He walked her to each class with her hand safely enclosed in his. She sat with his friends at lunch and he walked her to the parking lot with a soft goodbye and a lingering kiss to her cheek, which left it flushed and tingling. However, on Thursday John deviated from what Reese was finding to be a rather settling routine.

In the parking lot, in the full view of the entire student body, he kissed her. He pulled her to him by the fabric of her loose fitted tank top and stooped low to press his mouth against hers. Reese’s toes curled in her shoes at the contact and she gasped. Reese didn’t think she’d ever get used to the feeling of being kissed or touched the way John kissed and touched her. A soft sigh was elicited from her mouth as she allowed herself to relax. She pushed up onto the tips of her toes for more pressure.

The kiss was long, slow and sensual. It was the kind of kiss that Reese read about in romance novels, the kind that left the heroine breathless and dazed—and she felt just like they did. He held her close, even after he had ended the kiss. Reese didn’t dare look away from John, too shy to see how the school would react to that display of affection. However, she had difficulty with looking into his eyes, the intensity in which he stared at her proved to be almost as nerve-wracking as the kiss. Instead, she contented herself with counting the freckles on his face; the ones that she hadn’t noticed were there. She had never really been this close to him before... without the heat of passion to distract her.

“I’m going to pick you up tomorrow at five. We’ll go get something to eat and then we’ll go see what movies are playing. If nothing good is on, we can just rent a movie and watch it at my house or your house. Whatever you want, okay? Just be ready to go at five.” Reese nodded dumbly, wondering briefly why they didn’t just leave straight from school. Her mind was still trying to catch up with her body.

Reese and Clary went their separate ways when they arrived home. Clary went to her room and Reese to hers. The house was quiet, no sounds from the laundry room or the dishwasher to hint at the fact that their mother had been home at all. Usually Reese would have checked the answering machine and the kitchen counter for some sort of sign from her mother.

She shirked her responsibility without a second thought, and collapsed onto her bed. Her stomach was stirring unpleasantly. It was easy to feel like everything was okay when she was with John. When she wasn’t with him she kept thinking about why he chose her of all people. The apprehension, the insecurity and the anxiety of this unknown was all she could think of, leaving little time for other thoughts.

“I don’t think I’m ready to date,” she said to the room. With her fear laid out in front of her, she turned to her bedside table and extracted a simple book to keep her thoughts away from the inevitable date tomorrow.