Motel 69

Cellar Door.

They say it's the most beautiful pair of words in the English language. Non-English speakers would never expect the phrase to be spelled the way it is.

Cooper Priestly, of course, would know that. And cellar door was all that was written on the paper.

Was the beauty in the words supposed to mean something to her? An apology? she wondered. Or maybe it was his guilt that had finally caught up to him now that they were graduating.

For weeks, study hall had been incredibly awkward and tense. Neither would acknowledge the other. Marilyn would keep her head buried in a book, and Cooper, when he felt the need to actually go, would doodle on papers the entire period. But now his eyes met hers again. Unwelcome feelings passed through both of their bodies.

In her curly script, she merely wrote one word underneath and passed it back to him. What?

He passed it back moments later.

Midnight.

She didn't want to. But she knew she would go anyway.