Enigma.

"Come on, Codi. Seriously, this is it. You'll never go to another school dance, besides Prom, ever again."

I sighed, my head tipping toward the orange-painted metal of my locker before I slammed it shut. Slinging my bag onto my shoulder, I turned towards Izzy. Giving her my best look with the purest devotion of annoyance, I remarked, "Yeah. If I didn't go to another school dance, oh, it'd just be too soon."

"Come on!" Izzy whined, her voice dropping to a throaty beg, her body inclining on itself. "I'm sure we can find you a poor little victim. You can coax any guy you wanted to into going to the Sadie Hawkins Dance and you know it."

"Gee," I mocked enthusiasm as I twisted my long pale blonde hair into a messy bun, rubbing the back of my neck. "Don't you think there's more to high school than boys and dances and gossip?"

"Gee" She mocked me, "Don't you think you were born in the wrong era? Get with it, seriously. We're at our A-game. We rule the school. We are women, goddamn it! We can get guys to bend to our will and go to a social setting, and you'd rather—what? Spend it reading another novel? Watching another movie? Hanging out in my basement?"

Staring at her through my peripherals, she faltered back one step. She recognized the look, the same one I gave when I didn’t want to hear anything more, the look I gave when the hairs on the back of my neck would stand up in sheer annoyance. It was the look I gave when I was pissed beyond the point of no return, and I closed my eyes and opened them once more to calm the air between us.

"Izz, I can think of a million better things to do on a Saturday night than go to another stupid school dance." I said only loud enough over the cluttered hall as we made our departure down the stairs.

"Oh yeah?" she challenged, "Name five."

"Reading a book, watching a movie, hanging out in your basement, sleeping and eating cheese."

"Name two more."

I opened my mouth to reply even more snidely than before when I ran headlong into an iron chest. He huffed and rolled his shoulders back beneath his thin black leather jacket. Stepping back, I cleared my throat as his black fedora tilted forward and casted long dark shadows over the features of his face.

"S-Sorry," I mumbled, taking two more steps back and clearing my throat.

He lifted his chin as he stared down at me, his dark eyes regarding me and his shaggy black hair casting more shadows over him. He was tall, his facial features pallid and flawless, his mouth in a grim line, and his shoulders pushed back. He was completely hipster-biker and he wore both stereotypes very fittingly with his snug black jeans, white V-neck and his neck tattoo poking out from beneath the leather on the right side of his neck.

Even more fitting to his stereotypes were his words, which flowed through his lips like water down a stream. "Yeah. I'd watch my step next time."

Maneuvering around me, he pushed the fedora back a little bit and shoved his hands into his jean pockets before flowing out the door with a fluid step that proposed grace and laziness kicking through each move of his foot. I watched him walk until the door closed and Izzy pulled on my sleeve to gather my attention.

"Ooh." she breathed, shivering and shaking her limbs out to emphasize her chills. "That new exchanger really has a bite to his bark, wouldn't you say?"

I glanced over at her as we walked through the door and out towards my car, "New exchange student?"

She nodded, "Yeah, he just moved in from, like, New York or something. It would explain his chic clothes, don't you think?"

"New York?" I asked my mind up in the clouds and my steps calculated.

Izzy pushed me, and then gathered a handful of my shirt sleeve to steady me once more. "Oh, don't go looking like that. Don't go looking like that! I know that look. He's new here, and already you wanna pounce?"

Whipping my head back toward her, I thrusted my hand out towards whatever way he'd just disappeared, "Pounce on him?" I echoed, "He wanted to pounce on me! Did you see that? I'd watch my step next time? Are you fucking serious? Who does he think he is? Don Vito Corleone? I don't think so."

The more I thought about it, the more heated I started to feel. I huffed out hot air, my arms winding around my chest tightly as we rounded over to my little silver hatchback. Izzy’s eyes chased me as I grappled for the door handle and grunted when it wouldn’t open.

“Hey, Crazy,” Izzy started, “Try pushing unlock.”

My eyes narrowed on her as I jabbed the button. I poked the air, pointing at her with a jab as my embarrassment and growing irritation and annoyance climbed off the Richter scale. “Don’t start with me.”

Izzy laughed as she pulled her door open and plopped down on the red-and-black zebra seat cover, “Matson told me to tell you to wait around a minute.”

“Ugh,” I groaned, my fingers going to my temples before I opened my eyes back to the emptying parking lot. “Who’s he sneaking around with behind the bleachers today?”

This puzzled Izzy, her eyes rolling up toward the ceiling for a moment as her bottom lip jutted out. Isabella Chilton was beautiful, and I wasn’t the only one who thought so, thankfully. She had blonde hair a few shades darker than mine, borderline brunette, and a curvy image. She filled it up with thrift store attire and tattered jeans and leggings. Her ears were gauged, a Monroe piercing on the right side of her mouth and crystal clear blue eyes.

“Uh, I think her name is Mindy Jenson. I can’t be too sure. She’s some girl from his Pop Lit class. He said it wouldn’t be too long.” Izzy smiled.

I shuddered. I didn’t want to hear about Brian hooking up with some girl behind the bleachers before he came and sat in the backseat of my car. It was just dirty.

Pushing my key in, I turned the engine over until it purred to life. Glancing in the rearview mirror, I saw black eyes and a warning smirk playing off the face of Mr. Watch Your Step. He revved his engine as he slowly crept into the line of cars, his black 1990 Pontiac Firebird glinting and reflecting sunlight like a glass prism. Over the top of his car, I could see Brian Matson rub his hand up and down the side of a short wavy haired girl who was pressing a kiss against his cheek and leaning up to whisper something against his earlobe quite seductively.

My bad mood subdued as I watched him play his game. His hand crept under her shirt just at the hip as he ran his fingers and nails over her skin and she inclined on him. His arms came around her as he swiveled his head and landed his lips on hers before she spun out of his arms and toward her car. He pointed at her and I imagined him relaying how he was going to call her later tonight.

His eyes gravitated toward my car and he smiled widely. He was close enough to see the chocolate brown scruff dusting along his neck and around his mouth. His hair was cut short, dark brown like the scruff, and stylish. He had navy blue rectangular glasses that framed over his chocolate brown eyes, flecked with evergreen and gold. He was almost hulking in height and slight muscle, arms thick and chest almost full as he stood at a couple inches past six feet.

Pulling the back door open, he slid in. “Afternoon, Dakota, Isabella.” He said in his smooth, winning tone. The same tone that used when he was whispering sweet nothings into girls’ ears.

I shot him a quick glare in the mirror and Izzy spun around and kneeled on her seat to send her own warning glare at him. Izzy and I went by nicknames because we held a very high distaste for our birth names. Izzy, because her name had become tainted by a trashy novel, and mine because it was just overrated. It insisted that I was either a) a valley girl or b) not to be messed with. Or—because this happens more often than not—c) that I was a boy.

Sure, giving myself the name “Codi” insinuated that I was, just as well, a boy, but it seemed more fitting. It was simple, quick, and different. I liked that about my name, because everything else about me was as mainstream as they came. I wasn’t like Izzy, who had a certain style to her look. I wasn’t like Matson, who had a certain poise or energy to his… everything.

All I had was long pale blonde hair that did anything I wanted it to do, no complaints, hazel eyes that changed depending upon what I was wearing (usually they were mostly a muddy brown) and a high metabolism. That about summed me up in a sentence. I won’t bore you and say that I thought I was nothing special, just another person in the sea of people, traveling with the flow. I knew I was pretty, I knew I was attractive. I won’t say that I was painstakingly beautiful, and that to have me was to have a rare and precious gem stone. But, I knew I was pretty.

“Don’t go there.” Izzy jabbed Matson, poking him in the chest oh-so-threateningly. Though, to say Izzy was threatening was to say that a butterfly was too.

Matson’s melodic chuckle filled the car, overpowering the quiet radio. “Calm down, calm down. Sorry to keep you guys waiting, though.”

“Oh, you’re so sorry; I can feel the apologies just wafting from your skin.” I rolled my eyes and pulled into the line of cars, resting with my foot on the brake. “So, who is she, Matson?”

“Her name is Mallory Jensen. She’s in my Pop Lit class.” Matson sighed, sinking back into his seat. The romantic fool he was, continuing on, “She’s got lips crafted by angels and a body sinful like the devil’s mistress. She’s perfect.”

I glanced at Izzy at the same time she glanced back at me and we snorted before laughing hard enough to vibrate through the car. The thing about Matson was that he was a lady’s man, but he played his cards backward. The kid believed in love, and that he was a guru for it. So, naturally, he should share it with everyone. It was something of his life’s philosophy. The only problem was, he let his “guru magic” connect back to his feelings. To put it simply would be to say that he was a girl about things when it came to love and relationships. He fell too hard too quickly and then moved on just as fast as he’d fallen.

“Yeah, how long you think this one will last?” I asked, my eyes going towards Izzy as we sat stalled behind a river of cars, so long, the Mississippi was jealous.

“I give it until Monday.” Izzy inferred just as Matson shrugged and said, “Who knows? Only time’ll tell.”

He said that for every girlfriend he’d had for the last year. Like I’d stated, Matson was as hopelessly romantic as they came. He wore his heart on his sleeve and lost himself to every girl who’d placed their hand over it. I gave him props, though, because he would always get back up on his feet afterwards.

Shaking my head, my fingers twitched towards the radio knob, turning it up a couple notches. We fell into a head-nodding rhythm, one that grabbed your spinal cord and tipped your head forward and backward without your consent or control. That was until Matson opened his mouth and forced me to screw mine closed.

“Hey, you guys hear about that new transfer kid?”

Izzy whipped her head around toward me, her eyes big just like her smile. Glancing at her through the edges of my eyes, I shook my head. “Oh yeah, we’ve met him.”

Matson lifted an eyebrow, “Why do you say it like that?”

“Why do you bring it up?” I asked quickly, trying to cut Izzy off, but she was like a new puppy—loud, obnoxious, and without control or obedience.

“That’s Codi’s new interest of the opposite sex.” Izzy said anyway, twisting around to look back at Matson with a waggle to her eyebrows. “If you know what I mean.”

“Oh, really, already? It’s only the kid’s first day, Codi. Let him adjust to the area at least.” Matson smirked back at me.

“Oh, cut it out.” I griped, “You don’t even know the story. He’s anything but my new interest of the opposite sex. The kid pretty much threatened me like he was some top shit.” My eyes rolled on their own accord as we finally rounded a few cars behind the end of the driveway.

“How’d he threaten you?”

I waved my hand as we turned out of the drive and into the busy street, buzzing and zooming with adolescence ready to go home and really start the day, get pumped up for tomorrow’s football game, like most of the student body did. “I bumped into him and he told me to watch my step next time.”

“Oh, come on. That’s so girly of you,” Matson snapped with a smirk, “To take something small and spur of the moment and then turn it into a big deal.”

“Uh-uh,” Izzy shook her head, smirking as well, which made her Monroe piercing jut out of her skin. “You didn’t hear the kid, Matson. He said it and meant it and glared and made a very unforgettable getaway. Though, he was damn sexy when he did it.”

My hand moved swift like lightning, snatching out and slapping Izzy against her shoulder enough to elicit a quick squeal. I peeked at her and she was sending me a quick glare as she rubbed her shoulder.