I look away, mortified but also mesmerised, and my eyes naturally find the most beautiful thing in the area. The air, fresh with recent rainfall, feels so good that I want to go outside and curl up like an animal on the concrete. Mitch and my mom were supposed to be back by now so I decide to wait for them in the little shielded bit over our front door - that is, until I see another truck pulling up onto the street.

I look over at her and she’s shuffling on her feet, half wanting to make sure that I’m okay and half scared about not making it to class on time. It turns out that the scraggy metal death-trap I pitch-forked my fist on was Mitch’s, and the sexy black Ford truck I spotted on his curb yesterday belongs to Tate. He rounds the other side of the bed and pulls up the tarp, squinting up at me against the beating rain. His chest knocks against my left shoulder, but before I can stumble backwards he hooks his right arm around my waist to prevent the fall. I shoot up in bed, shoving my glasses back up my nose as I try to ease the crick in my neck from jolting so suddenly.

There’s a crowd all the way around the track, and behind that I see stalls set up by sponsors and merchandise vendors. just as her overly-stretched hair bobble snaps and flies across the room, Pablo Picasso at the whiteboard evidently none the wiser. I was only wearing one ear-bud so I could still hear the noises from around us, and, being a nerd and all, the rustle of pages caught my attention.

It’s her attempt at forced social interaction, which she says is for the maintenance of her natural animal requirements, otherwise she would undoubtedly avoid our classmates like the plague.After our conversation Tate locked himself in the garage and I heard all sorts of hacking and drilling sounds, so I imagine that he’s making some sort of voodoo doll. I twist the key, pulling open the little door, and as I go to grab my sports bag I see a piece of folded paper that I don’t remember putting there. I stop abruptly at the bottom of the attic stairwell and he has to catch himself on the frame of the entryway to prevent us from toppling body-into-body. Download Where We Left Off by Sapphire Hale PDF, River Linton is finishing her Senior year of high school when she runs into Tate Coleson. Streaks of water are gushing down his tan cheekbones and his hair is plastered, dark and tousled, to his forehead.

I thought that I would beat him to the meet-up because the gym is right next to the lot, but once I’m out of the doors I see that Tate is already by the tree. I don’t know who Madden is but I laugh and get back to copying Mr Miller’s diagram into my Bio book. The cotton quilt feels cool on my bare skin and I shudder as I slink further into the mattress, the rain thudding repetitively on the window pane outside.

There’s a cold pattering of rain and it’s kind of windy but my blood has gone cold for a whole other reason.

One of his arms is wrapped around my mom’s shoulders and he ushers me with his free hand, saying, “Please, come inside. My good mood exceeds the final bell and I’m still a little shimmery when I’m cleaning up the dishes after dinner with my mom. Early morning: Some people find that reading in the morning helps them start their day with a positive and productive mindset. The other boy snorts and they disappear into the naughty boys’ pen, shaking the rainwater out of their hair like a pack of wolves. And, unless my brain is glitching, there is a large dark tattoo – something like a cross and storm clouds and maybe some scripture – enveloping his swollen bicep.

There’s an enclosed track just outside of town, but it’s out of use when we get all the rainfall, so this will probably be the last event until next spring. Once our dinner is ready we sit down at the table, café jazz playing softly from my laptop on the counter. It’s going to be so gross when some of them go pro, and whenever we see them on TV we’ll remember what assholes they were in high school. The more time that River and Tate spend together, the more that the truth of her past seems to unravel.