Page 5 of The Truth About Love

It only seems fair that the prettiest name I’ve ever heard belongs to the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.

Auden’s words replay in my head for the millionth time since Monday afternoon and just like every time before, my heart races and my palms sweat. Compliments aren’t something I know how to handle. I’d honestly have been more comfortable if he’d told me my name was ugly and matched my face.

But he had called mepretty.

And though I’m almost entirely certain he only said it to prank me, I find myself wanting to believe that he meant it. It makes me wonder what else he thinks about me. It makes me want to hear him call me Summer-Raine again, even though I hate it when people use my full name.

The truth is, it just doesn’t sound so bad coming from him.

Auden Wells, with his eyes like sapphires and dimples that would make a grandmother proud. He’s hijacked my every thought since he plonked himself down beside me on the beach three days ago. I swear, his smile is so sinful it could only belong to the devil. He’s the quarterback who recites poetry, looks at me like he can see the shadows I hide from the world and makes promises to prove the existence of love.

But what would he want with me?

He didn’t even strike me as the jock type and I had no idea he was even on the football team until I saw his photo on the wall by the gymnasium. As soon as I found out, I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t realised it before. It’s a fact as clear as the Florida sky, he’s the football star of the school. He sits with the cheerleaders and other jocks at lunch in the cafeteria, he wears his football jersey in the school halls.

And I sit alone on an empty table and wear long-sleeve shirts to school every day.

The more I see of him laughing with his friends, that sunshine smile so easy on his face, the more I doubt the truth of his words when he looked me in the eye and told me I was the prettiest girl he’s ever seen. How can I be? When he hangs out with girls like the ones on the cheer squad with their blow-dried hair, manicured nails and perfect button noses. I bet he’s slept with them all.

He looks the type to have left a trail of broken hearts and pregnancy scares behind him.

That’s what I’m thinking about as I let myself into my empty house and lock the door behind me. My parents won’t be home tonight, they’re both away on business and my sister lives in the dorms of Florida State University, so it’s just me.

The irony isn’t lost on me that my parents moved us to Islamorada from Cape Coral for a supposed “change of scenery” and yet they’ve spent a maximum of maybe three nights here enjoying it for themselves. For the rest of that time, it’s just been me in this huge monstrosity of a beach house all alone. At seventeen years old, I’m having to navigate my way through a town that I’ve never been to, start at a school with students I’ve never met and try to make a home in a house I don’t want to live in, all alone.

I shut myself in my bedroom and spend the evening getting as far ahead with my school work as possible and when I’m ready for bed, just like every night since I was fourteen, I use a razor blade to draw a line in crimson across the scarred skin on my forearm. And then I fall asleep.

* * *

Miss Rossi, if the name on the teacher’s desk is correct, waltzes into AP English Lit wearing a yellow printed floral dress with a full skirt cinched in at the waist and an obviously inexpensive faux flower clipped behind her ear.

I watch, fascinated, as she individually places the books she was carrying onto her desk, arranging them at a perfect ninety-degree angle, all while humming what sounds like Dean Martin’s ‘That’s Amore’ to herself as she works. If her clear penchant for 1950s pop culture is anything to go by, I’d bet a large percentage of my parents’ riches that she has a faded poster of James Dean on her bedroom wall and kisses it before bed every night.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I’m not exactly in a position to judge other people’s bedtime routines.

The door swings open and I don’t even need to look in the direction to know who’s just entered the classroom. It’s like my body is intuitively aware of his presence. The skin on the back of my neck tingles and my breathing grows faster. It’s like an instinct or a sixth-sense.

I was actually expecting to see Auden in this class, given our poetry recital on the beach, but Iwasn’texpecting him to make a beeline for the empty chair beside me and throw himself into it like he’s claimed the seat for life.

Miss Rossi raises her eyebrows at his eagerness before swinging her feline eyes over to me. “You’re new.” She stares down her nose at me.

“Yes. Summer Taylor, Miss.”

I hold my breath and brace myself for yet another awkward class introduction. Three teachers this week, not including Mr Hanson from anthology, have made me stand and recite three “interesting” facts about myself.

“Favourite book?”

Sweet Jesus, here we go.

I spend a moment debating whether or not to lie and say something that was published in the fifties like John Steinbeck’sEast of Edenjust to please her enough to fuck off and leave me alone.But brown-nosing has never been my thing, so I opt for the truth instead. “The Bell Jar,Miss.”

Auden audibly sucks in a breath beside me.

It’s inconvenient that my favourite novel is often interpreted as a pretty damning critique of 1950s social politics when the woman asking is obviously obsessed with the decade, but what am I gonna do? She asked. I answered.

But its social commentary isn’t the reason whyThe Bell Jaris my favourite, or at least not theonlyreason. The truth is, I just relate a lot to Esther, the novel’s protagonist. Miss Rossi must see something on my face because she nods her head slowly in understanding before turning away to take attendance.

“So, Sylvia Plath,huh?” Auden nudges me, a few strands of his wild hair flopping onto his forehead. “Nothing like reading about the perils of outdated psychiatric treatments to put you in a good mood.”

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