Okay, I'm going to appologize right away for any mistakes that might have been made to this as it was from NaNo. And for the language which is the reason for the rating. I eventually plan on changin this from third person to first but that would just take forever. Anyways, please tear this travesty apart.
Prologue
Cassie had never trusted beautiful boys.
Maybe it was something in their smiles or in the way they just knew that they could get away with anything that they wanted. Either way, she didn’t like them in the least.
And something about this boy made the hair on the back of her neck prickle with a little more prick than usual and her attention suddenly perk up with just a bit more tension than it normally did when she watched one of them walk by.
Boys suck.
But the minute she let her eyes flick up to his, she felt a tingle run down her legs, dance within her toes, and back up into her fingers. She looked away, focusing on the dog down the road, sniffing its crotch before licking delightedly at whatever morsel resided under its tail.
Cassie felt the bench bow as he sidled in next to her. He was close, breaking all the usual rules of stranger etiquette. She could taste his breath on her tongue. The weight of pepperoni pizza and orange soda slid down her throat as she swallowed back the tension in her body.
He was impossibly close, to a point where she could reach her right arm to his right knee.
More importantly, he was preposterously beautiful. He was practically glowing. Or was it just the sun in her blond hair that made it look like a halo was living over his blue eyes, possibly there in order to disguise the horns that marked him as an imposter.
The bench vibrated and she could smell something else, something lighter and riper than the orange and pepperoni she had picked up earlier.
He inched away.
Cassie chuckled.
She hadn’t intended to laugh but the instant he made some distance between them, her chest felt lighter and the mid April wind didn’t bite quite as hard.
Then he spoke.
“The name's Max.”
Max. What a stupid boy name. She pursed her lips so hard they pulsed red.
“Well you’re a talkative creature.” His fingers dropped suddenly, lightly, landing on her thigh. Her flesh flamed under her jeans into the form of four fingertips. He must have felt the heat and jerked his hand back, at least for a while. Not even three seconds later, she was counting, he draped his arm over her shoulder.
“So do you have a name?”
“Yeah, Hannah.”
“Well that’s a start. You have a lovely voice.”
So do you. And in fact, his voice could easily be compared to the way honey slithers down your throat on a warm day but she would never admit that. “Don’t you have something better to do then harass someone who obviously doesn’t want to talk to you?”
“Well someone’s got a bit of a bite to her bark.” Max pulled his arm away and inched farther down the bench.
Cassie looked once to see if he was still paying attention to her. He wasn’t. He was watching the dog that was still licking itself.
Don’t get the wrong idea, this particular dog doesn’t spend all of its time licking its crotch. Not only does he enjoy napping under the large stick for which to pee on, he also spent a good portion of the afternoon chasing his tail around. At this particular point in time, he just happened to be taking a break.
“That dog must really enjoy licking himself, huh?”
“I suppose.”
“Well that and chasing his tail. I watched him for almost a half hour this afternoon.”
Cassie peaked over at him. He wasn’t looking at the dog anymore but at her yet again.
She fished into her hand into her pocket and wrapped her fingers around the pack of cigarettes she had been itching for. Why can’t he leave?
He was looking at the dog again. She could see him out of the corner of her eye. Would he even notice?
Fuck it.
Cassie slipped one out of the pack and rolled the filter between her fingers for a moment before popping it between her lips. She glanced at him again just to be sure he wasn’t watching.
She snapped her finger lightly and watched as the end of the cigarette sparked to life.
Did he see?
Nope.
Yeah, that’s right, he missed a sixteen year old girl light her cigarette with the snap of a finger. But he did smell the smoke as she exhaled, a drifting whimsical haze that danced on over to him and right up his nasal cavity.
“You shouldn’t smoke. It’ll kill you.”
Cassie smirked. “AIDS will kill you too but that doesn’t stop people from having sex, does it?”
He chuckled and nodded his head to the side as if to say he agreed. “I suppose you make a good point. Can I borrow a light?”
Shit.
“That was my last match,” she lied on the top of her toes and hoped she didn’t sound too nervous. She wasn't the best liar.
“You’re a bad liar. I would have smelt it if you’d have lit a match.”
She’d never had a need for lighter. “Um, I have somewhere to be actually. Sorry.”
In a quick motion, she had her bag in one hand and she was off the bench. Screw the bus. She could walk. Why didn’t I do that to begin with? “Idiot,” she grumbled under her breath.
“You’re not an idiot.”
“What the –” She stopped and whipped around.
Max was not even a footstep behind her, holding her notebook. Had she really left it on the bench. She snatched it out of his hand and cradled it to her chest, careful not to bump her cigarette against the soft white pages.
“I figured you might need that back.”
“Thanks.” She looked down at her shoes, noticing that they really needed to be replaced soon before her big toe decided to grow right out of them.
“No problem…Cassie.”
Note to self: I need to stop writing my real name on the front of my notebooks.
“Can I really believe that you’re name is Max?”
He started to reach for his back pocket. “As a matter of fact, you can.” He pulled out his driver’s license which stated quite clearly that his name was Max. It also said that he was six foot one though she would have guessed that he was six three from first impression.
“So where you from?” He stuffed the license back into his pocket and smiled at her.
“Not here.” With a quick turn, Cassie started walking off again.
How long is he going to keep this up? Can’t he get a hint?“Where exactly is not here?” He was following her, close.
She bit her lip and picked up her pace. His footsteps, a half step out of rhythm with hers, were right behind her.
They had managed to make it a whole block before she looked back at him. The cross walk flashed its big red hand and she leaned against the light post, staring at tires as they flew by.
“So, where is not here?”
She closed her eyes and thought about all of the things she could do to get rid of him. Her fingers were itching for a quick snap and the sudden heat of combustion to break the cold wind that was pushing into her.
Instead, she stuffed her hand into her pocket and took a deep, long drag off her cigarette, blowing smoke out of her nose and enjoying the way she felt a bit like those dragons from on television when she had been younger. I guess children really are impressionable. One day, you’re a normal teenager walking down the street, the next you’re a normal looking teenager blowing smoke out your nose from the cigarette that you can’t even begin to scientifically explain how you lit pretending to be Snuff or Fluff or whatever that stupid dragon’s name had been.
“You look like that one dragon from T.V. when you do that.”
Is he in my head? I mean, seriously.
The hand on the cross walk flashed obnoxiously at her. Taunting her. Refusing to let her leave.
“So where are you from?”
“I’m not from anywhere. Is that the answer you were expecting?”
“As a matter of fact it was.”

