Page 1 of Only Forever

Chapter One

The bell rang, jolting me out of my daze as I was fighting to keep my eyelids from drifting closed. I sighed in relief. Physics was a killer, and having it as my last period of the day didn’t help matters.

I grabbed my books and stood as Chloe bounded towards me, her red curly hair bouncing with each step and her green eyes sparkling.

“Oh my God,” she groaned, putting her hand to her forehead dramatically. “That was painful. If you could die from boredom, I would be a goner. I think physics will be the end of me.” She lowered her voice, glancing at our teacher in front of the classroom. “I think Mr. Hayward has it in for me. He saw my eyes glazing over when he was explaining the laws of motion, and I swear he grinned evilly at me.”

I laughed, rolling my eyes as we made our way out of the classroom and into the bustling hallway. Chloe Mitchum had been my best friend since middle school, and I was used to her dramatics. Her small stature belied her boundless intensity of emotions, whether it was ecstatic highs or dramatic lows. I think that’s what made us such good friends. We complemented each other as opposites. I was even-keeled and sensible, and brought Chloe back down to earth when she needed it. And she pulled me out of my world of introspection and pushed me to experience life more.

Chloe’s locker was just a few down from mine, and she dropped her backpack in front of it and twirled her combination to open it.

“Do I still have to convince you to come to Dan’s party tonight?”

I sighed as I opened my own locker and put my physics book away, pulling out the books I needed over the weekend. I washappy that it was Friday, but I knew I would know no peace until I agreed to go to Dan Thompson’s party tonight. The entire senior class was invited, and I knew it would be a rager. Not exactly my ideal Friday night. But Chloe had been bugging me about it for days, and I had agreed just to get her off my back. Now I regretted it.

“I said I would go, so I will.” I muttered, and Chloe squealed her approval. “But,” I continued emphatically, “I’m not staying long. You can’t nag me when I want to leave.”

“Okay, okay,” Chloe agreed, waving her hand as if to dismiss my concerns. “I already talked to Tracy and Monica. They’re in, and Tracy will drive us since she doesn’t drink.”

I shook my head. Tracy and Monica were both good friends of ours, but I wanted to be able to make a getaway when I needed to.

“That’s okay. I’d rather drive myself. I’m not planning on drinking. I’ll just meet you guys there.”

Chloe frowned and opened her mouth to protest, but then she seemed to think better of it, and just nodded.

“I’ll come over beforehand so we can get ready together. I’ll just ride with you, and go home with Tracy, if I need to.” Chloe bumped my shoulder with hers mischievously as we navigated the hallway towards the parking lot. “You never know, Daphne. Maybe you’ll meet some hot guy at the party and never want to leave.”

“I know every guy at Sherman High,” I said, laughing. “What hot guy am I suddenly going to discover?”

As the words came out of my mouth, I spotted Jason Mayors as we stepped out into the parking lot. He was standing next to his SUV and was predictably surrounded by both girls and guys. Jason was the “It” guy at Sherman High. All the girls wanted to date him, and all the guys wanted to be his friend. At 6’2” and an athlete’s physique, his presence was commanding. Even hisbrown hair seemed to glow in the sun, and I didn’t need to be close to know that his blue eyes would be brilliant and sparkling. I knew all the girls around him would be swooning over his chiseled good looks.

Fortunately, I was immune to Jason’s charms. I had known Jason since kindergarten and had witnessed him eating crayons and getting a dinosaur figurine stuck up his nose. We had been best friends during most of elementary school, but had drifted apart in middle school. He was outgoing and athletic, spending most of his time playing sports, whereas I preferred to stay home and read a good book and listen to music. Still, we had stayed friendly, and that friendliness had remained the same in high school.

Jason turned his head, as if he could feel my gaze on him. He lifted his hand, giving me a lazy wave, and I waved back in return.

“Or, you couldrediscovera hot guy,” Chloe said, grinning ear to ear as she eyed our interaction.

“How many times do I have to tell you,” I said, turning to walk towards my car. “There is absolutely nothing between me and Jason. We’re friends, if even that. I barely know him anymore. We were friends in elementary school. That’s about it.”

Chloe glanced behind us, her eyebrows raising. “Maybe that’s what you think, but Jason’s still looking at you. Maybe he wants to be more than barely friends.”

I forced myself to not turn around. I knew better than to be dragged into one of Chloe’s fantasy scenarios, where usually one of us was featured as the main heroine. I grabbed her arm and forced her to keep step with me.

“Come on. If you want me to go to that party tonight, I need to go home and rest beforehand.”

I drove Chloe home, as I usually did. She only drove when she was able to borrow her mom’s car, and that was a rare occasionsince she had two younger siblings that often had to be driven around to their activities. It was just me and my mother, and my mother had scrimped and saved to buy me a used car my junior year. It may not be as nice as one of the flashy cars that the rich kids in our school drove, but I was forever grateful to her for getting me a car. I had been determined to get a job and save money to buy one myself, but she had refused to let me get a job. She insisted that I spend my time in school focusing on my studies and having fun in my free time.

It had been just me and my mother since my father left when I was in fourth grade. I had seen him a handful of times since then, but they had been cursory visits, and the last time I had seen him was in middle school. Although I missed the idea of a father, I was content with leaving my actual father in the past. My mother had fulfilled both roles, working hard to make my childhood happy, and I was in no need of a fake father to pine after.

When I got home, I grabbed a granola bar and settled onto the couch, determined to do nothing for as long as possible. Senior year was taking its toll on me, but at least all my college applications were in, and now it was just a waiting game. I really wasn’t worried, because I was planning on going to Darrenston College, a local school that I could commute to from Hyattsville, our town in Pennsylvania, and my grades were more than good enough to get in. My mother had urged me to send applications to other schools besides Darrenston, and I had done so to appease her, but I had no plans on going elsewhere. It had been me and her most of her lives, and the last thing I wanted to do was abandon her. My mother insisted that going somewhere further away for college wouldn’t be abandoning her, but I admitted that it was also for myself. I would worry too much being far away from her, and Darrenston was a good school. There was no reason not to go there.

I mindlessly scrolled through Instagram, when I stopped on a picture of Jason. It had been posted by Marcus Santos, his best friend, and it was a picture of the two of them at lacrosse practice. I found myself scrutinizing Jason’s appearance. We had become instant friends the day he gave me half his chocolate chip cookie in kindergarten. As we grew older in elementary school, I hadn’t given much thought to his appearance. He was just Jason. The kid who wore Spiderman underwear and ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches like they were going out of style. It wasn’t until middle school, when all the girls started gravitating towards him, that I realized how handsome he was. That seemed to widen the gap between us even more. With my average brown hair, average brown eyes, and my propensity to have my nose stuck in a book, I couldn’t be any more different than the girls who flocked to him, most of them annoyingly pert and pretty.

Despite his meteoric rise in popularity in middle school, Jason had always been nice and friendly to me, despite drifting apart. And that had stayed constant through high school. He always said hi to me in the hallways, with an amiable smile. In the early years of high school, he had always encouraged me to come to his games of whatever sport he was playing that season. But I didn’t want to be a part of the gaggle of girls that would drool over him during games, so I always declined. He soon stopped asking, and we went back to just waving at each other in the hallways of school.

I blamed Chloe’s earlier comments for me honing in on his picture now, his tousled brown hair and wide smile stirring a spark of interest. I shook my head, closing Instagram. I could appreciate Jason Mayors’ good looks without having any interest. It had been that way for years, and that wasn’t about to start changing anytime soon.

Mom came home and we made dinner together, telling each other about our respective days. I loved the comfort of our warm, cozy kitchen, and the familiarity of it all. Our movements were easy, as we were used to navigating the small space together as we prepared a simple pasta dish and a salad. My mom and I tried to have dinner together as much as possible, although that was hard during her busy season as an accountant, which was now. So I appreciated dinner tonight as it had been over a week since we had eaten together.

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