Page 38 of Bound By Earth (The Nature Hunters Academy 1)

I did NOT sendany of those texts. My dumb ass best friend grabbed my phone and took the liberty of messing with you. Please, kindly disregard them. Thank you.Goodbye.

Tara puther phone in her bag, too embarrassed to even see how heresponded.

“Don’t be mad, Tara-bear.”

“How would you feel if I texted those embarrassing things to a guy you only justmet?”

Shelly tapped her chin. “I’m not sure that’s a valid question since I don’t have a shame monitor. I’d have to care what people think about me to be bothered by you sending texts like that, especially to someone I didn’tknow.”

She had a point. It was one of the things Tara admired about Shelly. Why did Tara care what Elias thought of her, anyway? Yes, he was intriguing, very good looking, and somehow interested in her. But none of that should matter because she wasn’t interested in him. Because he’d been an ass munch. And he was being an ass munch again by reading her personality test, which was surely not meant for the perusal ofinterns.

“You could have at least left out the amendment,” Taramuttered.

“But it wasfunny.”

Tara rolled her eyes. It was funny, but she wasn’t about to admit that to Shelly. Her best friend would never learn to behave if she rewarded her badbehavior.

Tara pulled out a piece of paper and pencil and tried to focus on writing the poem for Mrs. Thorton’s class. She had a headache and didn’t want to continue to wonder about Elias Creed and why he was textingher.

By the end of the day, Tara’s phone was burning a hole in her backpack. She’d forced herself not to look at it, regardless of the fact that something inside her was screaming at her to check her messages. It seemed to Tara that Elias had some power over her. And that was a feeling she didn’t enjoy. So, for that reason, and that reason alone, she made it out of the school doors without checking hermessages.

“You want a ride, or are you walking?” Shelly asked as they headed down thesidewalk.

Tara started to say that she’d walk but then stopped. She looked around, searching for something or rather someone. She could feel eyes on her, feel them boring a hole into her. But none of her classmates were paying any attention. Not even Tucker, who was talking to a bunch of the football guys out in the parkinglot.

“I’ll take a ride,” Tara finallysaid.

When Tara got home, she found a note from Carol. Her foster mother was working another night shift, and she’d left dinner in the fridge. She wished Carol was going to be home because she’d be a distraction from Tara’s thoughts and the freaking phone she still refused to look at. Since she’d been unable to focus on writing the poem during study hall, she decided she’d better knock that out before she got too tired to thinkclearly.

As she sat down at her desk, she pulled out the poetry assignment instructionsheet.

Poetry has been used for centuries as a way to express emotions. It can be evocative,persuasive, convicting, or peaceful. Each poem is as unique as the person writing it, yet it can reach across race, gender, age, and beliefs, touching each of those lives despite theirdifferences.

Your assignment is to write a poem relevant to how you are experiencing life right at this moment. For example, the subject could be the stress of the upcoming changes from graduating, a relationship, a loss, or something to be celebrated or mourned. Write what’s in your heart, on your mind, or piercing yoursoul.

“It couldn’t be a poem about Whos in Whoville, or Green Eggs and Ham?” Tara asked as she pinched the bridge of her nose. She’d rather pull off her fingernails one by one rather than deal with her emotions at the moment. But then again, writing had always been the way she expressed herself. It had been her best friend, her comforter, her counselor when she didn’t know how to go to someone else because she feared how they would react. The pages of her diary were filled with writing that was also etched in her soul. Maybe writing about what she was currently feeling would help her purge Elias Creed from her mind and prevent him from getting anywhere near her heart or hersoul.

She picked up her pencil and placed it against the paper and let the wordsflow.

For so long,I have wondered if I was leftbehind,

The pain I’ve felt so deep that death would’ve beenkind.

So I built a wall around my heart, sealing it uptight,

Letting few anywhere near what had been broken thatnight.

Where love could have grown, I let anger bloominstead.

I planted seeds of bitterness and only those Ifed.

There’ve been two constant lights who have stuckaround.

Grasping my hand faithfully, they’ve helped me off theground.

Still, there’s been something missing, a hole deepinside.

The constant ache and loneliness and not a place tohide.

---