Free Remember When (Remember Trilogy #1) by T. Torrest

it was better than Charlene Henderson’s nervous cheerleader tick. You could always tell when she was feeling even slightly uncomfortable when the poor girl started in with regimented clapping.
       “Oh. I was just looking for... some gum! Here it is. Wanna slice?”
       “Slice?”
       “Yeah. It’s Juicy Fruit.” I held a piece in his direction. “See? It’s a slice. Want one?”
       This made Trip smile. “Yeah, sure. Unwrap it for me?”
       So I did. I thought about sliding over to the driver’s side and feeding it to him all 9 1/2 Weeks , but then wimped out and just passed it over.
       “Thanks.”
       I was such a dork that I found myself sneaking looks at him as he chewed a stupid piece of gum. But just watching his jaw clench up with every chomp was enough to make my palms all sweaty. I tried to look inconspicuous as I wiped them against my polyester skirt.
       As we pulled up in front of my house, I realized that I had never even given Trip the address. It was pretty cool that he had obviously done some recon and found out on his own. Then again- and I got the worst, most panicky feeling in my chest when I thought this- maybe he knew where I lived because he’d seen me spying out my window at him every morning. Could God be that cruel?
       My fears were laid to rest when Trip said, “This is your house, right? Funny. I run through this neighborhood sometimes.”
       And I thought, Yes, you do. Every day so far except Sunday.
       But I said, “Oh yeah? Guess I’ll have to alert the Neighborhood Watch. They don’t appreciate riffraff roaming around on their streets.”
       Trip grinned as he let me out of the truck. “Yeah. Just try it, Dummy.”
       I gave him a light backhand on his arm in answer.
       Before I led him up our front walk, I jumped up and grabbed a leaf off the tree at the curb. It was something I’d done a million times, but I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought to skip that little ritual for one, stupid day. I was a little embarrassed as I shrugged and offered a brief explanation to Trip. “Sorry. Superstition.”
       He laughed. “You do that often?” he asked. “Maul trees in your spare time?”
       “Just that one,” I answered, before playfully admitting, “Every day, actually!”
       Even though I was laughing, I was feeling pretty skittish at the thought of being alone with Trip for the next few hours. My father usually didn’t come home from work until dinnertime and Bruce had freshman football practice every day. Knowing this, I had made a point to do a quick cleanup before leaving for school that morning in order to make sure the house would be presentable in the afternoon. Living with two men is a constant study in maintainable hygienics. My father wasn’t so bad, but Bruce was an absolute slob. After he split for the bus stop, I was met with a destroyed bathroom- soaking wet towels and clothes all over the floor. Hello? Ever hear of a hamper?
       Thank God I’d taken care of Bruce’s discarded boxer shorts, however, because Trip hit the bathroom the second we were inside the door. I utilized the time during his absence to pull a couple of Cokes out of the fridge and settle myself at the kitchen table.
       I had my English notebook lain out and was tapping my pen against the page in front of me as I read the booklet of requirements for the project. Basically, we were supposed to give a report on our assigned scene in a “style of our choosing”. We were to focus on the motivations of each character and interpret Shakespeare’s language into our present-day vernacular.
       Here are the questions we needed to answer in our report:
     
              What do your characters want? What are they trying to say? How do they go about achieving their goals?
              How are you like/unlike your assigned characters? What traits do you share? What traits are completely opposite from you? Would people who know