Free The Understorey, Book One of The Leaving Series by Fisher Amelie

dropped from the dial, she raised her head and stared
straight ahead.
    “I just remembered. I don’t need anything from
my locker,” she said stoically.
She turned and walked off, her hair brushing my arm as she stalked
away. Even her hair bit with the literal electricity we
shared.
    “See you second period!” I yelled, very
satisfied at the seemingly meaningless conversation. I knew the
truth though. There were deeper meanings behind everything she did,
the little she had said, and the way her body avoided mine, avoided
the touch that she was obviously denying existed. She was scared. Can’t tell you how I knew it, she didn’t wear the emotion
at all but she was scared and I had plans to change that. Jules was
beginning to infect my brain and the only antidote I could think to
alleviate the pain was more Jules. I went to first period alone
with my own thoughts and a smile that caught the attention of every
girl I walked by.
    Walking to Mrs. Kitt’s class felt like the
longest trip of my life. My legs felt heavy with anticipation
knowing the fight that Jules was probably going to put up, but I
was ready. Metaphorical punches, mom. Metaphorical. I had no
clue what I was going to say to her. I could think of no plan of
action during first period and ultimately decided to go with my
gut. I hesitated slightly because unplanned conversations with
Jules had proved disastrous before, i.e. the teeth debacle, but
winging it at her locker didn’t turn out so badly so I went with my
instinct.
    I had a good feeling she’d bring up the
bookstore and I had at least planned on being honest there. I
didn’t care if she believed me or not. Either way, I wasn’t going
to let her make me feel like I purposely did it and that was
that.
    I stood outside the door to Mrs. Kitt’s class
and took a deep breath before swinging it open. I choked and
coughed on the deep breath I took when I saw her face and the whole
class lifted their head noticing me briefly, except for Jules. Smooth, very smooth. She glanced from the corner of her eye
and the nerves that tingled in her stomach tingled in mine.
    Thanks to the supernatural phenomenon that
was our electricity, I was privy to everything Jules felt. If the
feeling was powerful enough, I could feel it without even touching
her which explained the butterflies we shared in that moment. It
was an understood knowledge that welled inside my chest and I was
never so grateful for anything before in my life. It told me what I
wanted to know.
    I sat next to her and began to lean in but
before I could say anything, Mrs. Kitt had started passing out our
seriously delayed textbooks, something about the printers making a
mistake, and the donated paper covers from Justin Weber’s Auto Body
Shop and asked us to wrap them.
    They were so stupid looking. On the front was
obviously an older picture of Justin Weber because he was easily
twenty pounds lighter in the picture than he was in real life. He
was standing in front of his auto body shop and there was a rented
sports car between himself and his garage. On the hood laid Kitty,
in a fitted jumpsuit with Justin’s logo on the front. Kitty was
Justin’s ex-girlfriend from Charleston who left him for a ‘big
city’ man but he just wouldn’t let her go. “She’ll be back,” he’d
 always say. Poor guy, total denial. On the top in big letters
it read, ‘Come to Justin’s. We’ll treat you right.’
    Jules had already begun to wrap her book. Her
thin fingers carefully measured the folds and creased them
attentively. She pressed the side of her thumb’s knuckle across the
crease to make sure it took. She did this for all four sides of the
cover but on the fourth crease accidentally gave herself a paper
cut. The shared pain was sharp and intense and made me jump when
she did. The throb subsided when she brought her knuckle to her
tongue to soothe the ache. She looked over at me briefly, knowing
full well I felt the slice.
    “Are you