The Saving Angels Series: Books 1-3 (9 page)

“I know this is all overwhelming, but I am so glad you’re here,” he said simply.

“So am I.”

“I better head home. I need to get ready for class,” he said pulling away.

I frowned. I had forgotten for a brief moment that he worked at my school. What were we going to do about that?

Mark saw my frown. “What’s the matter?” He asked.

“You’re practically my teacher. I’m sure the Dean frowns on teachers dating students,” I stated.

Mark smiled in relief. “Krista, I’m only on a two month stint here. I don’t think they can tell me who I can and can’t date. I mean, we shouldn’t flaunt it or anything, but I don’t think it’s that big of a deal. If it makes you more comfortable we can keep it secret, so other students don’t find out.”

That could work. I wasn’t crazy about the idea of the other students finding out, but if we kept it secret it could work. We could make it through the next couple of months keeping our relationship quiet. Lying to my mom would be a different story, but I wasn’t ready to lay all of this on her now. We had always had a no lie policy and I knew from a young age, as long as I told the truth, punishments would be minimal. I would have to categorize this as more of a need to know basis.

“I think your mom’s up,” he said. “I better go if we are going to try to keep this secret.” He ran his hand down the side of my face one last time, and with one more backwards look, he turned and walked off. He was halfway down the street, when my mom opened the front door.

“Honey, were you talking to that boy?” she asked, looking at Mark’s retreating back.

“Yeah, he goes to my school. I saw him from my bedroom window and I came down to see what he was up to.”

“Krista, you know it’s dangerous to come outside and talk to strangers. You should have come and got me.”

“He’s okay mom, I met him in school yesterday.”

“What did he want?”

“Nothing,” I mumbled heading upstairs. “I need to get ready for school.”

I felt a wave of guilt starting to consume me. I hurried up the stairs trying to control the strong emotion.
Need to know, need to know, need to know
, I chanted to myself as I reached my room. Sitting on my bed, I waited for the guilt to begin to leave my body. Chanting had helped, as long as I was protecting someone, it was easier to curb my emotions.

I lay back on my bed as the last waves left me. Feline jumped up on the bed next to me, hoping I would scratch him between his ears. “I met my dream guy,” I told him, knowing my secret was safe with him. “He’s as perfect as I always imagined he would be.” Feline purred loudly as if he understood what I was telling him.

Sam was waiting for me in front of the school like we had planned the night before. I got out of the car and waved her over. I might have to keep Mark a secret, but I could throw my mom a bone and introduce her to my first real friend.

“Sam, this is my mom, Cindy Miller,” I said as I introduced them.

“Hi. Mrs. Miller, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” Sam said in an enthusiastic voice.

I could tell right away that my mom was taken in by Sam. It was hard not to respond to her enthusiasm.

“We better go mom. We’ll see you after school.” We had made plans the previous night to get together again after school.

“All right, it was nice to meet you, Sam.” Bye honey, I’ll see you guys after school.” With one last wave she drove off.

“Your mom’s very nice,” Sam commented, as we headed toward the tree where we sat yesterday morning.

“Thanks, I think so too.”

“So, I’m dying to know….was I right?”

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what she was talking about. “Yeah, it was him, and the dream was fantastic all the way up until the end.”

“He thinks there’s more to our connections…”

“Whoa backup, when did you talk to him? Can you talk to each other in your dreams now?” confusion colored Sam’s voice.

“I didn’t have a chance to tell you. I talked to him this morning. He came over after we woke up from the dream.”

“Oh
my gosh
, you have to tell me everything. Was he everything you expected? Is the connection between you still strong? What did you talk about?”

I laughed. “Slow down, I’ll tell you everything.”

“Ouch!”

I was interrupted by a sharp stinging pain on the side of my head. Something had struck me hard on my right temple. Looking down, I saw a softball lying on the grass beside me.

“Sorry about that,” a guy said, jogging up to me.

He didn’t look sorry though; on the contrary, he looked quite pleased with himself.

“Do you want me to kiss it and make it better?” He said in a suggestive voice.

“Oh, brother!”
Sam said with disgust.

“What’s it to you
fridge
? He said with contempt as he turned to look at Sam.

“So, what do you think, will a kiss make it better?” he asked, trying to lay on the charm.

“No thanks,” I said with disgust, and turned my back on him.

“Hey, what’s your problem? I was just trying to be friendly.”

“I have enough friends,” I said dismissively, waiting for him to leave.

Instead he looked at me with a nasty look on his face. “Oh I get it. You’re not into guys,” he said, looking suggestively between Sam and me.

“Go bother…..” my words caught in my throat as another person joined our group. I looked up to see Mark standing beside me, and he was not happy.

He had caught the end of the exchange, and I could feel the anger vibrating off of him.

“Maybe a trip to the Dean’s office will clean up your language,” he said.

“Is that a threat?” the boy asked in a mocking voice. “Maybe the Dean would like to hear how you’ve taken an interest in our new student. Everyone’s talking about how the two of you were ogling each other in class. No, I don’t think you’ll be talking to the Dean anytime soon,” he said in the same mocking voice as he turned and sauntered off.

Mark started to go after him. “Don’t,” I said in a low voice, putting my hand on his arm.

My touch stopped him in his tracks. The connection was as strong as ever. “Everyone’s watching, you have to walk away and act like nothing happened,” I said in a low voice. “Otherwise our secret will be out sooner than we wanted.”

Mark looked at me one last time, glancing at the spot where the softball had struck my head.

“It’s fine. I’ll go to the nurse’s station and get some ice,” I said. “Besides, the nurse and I are already friends.”

Mark reached up his hand, as if to touch the sore spot.

I took a step back. “No you can’t, I said glancing around. “Everyone’s still watching.” Please go to class, I’ll meet you later,” I pleaded, suddenly choking back tears. The pain in his eyes was almost too much to bear.

Finally, he walked away and I let out a bent up breath. “So much for keeping it a secret,” I said to Sam in a shaky voice.

Sam had remained silent during the whole confrontation, but I could tell she was going to burst if I didn’t fill her in on all the details.

“Come on, I’ll explain on the way to the clinic,” I said, grabbing onto her elbow, for once my emotions behaved.

By the time we reached the clinic, I had given Sam a basic idea of what Mark and I had discussed earlier that morning.

“You again,” said the same elderly nurse from the day before. “What can I do for you today?”

“I got hit in the head by a softball and I think it may have cut my head a little. I was wondering if I could get some ice.”

“Come around the counter and let me check it over.”

I walked around the counter and sat on the padded stool the nurse pulled up for me.

The nurse clucked as she checked over my head.

“You were right, you have a cut and a small bump, where it hit your head,” she said as she placed a wet cold washcloth to the wound.

I winced as the cloth touched my head. The side of my head was definitely tender to the touch.

“I’ll get you some ice. Do you want to stay here for a while?”

“No, I don’t want to miss homeroom two days in a row. Can I take the ice with me?”

“Of course you can.”

Sam and I said our goodbyes and headed out the door.

“Are you sure your head’s okay?”

“Yeah, it only hurts if I touch it. What a jerk that guy was,” I commented.

“Oh, you’ll see many of those around here. Most of the students here were born with a silver spoon in their mouth, and are used to getting whatever they want. Having mommy and daddy bail them out of trouble is the norm. You and Mark will have to be careful. That guy was Matt Farrell, and he’s a number one jerk. He seems to get a high out of messing with people. His dad’s loaded, so he’s used to getting his own way.”

“Keeping our feelings secret seemed so simple this morning,” I muttered as we walked through the classroom door.

The rest of the morning passed without anymore incidents, and even though I heard no more comments, I could still tell that many of the students were speculating about what had happened that morning.

Though I knew I should be concerned about what they were discussing, I was more anxious to see Mark again. Now that I knew who he was, and had spent part of the morning with him, I didn’t like being separated from him at all. Which left me wondering how Sam felt not being with her guy all day? She had filled me in with a few sketchy details in-between classes on how she had been able to find her dream guy. I was able to glean the basics, like the fact that he was our age, but graduated early and was taking college courses. I intended to find out more after school.

The hours seemed to be going in slow motion as I waited for fifth period to arrive. In my head, I was mentally counting down the minutes and was relieved when fourth period ended.

Grabbing my stuff, I hurried off to meet Sam.

We both opted to eat inside, hoping to avoid another scene. We settled on a bench outside of the school library.

“How was fourth period?” Sam asked, as she
unwrapped
her tuna sandwich.

“It was fine. I was supposed to be reading, but I was too anxious to focus on the book. It’s a good thing I’m a speed reader, or I would fall behind in class,”

Sam didn’t have to ask me why I was anxious, she already knew. It was nice that we shared so many common bonds; it saved us from having to explain every little detail.

I took a big bite out of my own sandwich, just as the person I had been obsessing about all day walked around the corner. I sucked in a quick breath, causing the bite of sandwich to go down the wrong tube.

Coughing out of control, I reached for my bottle of water to try and wash the sandwich down and stop the coughing fit. Mark reached over, patting me on the back which made the situation worse. His touch flustered me; already choking, I could not handle losing the limited air I had in my lungs.

“I don’t think she can breathe with you touching her,” Sam commented, in a dry voice.

Mark looked at me. I confirmed Sam was right by a nod of my head.

“I’m Sam,” she said, holding her hand out, giving me an opportunity to pull myself together.

I was disgusted with myself. So much for acting cool and collected, I thought as I wiped the tears from my eyes.

Mark reached out to shake Sam’s hand. I could tell by the way he raised his eyebrows that he experienced the same connection with Sam as I did.

“I’m Mark, or for you, Mr. Russo for the next few months of school,” Mark said with a smile.

I finally stopped choking like some idiot.

“Better now?” he asked with a twinkle in his eye.

I could tell that he liked the fact that he had such an impact on me. It wasn’t like I could hide it though; just sitting by him had my heart racing to a tempo I was slowly getting used to.

“Will you meet me at the park after school?” he asked me in a more serious voice.

I felt warmed by his words. He acted like he wanted to be with me every bit as much as I needed to be with him.

“Yeah, I can meet you, but Sam has to come along too. That way it won’t be a lie if I tell my mom I’m going to the park with Sam. You will just happen to be there,” I said with a smile, as I found another loop hole in the need to know category.

“Is that okay with you?” I asked Sam.

“Sure, Shawn wants all of us to get together anyways.”

“Who’s Shawn?” Mark asked, momentarily confused.

“Sam’s boyfriend; I mentioned him briefly to you this morning,” I said subtly, reminding him that they had a lot in common with us.

“That’s right,” Mark said. “Well, I better head off to class,” He reached out to brush back the hair that covered the lump on my head. He frowned when he saw my injury.

“That guy’s lucky I’m an intern. I could have laid him out when I saw him chuck that softball at your head. It was all I could do to control myself. Does it hurt?” He inquired.