Chapter 4

As Morgan waited for her girlfriends to call for her, she applied her makeup. Thinking about Damien’s preferences, she went heavier with the eyeliner than usual, creating the same smoky eye effect his female friend sported. 

Her friends would call for her every morning without fail despite the fact her house was out of her way. The three girls would arrive at school together each morning and wait at the gates for the lads.

Cara was currently dating Matt, though Morgan had the sneaky suspicion she was still seeing Dave also. Rheya, on the other hand, was in a stable and long-term relationship with Rhys—Toby’s best mate. 

The boys loitered just outside the gates, scrapping and getting each other into headlocks as they waited for the girls. Toby looked up, pink-cheeked and sweating as they made their approach. Usually, seeing his face like this, she would melt. Today… nothing.

He flashed her an odd look and turned away, indicating he was still mad at her.

On any other day, Morgan’s reaction would have been fiercely emotional. It would have spiralled into a heated discussion which would ultimately lead to a teary make-up.

‘Only… I don’t want to do that,’ Morgan realised. It wasn’t that she was growing as a person, maturing into a strong independent woman. 

Quite the opposite.

Her brain was too full of thoughts about Damien to expend effort on anyone else. Even as she tried to focus on their conversation—plans for a party that evening—she found herself scanning the courtyard for any signs of Damien. 

Her heart did one of those funky ‘double beats’ as she spotted him. He stood with his usual group, doing some silly dance as one of his friends filmed him. They all laughed as he knocked into a girl behind him and almost tripped over.

“Erm, Morgan, where are you going?” Cara asked.

“Huh?” Morgan muttered. She looked down at her feet to find they were moving toward Damien.

“Be right back,” she muttered, pining Damien with her stare as she closed in.

She couldn’t take her eyes off him. After staring at his pictures all night long, she figured she’d committed every single line of his face to memory. That wasn’t the case. As she watched him laugh, he looked so different.

She watched in a daze as his face turned from an amused smile to a silly grimace at the guy filming. His face changed again as he spoke, then became plain as he turned to face Morgan.

The longer he stared back at her, the less awkward it felt. She saw none of the anger and hatred from yesterday. 

Eventually, his brows rose in question.

‘Say something.’

‘Say anything…’

“I never noticed how beautiful you are,” she said.

‘Not that!’

Damien chuckled. “If you had said that yesterday it would have meant something. From now on it’s…meaningless.”

‘No, it’s not!’ Morgan felt her heart cry out. 

“What did you do to me?” she whispered, feeling a sickness creeping up her throat.

“Exactly what I said I was going to do, remember?” he said.

Morgan nodded. She remembered. It just didn’t make any sense. How could a person make someone fall in love with them?

Her eyes were finally able to leave his face. The lingered on his shoulders, taking in the shape of him. He wasn’t athletic like Toby, but he was tall and slim with natural muscles. Damien did not seem the type to work out or do sports. In fact, he was yet to partake in a single of Physical Education. Guys didn’t need to input any effort to grow muscles—testosterone did that for them.

Morgan went to the gym three times a week to tone her legs and tummy. Looking good had always been important to her, and with a fitness coach as a mother, she had access to all the equipment for free.

When Damien closed his eyes and looked down, the line of his thick, dark lashes made her heart drop out of her chest. 

‘How can anyone be that beautiful?’

She shook her head, trying to will the thoughts away.

“You’ve made your point. I’m sorry for being a bitch,” Morgan said. “Please make it stop.”

“What time is it?” he asked, making her frown at the sudden change of subject. She fumbled about in her bag for her phone and looked at the display.

“Three minutes to nine,” she said.

“So you agree it is definitely after 3 pm yesterday?” Damien asked, curling his lip into a half-smile.

‘Oh, I see,’ Morgan took a deep breath and nodded.

“In the words of Justin Timberlake, ‘It’s too late to apologise, it’s too laaaate.’” As Damien sang, he turned to his snickering friends and made his way into the building. 

Morgan was vaguely aware her friends were throwing out questions in her direction, but she couldn’t focus on them. Staying quiet with her head down, she strode forward, desperate to keep Damien in her line of sight.

Luckily, her seat was positioned on the back row so she could stare at the back of Damien’s head without him knowing. 

As she settled into her seat the teacher, Mrs. Helen arrived. The woman placed her bag onto the table, knocked it and sent her papers flying in every direction. A couple of kids cheered and whooped but not one of them moved to help her pick them up.

Once she’d finished gathering them, Mrs. Helen turned to the whiteboard, pulling the top off a green felt pen.

“I think you have something to say to me,” Damien shouted. “Something along the lines of, ‘Thank you, Damien,’”

The teacher turned and stared at him for the longest time, mouth twitching, before returning to her whiteboard and starting the lesson.

“What was that about?” Morgan asked Cara.

Cara shrugged her shoulders and turned away, “Who cares?”

Her voice was snarky, as though she was annoyed. 

‘Probably because you ignored her on the way to class.’ Morgan concluded. ‘Oh well.’

It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Nothing except Damien.

She stared at the back of his head before her eyes shifted to his bag and notebooks. They were decorated with bands, symbols are cartoons. One of his patches read, ‘MEAT IS MURDER.’

‘Guess I’m a vegetarian now,’ Morgan thought as she made a mental note of the bands he liked. She hadn’t previously heard of any of them—and some were too difficult to make out because of the fonts. 

He turned to his friend in the chair beside him, smiled and said something. 

‘Oh, Damien,’ Morgan sighed to herself, melting.

Her hand slipped from under her chin as Cara poked her, asking a question she didn’t quite catch.

“Did you say Damien?” Morgan blurted.

“No.” Cara snorted, making a disgusted face. “You said Damien and you are literally drooling. Normal it out, yeah?”

Morgan wiped at her face, finding a string of spittle trailing from her mouth to her chin.

‘Yuk.’

‘Normal it out,’ was a phrase Morgan had coined to put down anyone she didn’t like for doing anything even slightly out of the ordinary. It hurt her ears to hear those words thrown in her direction, so cutting and direct.

As the lesson ended, Morgan shoved her blank notebook into her pink satchel. After standing up in anticipation to follow Damien, she saw he’d stopped to talk to the teacher so lingered at her desk, pretending to do something in her bag.

“You could show the tiniest bit of gratitude,” Damien said to Mrs. Helen. When she said nothing, continuing to collect the textbooks, he went on, “I can always undo it, you know.”

That said, he breezed out of the room, his black jacket flapping behind him.

“What did you do?” Morgan asked him, her legs skipping to keep up with his fast pace.

“You’re going to follow me all day or?” he asked instead of answering, throwing up his arms.

Morgan nodded slowly, honestly, because all her brainpower was taken up by her visual observations. The shape of his eyebrows. For some reason, she had to memorise that information. That, and the exact colour of his eyes. What could she compare them to?

‘There isn’t anything as deep blue as his eyes,’ Morgan realised, shaking with panic. 

It all became too much.

“Please make this stop,” she asked him. “You don’t want me following you around like a lost sheep and I don’t want to sit there drooling over you. Just… please make it stop.”

The drooling part made him laugh hard. “Are you serious?”

Still laughing, he turned and went to his locker to get a pile of books. Morgan followed, feeling like a spare part but unsure what else she could do. As soon as he was out of her field of view, all she could think about was seeing him again.

He didn’t bother speaking to her again as they trudged to the other side of the building. The next lesson was I.T. Computers were set out at desks around the edge of the classroom with the teacher sat in the centre. Unlike in the other classes, there was no assigned seating arrangement, so people sat wherever a place was available. Morgan usually sat with her friends, but today was different.

She pulled out the seat next to Damien, much to the confusion of everyone in the class.

“Erm, popular blonde girl, why are you in my seat?” a guy asked. He was a clone of Damien in terms of style, but that was where their similarity ended. He wasn’t God-like in perfection.

“Sit somewhere else,” Morgan hissed at him, hoping he would go away. 

He didn’t.

“Damien?” the guy asked, hovering. “Why is she sitting with you?”

Damien turned to her, tutting. “Go and sit with your friends, Morgan.”

“But I want to sit next to you. I was here first,” she argued, cringing at the whining tone in her voice. A childish argument if she’d ever heard one. As he leaned over, she noticed the smell of his fabric softener mingled with his sweat. It was the most beautiful scent she’d ever inhaled.

“Why?” he asked.

“Because I can’t smell you from over there,” Morgan blurted.

She felt her cheeks flush a painful shade of red as Damien looked horrified and his friend chuckled. 

‘Why did I say that? I didn’t mean to say that,’ Morgan panicked.

Damien’s face lit up. 

“You can’t lie to me!” he cried.

‘Shit… is that true?’ 

“Tell me when you last masturbated and what you were thinking about,” Damien demanded. All his friends and the kids sitting nearby overheard and turned to listen in, eyes shining with the excitement of future gossip unfolding.

“Last night I was looking at pictures of you,” Morgan replied. She bit her lip, looking down to avoid seeing the expression on their faces as they cackled at her expense.

The feeling of intense shame was a new one. She was usually the one dishing out the humiliation. 

‘Is that why this is happening,’ she asked herself. ‘Is this Karma?’

“Hmm,” Damien mused. “What else could I ask?”

Morgan’s head shot back up, staring at him wide eyed in fear of what he might ask.

“Please,” she muttered, begging with her eyes, and pressing her palms together.

“Aww,” he cooed, smiling with what looked like genuine pity. “Are you begging me?”

Morgan nodded.

It was perhaps the most embarrassing moment of her life, but the smile on his face made it almost worthwhile.

Then the smile dropped.

He stared at her with an expression so cold it sent shivers through her. 

“For your sake, I hope you can beg better than that.”