"So did you make it to the Mongols yet and the Golden Horde?"

I hoped she didn't notice the way my voice shook just being this close to her.

I had no idea what prompted me to grab my things and stride to their seat they had been previously sitting in, but I couldn't take another second being around Colton and those assholes.

Alec made things tolerable, usually, but lately had taken to putting his headphones in and ignoring everyone else like the plague, and so that left me suffering while my ex girlfriend flirted with Alec's friend right in front of me.

I would've called Colton a friend, too, but it was more like we were acquaintances. I didn't want to be friends with anyone who treated people the way he did, least of all women.

I felt terrible for anyone being shackled to that asshat. The woman he eventually married was going to be doomed.

The least I could do was spend some time with Camille, who'd looked at me as if I'd grown a second head just to even attempt to sit with her on the bus, though her friend had been all for it.

I couldn't help the magnetic pull that drew me to her.

Yes, I felt terrible that I allowed the guys to say horrible things about her and sometimes her friend, but there wasn't much I could do besides tell them to knock their shit off and remind them they'd beat the hell out of anyone who spoke about their sister or mother that way.

The reprimands only went so far, though, and they usually picked up right where they left off once I was out of earshot, anyway, if their never changing behavior was any clue.

Only for Alec. If it weren't for him...

Camille shifted uncomfortably in her seat, eyes flicking from me to the confused 'friends' seated at the back of the bus.

I had no problems ignoring what they thought was 'appropriate' for me. Who I hung out with outside of their toxic group was none of their business, especially since once Nate came to his senses about their true nature we'd be out of there faster than Usain Bolt crushing another world record.

There was a sense of rebellion that came with sitting with Camille, but it wasn't just that about her that made me want to sit with her.

I couldn't help but feel that there was some strange familiarity that called me to her, like I'd met her before but had no recollection of it whatsoever.

A flash of the sunlight scorched into my retinas and I was suddenly brought back to a football game in August, our first of the season.

The weather had been unseasonably hot and by the time the sun set, the stadium lights blinded me just as effectively as the daylight had.

A gorgeous silhouette cast in a dark shadow laughed in a twinkling cacophony of brightness that flooded the dark night around us.

Her hand fit perfectly in mine, soft and smooth and sweet as her scent that floated into my nose as I bent down to push her silky strands of long brown hair behind her ear until--

--shit, she'd said something and I completely zoned out, fantasizing about how familiar she was to me and a memory I didn't know I'd forgotten, courtesy of a concussion at the start of the season, which I also didn't remember receiving.

"I'm sorry, what did you say?"

She was giving me 'the look'. The one decorated with her light brown eyebrows raised over impeccable doe wide eyes and suspicion and confusion laced together in an intricate weave braided together on her face.

"I said...nevermind. You're top of the class in every single subject, why are you asking me about content we won't cover until after the Chinese Dynasty module we're on right now?"

"Because you're already three modules ahead, and I wanted to know if you think Gallagher is going to play that Lady Gaga parody video about fleas on rats for the plague module."

Camille half snorted, half laughed, and at first I was expecting her to grow mortified from the sound that just came out of her mouth like Leah or Kennedy would've done, but she merely brushed it off as if she did it all the time, and I found it so damn refreshing.

She wasn't fake or preening or attempting to make herself seem like something she wasn't in front of me.

"God I hope not. My last history teacher was obsessed with it and it was stuck in my head for at least three weeks."

"Your last history teacher, at the school you were at before?"

"Yeah... at Ridesdale, remember?"

Remember? Why would I remember that?

But she was looking at me expectantly, like it was definitely something I should've known, so of course I went along with it.

"Right, right. Why did you come here from Ridesdale? That's a pretty long ways to transfer from."

And a much less expensive school to attend, but I didn't add that on. She would've been better off in public school with the amount of bullies and assholes she was interacting with on a daily basis.

"Um...are you, like, Dory or something?"

"What? Dory the fish, from Finding Nemo?"

"Yeah, are you like Dory? You either have really good short-term memory for school, or you can't remember personal details for shit, but I can't tell which one it is yet."

"Why do you think I'm like Dory?"

"Because, you obviously know why I moved from Ridesdale to Hartingrove."

"I do?"

"Yeah," she said, with the air of 'duh' hanging in the space between us, space so small that it hadn't occurred to either of us in our conversation that we were moving precariously closer to the other, but upon noticing it, neither of us were willing to shrink back to our respective sides of the leather bus seat.

If anyone happened to walk by or peer behind them, they'd see our faces inches apart, heads ducked down low and so intrinsically together that I could only imagine the things they'd assume about us, but their opinions or thoughts were the last thing on my mind.

"Right, yeah, sorry. Stupid question I guess."

My hand flew to my neck and I pulled back as I realized that I was definitely missing something here, but what that was, I had no idea.

"Uh, do you have your notes from the textbook readings for the next three modules, though?"

"Are you intentionally trying to insult me?"

"What?"

Her words were accusatory, but her tone and the small smile on her mouth was a clear indicator that she was, in fact, joking.

Sometimes it was hard for me to read social cues, so watching for small tells like smiles when there shouldn't be where clear indicators for sarcasm.

"Of course I have the notes. Are you trying to tell me you haven't read the next three modules and taken extensive notes yet? The Parker Hartingrove?"

My face heated to an almost unbearable level.

"Oh shit. Sorry, have you really not done the readings yet?"

"No, football has taken up more of my time than usual, so I haven't been able to get ahead in any classes except AP Physics and AP Lit. What about you?"

"I'm ahead in everything except AP Physics and AP Lit."

"Well, I think you know what that means?"

Suddenly, Mori turned her head sharply towards us, obviously having been spying on every word out of our mouths.

"Has anyone told you that you two are the nerdiest hot people on the planet? Seriously, you're getting excited over-"

"Note swap!"

Camille was already digging through a hot pink three-ring binder covered in Sharpie song lyrics and flower doodles.

"I have absolutely no patience for Physics. I'll give you literally everything I have, even my calc homework even though I know you're better at that than I am."

"I don't think I'm better at Calculus, you're probably just more left brained."

And that sent Camille on a fifteen minute tirade about the pitfalls of trusting the pseudo-science of right and left brained personality dominant traits. I couldn't stop the smile from blooming on my face the entire explanation.

Her fingers brushed over mine in her frenzy of handing over a thin, pink notebook with perfectly scrawled penmanship and amazingly organized notes inside once her rant was over.

I followed suit with my plain navy blue colored notebook with tabs determining which section was for which subject.

"You'd better not lose this, it's worth more than the crystals I found with my dad in the diamond mines in Arkansas when I was five."

"You've been to the diamond mines? I've always wanted to go there."

"Well, it wasn't that great. It was hot and crowded and there was no way you'd actually find a real diamond, but it's still any hopeful archaeologist's dream."

"Again, I say--nerds!"

Mori butted in once more and I couldn't hold back the laugh from her interruption this time.

"Says the girl with a bird feather collection categorized alphabetically by breed."

Mori stuck her tongue out at Camille then went back to scrolling aimlessly on her phone, but began packing her things up when she realized we were stopping.

My gut churned in anticipation.

The bus came to a screeching halt, and I realized that we'd been talking for far longer than I'd imagined.

"Camille, I--"

"Oh, just Cami, remember?"

My heart began pounding way too fast in my chest to be normal. Was it normal to feel this way?

"Cami, right, sorry. Look, I wanted to ask you if you were doing anything this Saturday? Maybe we could grab something to eat together?"

She looked stunned into silence for a moment, like she couldn't believe what had just come out of my mouth. I almost hadn't, either.

"Like...as a date?"

Her furrowed eyebrows surrounded a crease in the middle of her forehead that I wanted to smooth out with my thumb, push her hair behind her ear like I had done in that strange flashback-that-wasn't-a-flashback.

Shaking my head to clear the image, I focused again on the upturned half smile adorning her pouty full lips and swallowed once, twice, three times, attempting to answer, but just as the word came out...

"Yes, like a date--"

"Sorry bro, Cami's got plans with me all weekend, just like always. Isn't that right babe?"

Colton appeared in the aisle, and did the very last thing I ever expected him to do.

He grabbed a stunned Camille by the arm and pulled her into a very deliberate, very passionate kiss, one that displayed his role quite clearly.

My heart sank down to the soles of my feet watching the show in front of me, and that vision that I'd had in the back of my head of a gilded silhouette flooded in the after-lights of the stadium turned into a wispy shadow and disappeared from my mind completely.