Chapter One

As soon as I pulled into the parking lot, the all too familiar feeling of dread sat like a heavy brick in the pit of my stomach. Everything was ready. I had cut off the engine, unbuckled my seatbelt and I held my rucksack tightly in my grasp with all of my necessary books. However, mentally, I was far from prepared. My eyes swept over the tall, cream-coloured building, watching as students strolled toward the double doors with ease, disappearing inside with laughter and stories of how their summers had gone.

It was the same after every summer break. The first day back was always the worst. I would become too accustomed, too comfortable with my routine back home of being alone and keeping to myself that when I was eventually forced back into the confinements of school it felt as though I was being thrown into the middle the ocean without anything to help me stay afloat. Instead of waves, the crashing waters that tried to drown me were the bustling crowds of people - pushing, shoving, touching.

I took a shaky breath, willing myself to keep calm.

Deep breaths.

Commanding myself to do things didn't always work, but I really had no other choice in the matter. It was that or sit in the car all day feeling sorry for myself.

You can do this, just like you have done every other year up until now.

I nodded to myself, wiping my clammy hands on my jeans. It was never a case of can you do it, it was always a case of you have to do it. Unless I didn't want a good education, I had to attend the place I despised. Heaving a sigh, I swung my bag onto my back, pushed open the car door and clambered outside.

I manoeuvred my way through the groups of students being careful not to accidentally touch any of them. I bit the inside of my cheek and hoped that my face was devoid of any emotion. School was never the place to show your weaknesses or trust anyone. In the end, trust was only ever used against you.

So I kept my weakness a secret.

***

"Hey, Frigid Flo! You got any answers?" Axel Cambridge asked from the desk adjacent to my own, leaning over to have a look at my paper. I scooted away from his close proximity, giving him a look of disdain.

"If I did, do you honestly think I'd give them to an asshole like you?"

Axel raised his hands in the universal sign of surrender and got back to his own work, muttering something unintelligible under his breath.

Axel wasn't the only one that called me Frigid Flo, in fact, the vast majority of the student body did thanks to his cute (do take note of my sarcasm) little friendship group. They were the closest thing Oakton High had to a popular clique. Our school did have its separate friendship groups, but with everyone growing up together in the small town of Oakton, the lines blurred between being popular and being a 'nobody' of sorts. I guess the only thing that separated them was how confident they were; that they held their heads up slightly higher than the rest of us did and the fact that everybody knew who they were. It wasn't like in the movies though, where if you ran into one of them in the grocery store you'd keep your gaze fixated on your feet. Having known them all since kindergarten, you still nodded your head in recognition- well, unless you had a grudge against some of them like I did.

It had been half way through freshman year when Jason Ashford had taken notice of me. Well known and undeniably attractive with his sharp features, olive toned skin and dark hair, I doubt he expected me to reject him.

"You're really pretty," Jason had said, leaning against the door of the locker next to my own. I felt my face flush, embarrassed at the sudden attention. "We should hang out some time. There's this party-"

"Parties aren't my thing," I had hastily interrupted, sorting through my books as fast as I possibly could. I wasn't a complete idiot. Hang out meant make out in his vocabulary, and he had picked the wrong girl. The wrong, wrong girl. "I'll give it a pass."

At first he looked taken aback, but when I closed my locker door a slow smirk had spread across his face. Suddenly my back was against the lockers and his hands were on either side of my body keeping me caged with his arms, trapped. It felt suffocating and a tidal wave of panic washed over me. I stood with my feet rooted to the floor, staring into his unnervingly mischievous dark eyes as the cool metal of the door seeped through the back of my thin shirt.

"I know your type," He drawled, his hot breath fanning over my face at his close proximity. I swallowed the bile rising in my throat and started counting up to ten in my head to preoccupy my thoughts. "You play hard to get. Really though, deep down, I know you want me." He put his hands on my hips and began leaning down.

I lost it.

I brought my knee up, hard. Jason crumpled to the ground, holding onto his crotch with a groan as he glared at me. "What the fuck was that for?"

I could feel my eyes stinging but I wouldn't let the tears come out. Not in front of him and certainly not in front of the students that were lingering around us like a bad smell, some snickering at the scene playing out before them. This was drama. This was gossip. They sucked that stuff up like sponges absorbed water.

All I managed to choke out was, "Don't touch me." before I was marching down the hallway and out of the school doors. I wasn't there to hear the excuse Jason made up about the blatant display of rejection, but I did know that the next day I walked through those school doors my name wasn't Flora Montgomery anymore, it was Frigid Flo. I'd eavesdropped on the snippets of gossip from the hushed whispers in hallways and it all revolved around me being afraid of kissing or not being willing to"put out".

To be quite honest, I didn't mind it. I was just thankful that they all thought I was afraid of intimacy and a little strange, because if they thought that, then at least they didn't know that it was both intimacy and something as simple as a touch that frightened me. If they knew the truth, it would only arise questions, and questions were something I couldn't handle.

They wouldn't understand. Nobody would. Quite frankly, even I didn't understand myself. Fingers felt like fire when met with my skin, uncomfortable and burning and not right.

Jason moved school - much to my relief - a couple of months after the incident. It had nothing to do with his damaged pride (though I'd like to think that it played a part). I heard that he got excluded for taking drugs. God knows where he found a drug dealer in such a small town, but he did. His parents moved him to some big city but although he left, the nickname stayed for good.

Though at first I hated the name, I almost thought of it as an achievement now. I had been close, too close, to revealing why I didn't want him near me. The name served as a reminder that I couldn't let it get like that again, and that my secret wasn't out. It was safe...

At least for now.

***

There are so many first times in life.

Being sixteen meant I hadn't experienced many. No first date, no first boyfriend, no first alcoholic drink, no first party and so on and so forth. I knew some of these firsts were impossible for me, but at some point, I wanted a memorable first. Something that would create an impact.

What I didn't expect my memorable first to be was a minor car accident and for it to happen on my way home from school that day, but alas, nothing ever did go according to plan in my life.

I had been listening to a CD by The White Stripes as I drove, blissfully unaware of what- or rather who awaited me at the turning to my street. I guess the whole thing was my fault really, for getting too caught up with my favourite song, but when it reached one of the little high pitched guitar solos on Icky Thump, I couldn't help but shut my eyes a little. Yes, it was a totally idiotic move, but I didn't exactly expect someone to materialise on what three seconds earlier had been an empty road. When the singing kicked in again, I opened my eyes, ready to belt out lyrics- instead I let out a loud yelp.

My foot slammed the breaks, the tires screeched across the tarmac, and then there was a boy on the bonnet of my car. He was clutching it, panting, very much alive and seemingly unscathed as the car came grinding to a halt. I couldn't hear the music anymore, all I could hear was the sound of my frantic heartbeat thundering in my ears as I sat frozen behind the steering wheel. We locked eyes through the windscreen.

Though it was sadistic, now that I knew who he was I almost wished I had sped up the car instead of hitting the breaks.

The glittering hazel eyes, the brown hair that was styled to swoop up at the front, his tall, lean frame and cocky smile (usually cocky, his face was sort of shocked at present).

Parker Heywood was part of Axel's group, maybe even the leader of the group shall we say. There wasn't really another word for it apart from that he was the most well known around school. Though I hadn't spoken to him personally and I had next to no social life (I sometimes hung around with my friend Skylar but apart from her, that was it unless you were willing to count my mum) I still knew all about him. Parker was great at sports (in some cliché movie I guess he could be classed as a jock), had pretty decent grades even though he skipped classes as he pleased, and he lived for parties. Parker flirted with basically anything female that had a pulse and had quite the reputation for hooking up with anybody he deemed worthy of his company in the bedroom.

Parker in a nutshell? A complete and utter asshole.

He recovered quicker than I did, clambering off my vehicle and wiping off invisible dust from his skinny jeans. I watched him for a few moments before slowly prising my rigid fingers from the steering wheel, turning off the music and getting out of my car. I continued to watch him as he straightened out his jacket. The apology I was going to give to him stuck, lodged in my throat as I realised he was acting as if he'd been bumped into on the street rather than just going through a near death experience.

He looked up at me then, most probably anticipating an apology what with the expectant face he wore, but something in me just couldn't bring myself to give him one. Ridiculous really, I almost killed the guy and I couldn't even say the word sorry, but before I had time to reconsider I said in an accidentally monotonous voice, "You're alive."

"Well don't sound so excited by the news," He was still giving me that expectant look and it was starting to really irritate me. "You almost ran me over for Christ sake. Could have made me roadkill."

"I think you're being a little melodramatic," I replied to which he raised an eyebrow. I idly wondered if he plucked them. It was hardly fair that his were perfectly shaped seeing as he was such a horrible person, yet me, not so horrible, got blessed with what seemed like two hairy caterpillars that had made their permanent residence above my eyes. "Your internal organs aren't strewn across the ground, you aren't bleeding, you don't have any contorted limbs or broken bones. I don't think you're even cut. You look fine and dandy to me."

He stared at me for a moment and I stared right back. It was as if we were sizing each other up, trying to decipher the other. I'm sure he had more work to do than I did with the whole deciphering thing, I already had him figured out down to a tee.

"I think you owe me an apology." He said after a while.

"But you're not dead," I blurted. My nerves about hitting him with my car had almost subsided. "Or hurt. Technically, I just bumped into you."

"Is that so?" Another few seconds ticked by of us evenly staring the other down, and then he did something I didn't anticipate. He laughed as though the situation genuinely amused him before extending his hand toward me. I looked from his hand to his face, my expression hopefully portraying the look of are-you-actually-being-serious? Clearly he didn't understand it because his next words were, "The polite thing to do right now would be to shake it."

"I thought we skipped past politeness when I bumped you with my car."

"You mean ran me over with your car."

"No," I said deliberately slow. "I mean bumped you with my car."

Finally getting the message that I wasn't going to shake his hand, he dropped it to his side and leaned against the bonnet of my car with a smile. It wasn't a happy smile, the type that caused an eye crinkle or a glint of happiness to shimmer in his hazel irises. It was more of a smile that showed how confident in himself that he was along with a slight hint of amusement. I didn't like it.

He let out a low whistle, as though my responses had surprised him- impressed him even. "Well aren't you something."

I frowned at that before asking the question that had been bothering me since the moment I saw him in front of my vehicle. "What were you doing in the middle of the road?"

"Crossing it." He said. At the look I gave him, he rolled his eyes and elaborated further. "I was on the pavement, then I wanted to cross the road. When I turned around there was this really old, crappy looking car and the driver behind the steering wheel had her eyes shut. She looked pretty cute actually, just a shame when she opened her mouth and began talking." He grinned, purposefully trying to wind me up.

"First of all," I snapped, my face flushed crimson with embarrassment. "You don't need a flashy, expensive car to get from A to B. This used to be my mother's and it's- it's a reliable model! Second of all, I don't always drive with my eyes shut I was-" I cut myself off, almost about to say the word singing when I realised just how utterly ridiculous that was to admit. "Yawning." I finished lamely.

"Yawning?"

"Yawning." I verified, folding my arms across my chest and giving him a look that dared him to question what I'd told him was inaccurate. He clearly didn't believe me but he just shook his head in reply, smirking. It annoyed me that he seemed so amused by whatever I said like I was just one big joke to him.

"Do I know you?" Parker asked. "You look familiar."

I snorted, not quite believing his obliviousness. "Are you serious? Your old friend Jason, a real sweetheart he was, gave me the lovely name of Frigid Flo back in freshman year." I said sarcastically.

A flash of recognition lit up his eyes. "You're Flora Montgomery, the girl who's afraid of intimacy!"

"And the penny drops. Well done, buddy," I slowly clapped my hands. "Gold star for you."

"So I take it you're still a virgin? Since you don't like kissing and whatever." He furrowed his eyebrows and ignored my sarcasm as if he were genuinely curious.

"Are you an idiot or something? What do you think a virgin is? If I don't like intimacy I clearly haven't frickle frackled yet." I was beginning to get really bad tempered with him now and not only that, it was nearing a dangerous subject.

"Frickle frackled?" He repeated with a laugh. "It's called sex, babe." This laugh sounded genuine and I had honestly had enough of him making fun of me. I walked over to my car door and my hand had just reached the handle when it happened.

His hand fastened around my shoulder from behind as he spun me back around to face him. Panic seized me and I quickly swatted his touch away and pushed him hard against his chest to get him to back off. He staggered back a step and I shot him the most venomous glare I could muster. I probably looked about as intimidating as a puppy. "Don't touch me." I spat, my shoulder tingling. "Don't do that again."

"Christ," He exhaled, a bewildered expression on his chiselled face. "Calm down."

"I am calm," I replied more for my own benefit than his, clambering inside my car and shutting the door behind me. "Perfectly calm."

Unfortunately for me, I had left my windows rolled down because that was the way I liked to drive - with the wind in my hair. Parker saw this as an excellent opportunity to lean himself inside, folding his arms and looking at me, still wearing the same bewildered expression. "You know what, Montgomery?"

I decided to humour him, thinking it would get him to leave quicker. "What?"

"I like you."

"Well you've got a funny way of showing it."

"Go out with me sometime."

I choked. Quite literally. My saliva got caught in my throat and I choked and sputtered. He waited patiently for me to collect myself and answer him. "You have problems. No."

"You're pretty feisty. That's what I like that about you. You've got spunk." He winked and I responded with a startled blink, scarcely believing what was happening.

"If you'd be so kind as to stop hanging your head through my car window and get lost, I would greatly appreciate it." When he didn't bother moving, I revved the engine of my car and hovered my finger over the button that rolled the window up. He seemed to get the hint.

"This is going to be fun." He stated, straightening up and sending me a sparkling smile that showcased his irritatingly perfect teeth.

"Define fun," I shouted over my sputtering engine. So what, the car was old. I was still sticking to the term reliable and Parker could shove his unwanted opinion where the sun didn't shine. "Like rollercoaster ride fun or learning to knit with your grandma fun?"

"My kind of fun."

//right okay so that's the first chapter and it would be pretty coolio if you enjoyed it! Dedicated to flanneling- because I'm really enjoying your story atm and you're actually reading this and that makes me very happy so thank you//