Okay, so I am a bit of a flirt, so what? I’m only seventeen so I figure it’s still okay. I mean a little flirting never did anyone any harm, did it? Okay, so I completely lied, I’m a major flirt, and sometimes I do do a little harm. Never physical, only emotional, but that’s okay isn’t it? I mean the guy gets over it in what, two or three weeks. In the end they still live, so that is what really matters. My friend Diana calls me a manipulative tease or a manipulative flirt, depending on what day it is. My ex-boyfriend Nathan calls me an evil spoiled rotten brat, no matter what day it is. I call myself a smart, ambitious princess. Any of the descriptions work, though I personally prefer the third. In reality though, I’m not that spoiled, I just get whatever I want; there is defiantly a difference.

Anyways, on to the actual story. I was always a flirt it seemed. Incapable of a real relationship was what most people said. They were right too. My longest relationship ever had been three months, 10 days, and 6 hours, and that had been when I was in sixth grade. All the boys said that I was unreachable. No one could be able to pull off the cloud that I was sailing on and bring me back down to Earth. And I agreed with them. Why would I want to leave my heaven of flirting with anyone I wanted and dating the hottest guys around, even if only for a short while, in order to be tied down to some loser who said he loved me just so he could get something. I’ll pass! Nathan always used to tell me that one day someone would sweep me off my feet and steal my heart away. Then I would always laugh and reply that someone already had and that there no longer was any heart to steal. He always replied that I was a depressing person, and that he had returned my heart after we broke up.

Nathan didn’t know of course. No one did, it was the one thing I kept secret. After moving here from Seattle I hadn’t wanted to talk about my past so I let it die. It was a fresh start. I wanted to make sure that it remained that way by not clinging to the past, and it seemed to work. No one knew what had happened and my little white lie kept me out of trouble. Too bad it couldn’t last forever.

Monday, April 15.

“I hate Mondays,” I said to my best friend Olivia, as we made our way to second period. She was walking faster than I was and from behind her blond and purple hair reminded me of sunset. “Babe,” I said, watching her hair swish from one should to the other. “When are you going to cut off those purple tips? They’re starting to fade into a pinkish color.”

“Ick,” she replied, sticking her tongue out in a childish was. “I absolutely hate pink.”

“I know.” I laughed at her and she stuck her tongue out again, like she always did when she didn’t like something. We rounded the corner and turned into our 2nd period English class. It was nice having all the same classes together.

I sat down in my normal seat and Olivia sat right behind me. We had been assigned seats, where she sat two rows over and four seats up, but she didn’t care and we hadn’t wanted to be separated. When the teacher tried to make her move she used her famous excuse, “but I only have one leg”, and he had agreed to let her sit where she wanted. I didn’t mind.

“Hey Candace,” said Nathan, coming right up to me and kissing me gently on the cheek. Even though we had broke up we still hadn’t stopped the whole, see-each-other-kiss thing. He sat in the seat in front of me and turned to face me. Surprisingly he was actually assigned that seat.

“What’s up?” I asked, smiling. Nathan was probably the only ex that still talked to me in a normal way. All the others either didn’t talk to me or were only interested in hooking back up.

“What are you doing this weekend?”

I laughed. Nathan always wanted to hang out, but apparently it was never a date. “I’m going to Seattle on Saturday to my goddaughter’s birthday party and I’m working on Sunday. After working I’m going to the movies with Olivia.”

Nathan made a frown then and I laughed again. Olivia shook her head. “Don’t you have any other girl to bother?” She asked. Olivia hated Nathan for some reason. I still didn’t understand why. When I asked them about it they said not to worry about it. It had happened before I had moved here. “Why don’t you just leave Candace alone, she isn’t interested in going back out with you loser.”

Nathan glared at Olivia and she glared back. I never understood those two. No one hated Nathan. He was one of the most popular guys in school. Track star with a full scholarship to UCLA and a 3.6 g.p.a. Not to mention he was hot. Every girl liked him, in fact most of the girls had a crush on him, or they were completely in love with him. Most of my friends thought I should have worried when I dated him because of all the other girls. I just laughed at all the other girls. I was me, I didn’t get jealous. I didn’t need to. if Nathan had wanted those other girls he would have asked them out, but he didn’t, he asked me, so I didn’t worry. People thought I was crazy because of that, but I didn’t care what they thought of me either. My reasoning made perfect sense to me, and that was all that mattered.

“Will you two quit it,” I said, breaking their eye contact. “I don’t understand you two. If you don’t have anything nice to say to each though, then just shut up!” Olivia made a face, but didn’t object, and Nathan turned his attention strait back to me.

“Well, then what are you doing on Friday?” Nathan grinned, showing off his white teeth and I laughed. I always told him that he should be a crest toothpaste model, but he disagreed.

“You really want to hang out with me that badly?” I asked. It was strange to me how often Nathan and I still hung out. Some people even asked if we were still dating because of how often we were seen together.

“Ya,” he said, as if it was obvious. “We haven’t hung out in a long time and I miss hanging out with you. Come on. You know you miss me too.” I smiled but didn’t say anything. The truth was, we hadn’t hung out in a long time and I had done it on purpose. Looking at Nathan I really wanted to say no, but I couldn’t resist the charm his blue eyes held. I still did have a slight crush on Nathan and I knew. By not hanging out with him I was trying to get rid of it, and this defiantly wasn’t helping.

“Ya, I do. I guess we can hang out on Friday,” I said, giving into my sweet temptation. It wasn’t my fault though. I had never been very good with temptations. Besides, Nathan was just too cute!

“Yes,” he said, a bit loudly, causing some people to turn around and glance at us. Olivia made a sound of disapproval and clicked her tongue in a motherly way. “So what do you want to do?”

I laughed again. Nathan always managed to make me laugh. “You’re the one asking me out. Shouldn’t you decide what we do?”

“Your right,” he said, in a matter of fact tone. “We’ll go ice skating, we haven’t done that in a long time. I’ll pick up at seven, is that cool?”

“It’s fine with me,” I said. Nathan smiled than, and turned back around in his seat, seeming pleased with my answer.

I turned around to face Olivia’s disapproving look that she was still wearing since I had said yes to Nathan. “Now he is never going to leave you alone,” she said. I laughed again.

“You act like I’m supposed to be mad about that,” I said in a flirty type of tone. The truth was, I liked the fact that Nathan still liked me, because, to be perfectly honest, I did still like him, I just didn’t need to be in a serious relationship, and I knew that was what Nathan was looking for. Olivia made another face, but this time didn’t say anything, knowing it was pointless to argue with me.

Olivia didn’t talk to me for almost five minutes, and I was started to get annoyed. Then she turned towards me finally. I pretended I was reading, just so she would have to talk to me. The English teacher didn’t notice. He was in the front of the class lecturing about Hemingway, or Fitzgerald or some other famous writer of the 1920s. “Candace,” she said in a whisper. I ignored her and continued to pretend to read my book, wanting for her to know how it feels. “Candace,” she said again, in a bit of a louder voice, but still quiet enough so the teacher couldn’t hear us. “Oh come on Candace, I know your not reading, you’ve been on the exact same page for the past five minutes. We both know your not that slow of a reader.”

I grinned at that and placed a hand over my mouth, trying to hold in a giggle. I set the book down on my desk and took a drink of my water, to keep from laughing aloud. “What is it?” I asked, after I was able to breath again.

“Who is that?” said Olivia, pointing to someone sitting in the seat she had originally been assigned. I looked over but I couldn’t see anything but the back of some guys head.

“I have no clue,” I said. Olivia looked at me, and made a little pouting face. “You want me to find out?” I asked in a sarcastic tone. Olivia got ready to say no but it was too late. “Hey you,” I said. No one responded, of course. “Hey Sam,” I said to the blonde girl sitting behind the mysterious new boy.

“Ya,” she said, looking over at me.

“Tap him on the shoulder,” I said, pointing to the boy in front of her. She shook her head yes. Sam tapped the boy on the shoulder once and he instantly turned around, as if he had been expecting it.

“He’s hot,” said Olivia, practically drooling over my shoulder. I had to admit, he was pretty cute. He had light, short brown hair, a tan completion, and some of the best muscles I think I had ever seen.

The cute new boy looked back at Sam and she pointed over to where I was sitting. His eyes darted from her to me, and I got a clear look at his face. He was cute. “What’s you name?” I mouthed.

He looked confused for a minute then he quietly replied “Richard Mariano.” I barely heard him but it didn’t matter because I had no trouble reading his lips. Ever since seventh grade, where one of my best friends had been deaf I had become a master lip reader.

I smiled but didn’t reply. He had strange colored eyes. They almost looked gray, because they were such a light color of blue. “Those eyes,” I muttered more to myself, than anyone else. “Why do those eyes look so familiar to me?”