04

“Bomb ?” her mother repeated the word and lifted her brow while giving her daughter a quizzical look.

“Yup, you know like cool……awesome…..rad.” Hope rattled off other terms that she thought her mom would be more familiar with. Finished with her breakfast she then stood and went to toss the empty contents into the trash.

“Ah, I get it,” her mother stated knowingly. “Its part of that special language only meant for anyone under the age of twenty one to understand.”

Hope turned to mother and shook her head. She glanced down at her wrist watch and realized that she only had fifteen minutes until the first bell rung. She needed to move before she was late.

She strode to her mother and stood on her toes to peck her on the cheek, “Gotta go mom,” she said and pointed to her watch “My higher education is calling.”

Her mother chuckled and embraced her daughter in a quick hug before releasing her. Hope headed for the doorway and picked up her bag and keys. Just as she opened the door to leave she heard her mothers parting words, “Alright sweetie, be careful and love you.”

“Love you too mom,” she hollered back before closing the door firmly behind her and heading for her car.

Once again the burn on the back of her neck peaked again. It still wasn’t that intense pain from the night before but it was definitely enough to make her take notice. She slipped into the drivers seat of the car and lightly rubbed over the unique mark. For the first time she realized that skin was slightly raised where the mark should be.

Hope then turned around and lifted her hair to try and get a better view of the mark on her neck in her rear view mirror.

« What the hell ?” She mumbled as she stared at her neck. The usually faded teal mark had darkened to a bright blue and was rimmed with fiery red outline.

“This can’t be happening,” she whispered to herself, still staring in the mirror in total disbelief.

Hope then tried to turn her head in the other direction for a different view, maybe the lighting was hitting it wrong or something. There was no way in hell she could be seeing what she thought she was seeing.

Blinking her eyes a few times hoping to clear her vision she peered in the mirror again. No change. Still a bright blue sunburst encircled in red and it still had that burning feeling.

“It’s my imagination, it’s got to be. Nothing else makes any sense.” Hope spoke aloud to herself once again. Sighing, she let her hair drop back on her shoulders and buckled her self in. Out of sight, out of mind she thought while turning the ignition over. That seemed to be the easiest solution with the one small exception of the freaking searing sensation that seemed to be in no hurry of dissipating any time soon.

Minutes later Hope arrived to school and the parking lot was already full. “Wonderful, » she muttered sarcastically, “this day just keeps getting better and better”.

She wove her way up and down the lanes until she finally found a spot in the very back where she was going to have to walk a country mile just to reach the building.

Resigned to her fate she pulled in the spot and parked. She sulkily got out of the car and made her way to the building. Hope walked in the school and the halls were crowded with what seemed like hundreds of people milling around her.

Everyone seemed to want to stop her to just say hey or tell her that they couldn’t wait for her big bash tomorrow. On any other normal day she would bask in the attention, but right now it was more like a big pain in her ass.

After many delays Hope finally made her way through the crowd and reached her locker. She un-did the combination and opened it with ease. Closing her eyes she leaned her head against the locker door and rubbed at the back of her neck trying to cool the heat that was still there.

“Hey there babe,” Joey came up from behind Hope wrapping his arms around her waist and startling her.

She gasped and he chuckled at her expression. “Did I scare you ?” He asked turning her around so that she was facing him but not yet willing to release her from his embrace.

“A little,” Hope replied softly and immediately relaxed in his arms. Joey was customary, he was comfortable and that it what she needed right now, normalcy. The warmth remained in her neck but at least in Joey’s arms she could think of something other than that wretched birth mark she was so graciously cursed with.

She could think about how good his arms felt wrapped around her body, and how nice he smelled of a mixture of clean soap and old spice deodorant or how good his lips felt pressed against her temple.

Joey pressed a kiss to Hope’s temple and could see it in her eyes that something wasn’t quite right. After her episode last night he had worried about her all through the evening hours and played hell on passing the time this morning waiting to see her at school. He was going off very little sleep at the moment and hoped that seeing her this morning would help affirm that everything was okay.

He was sorely disappointed.

“Kiss me,” Hope whispered looking up at Joey with those sparkling blue eyes of hers.

He shook his head at her in indignation, how could he say no to a face that looked as beautiful as that.

“My pleasure,” he whispered already bending down to close the distance.

There lips touched and Hope sighed in pleasure. Yeah, this is what she needed, Joey and those delectable lips of his. Those lips always seemed to take her to another plane. As long as she has his lips locked on hers then she couldn’t think of the burn in her neck or the fact that the mark was for whatever reason changing. All she could think about was the guy standing in front of her, Joey Loggins.

Now, if only she could figure out how to keep him locked in this position for the rest of the day then she would be in serious business.

A loud throat cleared in the background that Hope so desperately wanted to ignore. Joey heard it too and regrettably he pulled away from Hope and turned around to see Mr. Anvil, the Principal staring at them.

He frowned at the both of them and after a long second Joey released Hope and took a step back.

“I believe that’s enough,” Mr. Anvil replied simply and then with a stomp of his heel he turned to walk away.

“Yes sir,” Joey called out to his retreating back. He turned back to Hope and quickly pecked her once more on the lips. “Come on babe, we need to get to class.”

Class was the last thing on Hope’s mind at the moment. Joey’s kisses, her birthday party, losing her virginity and the abominable mark on her neck all came to the forefront of her whirling thoughts. But class wasn’t even a blip on her radar. She was at school though so she at least had to pretend to go through the motions.