Zoë

The familiar ring of the welcome bell to the neighborhood Starbucks rang out as people walked in and out of the coffee shop, smiles on their faces and piping hot coffees in their hands as they went home to end the day.

It was a Thursday night and the sun was slowly beginning to set over the Pacific Ocean, light glittering off of the majestic blue. Boys with deep tans and smirks ran to the ocean with surfboards tucked under their arms and surfboard leashes attached to their ankles. Girl's wore expensive sunglasses and sipped their drinks as they walked along the boardwalk with their friends, gossip most likely escaping from their perfectly glossed lips.

Zoë Flynn sat in a booth by a window in Starbucks, her phone up to her ear and eyes staring at the girls outside wishfully.

"So, are you going to the Homecoming game in a couple weeks?" Amber Nielsen, Zoë's best friend, asked in a cheerful tone.

Zoë sighed. "Probably not. You know football is not my thing. What's so fun about watching boys fight over a ball anyways? I still don't get what the big deal is."

"Oh, come on! Take a break and actually have fun for once in your life. Not everything is study, college, future, jobs, Yale. Live in the moment, Zo!" She paused to take a breath. "And football is fun! Plus it's huge to the school and I thought you said you wanted to be social this year."

She had Zoë there.

"I know but-"

"Nope!" Amber interrupted with a loud sigh. "No arguing. You are going to come with me, even if I have to drag you kicking and screaming. Got it?"

Zoë repressed another sigh. "Got it."

"Good." Zoë could practically hear Amber's smile. "Has Mr. Hottie showed up yet?"

She laughed loudly and immediately covered her lips as other customers gave her the evil eye. "He is not 'Mr. Hottie,' Amber. More like Mr. Annoying or Mr. Full-of-Himself. I can't wait until he graduates and I don't have to deal with him anymore."

Amber giggled. "You know you'll miss him!"

"Hardly! I'll probably cheer the loudest when he graduates." She leaned back in her seat into the plush cushions, brushing a strand of her caramel brown hair over her shoulder and out of her face. "Only one more school year to go."

The bell rang out again and a tall boy with a natural tan, toned muscles, a black swim suit, white shirt, and a black backpack slung over his shoulder walked inside. His eyes glanced around the shop until they landed on her, his eyes immediately hardening as he sighed and started toward her.

"Gotta go, Ambi," Zoë muttered and hung up before placing her phone upside down on the table.

"Carden."

"Zoë," he responded in his semi-deep voice, sitting down across from her and pulling out a thick, deep red book with the title Greek Mythology 101 scrawled across it in loopy cursive. "How long are we gonna be here? The guys are going surfing and I wanna go join them ASAP."

She pulled out her own book and notes. "Long enough that you should get yourself a cup of coffee."

He groaned loudly, running his hand through his dark brown hair. "Seriously?!"

She rolled her eyes. "Seriously."

Carden's face contorted into a look of annoyance as he went to join the long line of customers waiting. Almost immediately, a group of high school girls in front of him turned around to flirt, strands of their hair being twirled around their pointer fingers.

Zoë's lip twisted into a scowl. Girls these days.

Carden Ash was the most popular Senior boy at Clarkston High, with Chloe Sorensen as the most popular girl. He had been the starting quarterback for the Badger's since his Junior year and with his crown that came with that role, came the unhealthy ability of every girl to find him very attractive.

Except Zoë.

Sure, he was tall and very handsome with his wavy hair and brown eyes that sparkled with mischief, but most girls didn't know Carden the way Zoë did.

He was annoying, his ego was so big she was pretty sure it could fill a three story building, he was a jerk, and most of all, he was a snarky player.

From what Zoë knew he had had three or four girlfriends and he had cheated on almost all of them. The only girl he didn't dare cheat on was Chloe because that "girl had dirt on almost every person that could ruin their social life, even someone as popular as Carden" according to Amber. Plus, she had a clan of henchwomen and together, they were terrifying.

She forced her eyes off of him and to her notes as he leaned against the counter and winked at the server, a senior girl who, if Zoë remembered right, was named Ashlee. She blushed and smacked his arm playfully as a flirty sentence more than likely escaped his lips. Oh yes. His unhealthy habit of flirting with nearly every single girl in a two mile radius, except for Zoë, which she was totally okay with.

He walked back to the booth and sipped his oil black coffee, crossing his legs and a look of disgust appearing on his face. "You could try harder, y'know."

"Huh?"

He waved a hand lazily at her. "Your style." He looked her up and down. "Needs some improvement."

Zoë bit down on her tongue, holding back a snarky remark. It was after school for crying out loud. Plus the pink and white tie dyed hoodie she was wearing was quite comfortable and it was her favorite. She didn't need to dress to impress, especially when it came to him. Nothing was ever perfect in his eyes.

Except for maybe a very nice car.

"I don't need advice. Especially yours," she shot back with an icy glare. "Can I just give you a quick lesson and then you can go back to doing whatever football players do in their free time?"

"You should take my advice," Carden said and completely blowing her off in the process. "It's not so often that a girl like you gets graced with the presence of a boy like me."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "And what's that supposed to mean?"

He smirked challengingly. "You know exactly what I mean."

She scoffed and flipped to page twenty in her textbook, skimming over the info about Kronos eating his children to keep his reign over the world. She glanced at her study guide with notes written in her loopy handwriting.

"Did you bring your study guide?"

Carden blinked. "The what?"

"The study guide? The one Mrs. Lott gave us two days ago...?" He stared at her with a blank expression. "Don't tell me you've already lost it!"

He leaned back against his backpack, pretending to zip his lips like a child. "Then I won't say anything."

"So mature," Zoë muttered through a sigh.

His eyes went to her bright blue study guide and he snatched it before she could stop him, flipping the pages quickly.

"Hey! What are you doing?!" She tried to pry it out from under his hand but the sound of paper ripping stopped her abruptly.

He smirked again. "Oops."

Zoë's vision blurred with anger. "YOU-"

"It's just a paper, sweetheart. No need to get all riled up now." He chuckled again. "You're such a nerd."

She glared at him and slammed her textbook shut loudly, stuffing it into her backpack angrily. "I am not your sweetheart and I am not a nerd! And it is not just a paper!"

He pulled out his phone and started taking pictures of the pages. "Let me guess. You've become friends with an inanimate object?" He looked up at her with fake worry. "Oh Flynn, I knew you were a nerd but I didn't know it was this bad. Do we need to find you some help?"

Her teeth clenched. "Shut up."

He smirked and slid the paper back as he pocketed his phone and stood. "Thanks for the study sess sweetheart. See you tomorrow."

He was halfway to the door before he turned around and said, "I like how you're tutoring me now. The notes I took a picture of are gonna be so helpful. Not to mention it's more time efficient."

With one more cheesy grin, Carden Ash walked out of the restaurant and onto the beach where his friends clapped him on the back and led him towards where their surfboards stood up in the sand.

Zoë sighed and slipped her ripped packet into a folder.

The nerve of that boy.

She slipped her arms into the shoulder straps of her backpack and walked out onto the boardwalk, lowering her black sunglasses over her light blue eyes.

She started down the pathway, the annoyance that had been building up inside her body since he walked into the shop, dissolving the more distance she put between herself and that self absorbed jerk.

Zoë had been tutoring Carden ever since September of her Sophomore year when Clara Ash, Carden's mother, had come into the Wendys she had been working at since she turned sixteen.

"Do you know my son?" Clara had asked once she had received her order. "His name is Carden."

"Of course!" Zoë had responded with a forced smile. "I'm pretty sure everyone knows him."

She smiled but got right to the topic. "Do you tutor people?"

"Umm sometimes. Not that often, though. I'm really busy."

Clara looked at her with pleading eyes. "Do you think you could make time for him? If he doesn't get his grades up, he'll get kicked off the football team and he just barely got a spot as the starting quarterback."

Zoë sighed. "I'm sure I can!" She couldn't just say no to this lady who looked like she was about to break.

And the rest is history.

Unnecessary history.

In all honesty, she still had no idea how such a nice woman could be the mother to such a jerk. He clearly didn't get his mother's attributes but Samuel Ash, Carden's father, was a nice guy so maybe it skipped a generation? Zoë was still trying to figure it out.

Zoë walked to a bench, brushing some sand off of it, and sat down. People laughed all around her and little kids screamed as the water moved in, wrapping around their little feet in a rush of cold and destroying their sandcastles. Teens sprawled on beach towels attempting to get a tan instead of a sunburn.

She smiled as she sipped her peppermint mocha coffee. Life was so simple in California but it was hard to fit in. With her long caramel hair, bright blue eyes, and tan she'd gotten from living in Florida and moving to California in fifth grade, Zoë looked like she should be a popular girl. The outfits she wore even screamed it.

But she was close to the bottom rung of the social ladder and she was okay with that. Carden and his buddies were at the top, popularity handed to them on a silver platter but with where she sat, hidden in the shadows of high school, the people in her life actually cared about her.

Amber. Andrew Wright, a Texan who moved to Cali over the summer. Calista Duke, a reject from Chloe's group who found refuge with them.

They weren't there because she was popular. They were there because they cared about her and that was alright with Zoë. She didn't need popularity. She just needed to make it through one day at a time.

As she watched the ocean retreat back and then come rushing forward again, it seemed to take her anxieties away and reach out to take more.

Carden and Chloe always seemed to hang over her head with their relentless teasing and annoying remarks and sometimes it weighed down on her. Plus, there were problems with her personal life which she wasn't ready to talk about.

If she did, it made it real and she didn't want to admit they were. It was best to ignore them the longest that she could.

It made life easier that way.