Prologue & First meeting

Sarah

Sarah went numb. This could not be happening. She gripped the phone, her knuckles going white. The knot in her throat was unbearable.

"Sarah, are you still there?"

In an almost inaudible whimper, Sarah answered, "Ah huh."

"I know this is hard, honey, but it's not the end of the world. We talked about this already, and you knew it was a possibility. I tried, Sarah. I really did, but there's no way around it. We've gone over all the other options, but anything else is too much of a risk. It's for the best."

"But, senior year ..." Sarah felt the anger building and the tears burning in her eyes. She felt ready to blow up—lash out.

Then she heard her mom again. Her voice choked up as well."I know, honey. I'm so sorry. I really screwed things up this time."

Her mom took a long, trembling deep breath, and it broke Sarah's heart. She wanted to be with her to hug her and to comfort her."It's okay, Mom. I'll be fine."

Her mom cleared her throat and lowered her voice. Sounding very determined, she spoke again, "I am going to make this up to you. I promise, okay?"

"Okay.""I've already called Aunt Norma. She and Uncle Alfred will be here this weekend. They wanna help us pack, so you and I will have time to spend together. Then I'll have to be in court on Monday."

Sarah gasped. "Monday?"

"Yeah, babe, Monday."Sarah covered half her face with her free hand and shook her head.

Not wanting to make her mother feel any worse, she choked back a sob."All right, mom," she whispered.

"I'm gonna be here a while, honey, so don't wait up for me. We'll talk more about this tomorrow."

She hung up and looked at her best friend Sydney who'd been sitting on the bed next to her the whole time. Sydney stared at her anxiously."She's pleading guilty and gonna do at least three years. I have to go live with my Aunt Norma in California." Sydney kept a strong front, but Sarah fell into his arms crying.

CHAPTER 1

ONE MONTH LATER

La Jolla High School, California

Even as she stood in the middle of a bustling hallway with noisy students rushing by her, Sarah felt utterly alone. One month wasn't nearly enough to prepare her for a new school, new friends—a new life.

God, how she missed Sydney. This wasn't at all how she'd imagined her first day as a senior in high school would be. She had so many plans at her old school, and now she stood here completely lost.

Clenching her backpack in her hand, she walked off in no particular direction. She wanted to get out of the middle of the human traffic jam. Where in the heck was her cousin, Valerie? She had said the main entrance hall just outside the counselor's office, hadn't she?

They'd been dropped off together by her aunt, but Sarah had to go to the counselor's office. Since she'd enrolled so late, her schedule hadn't come in the mail like Valerie's. No sooner than the moment they had walked into school together had Valerie started socializing, promising she'd be right there when she got back from the office.

The bell rang, and Sarah tried not to panic. She glanced at her schedule but had no idea where her first class was. She backed up slowly until her back was against a wall. Had Valerie really abandoned her? No, she wouldn't. She took in some of the faces around her and wondered if she should just ask someone for directions to her first class.

High-pitched squealing got her attention, and she turned to the front entrance to find some girl had her arms wrapped around one of the guys that had just walked in. Sarah rolled her eyes. She'd always hated those types of girls. The guy was obviously a jock because he wore a letterman's jacket and so did his two friends.

Deciding she was on her own, she walked back toward the office and frowned when she realized a map of the school had been just outside the office the entire time. There were a few kids standing in front of it, examining their schedules and then looking up at the map. Apparently, she wasn't the only newbie at this school—not much of a consolation. Sarah looked around for Valerie, feeling more than a little annoyed at her.

Male laughter erupted just behind her, and she turned to find the same jocks she'd seen walk in earlier with a few more guys horsing around. The tall one who had been greeted at the door by the squealing girl was smiling when their eyes met. The smile on his face seemed to dissolve slowly. She stood there frozen, her lips slightly opened. For a moment, she thought he might say something, and then she heard Valerie.

"There you are!"

Sarah snapped out of her daze and watched as Valerie, who'd already taken Sarah's schedule, smiled wickedly. "We have two classes together!"

"We do?" Sarah's cheeks still felt warm, but she quickly walked alongside of Valerie, incredibly grateful for her timing.

Valerie talked about the classes just until they were far enough away and around the corner of the building. "Oh, my God, Sarah, do you know who that was staring at you?"

Surprised, and not sure why, Sarah pretended not to understand. "Who?"

Valerie gasped. "That was Angel Moreno! Don't you remember? I've told you about him and his brothers."

"No," Sarah lied. Of course she remembered, that was part of the reason she could hardly breathe when she recognized him.

The bell rang again.

"Oh, shit," Valerie looked at her watch. "We're gonna be late on our first day."She grabbed Sarah's arm, and they were off on a foot race to their first class.

TWO WEEKS LATER

Angel

Angel took long, rapid strides around the science building. His stomach tensed up as the bell rang. He was late to practice again, and he knew his coach wouldn't be happy. It was the second time this week, but he had to stay after class to get the extra credit assignment. He was failing Spanish II, again. Spanish! His parents owned a Mexican restaurant, for crying out loud. The only reason he had taken it was because he needed two years of a foreign language to even have a prayer of getting into a four-year college. And now it may cost him time on the field.

Apparently, he was only good at the curse words, and the teacher called his Spanish, Spanglish. It was a Catch 22 though, if he didn't stay late to get the extra credit assignments, he wouldn't be able to make up some of the lousy scores he'd been getting on the quizzes. If he didn't make them up, he wouldn't have the grades to play on the team. Not picking up his grade also meant staying after school for tutoring. Just the thought made him groan.

He made it to the weight room just as they were starting warm ups. The coach barely looked at him and pointed to the bleachers outside in the hot sun."Twenty," he said. "Make 'em fast."

Running bleachers was the worst. As he began to sprint toward them, he heard Dana call out to him from the track area where the cheerleaders were warming up.

"Bleachers again, Angel?"

He nodded, barely looking her way. Some of the other girls laughed and joined in. His dimples made their appearance as usual, although his smile was anything but genuine. The catcalls had stopped making him uncomfortable a long time ago, especially from this group of girls.

At seventeen, Angel was already an impressive six-foot-two. He was very much following in his two older brothers' footsteps. Although it was nice to have the instant admiration as soon as he started high school, there were times he resented having to live up to his brothers' legacies. He had the looks, the build, the popularity but, unfortunately, not the grades.

He frowned at the thought of his two older brothers being on full sports scholarships in college, and here he was struggling to stay eligible to play high school football. It was embarrassing, but he wasn't going to give up. As his father and lately his oldest brother Sal always said, "Failure is not an option."

Lost in his thoughts, and still annoyed with himself, Angel ran slowly and pensively up the bleachers for the fourth or fifth time; he'd lost count. Sweat trickled down his face, and he struggled to keep his breathing steady. He usually could get a rhythm going, but not today. Someone ran right past him a little too closely. Startled, he almost lost his balance. He caught himself and was about to give the guy an earful when he heard her apologize and realized he was a she.

"I'm sorry, did I bump you?"

"No, I'm good." Angel bent over with his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath.

"You sure you're okay?" she asked again.He looked up at her for the first time, still breathing hard. The sun was directly behind her. Angel squinted at a petite silhouette. She shifted slightly, blocking the sun for a moment. The first thing he noticed was her eyes. They were an amazing light green. A startling contrast to her dark features. She stared at him as she too stood there, breathing hard.

Her hair was up in a ponytail, except for a few strands dampened by her perspiration that stuck to the sides of her face and forehead. It surprised Angel that he didn't recognize her from anywhere. He thought he knew everyone in the school. But there was something familiar about her; he just couldn't place it.

"I'm fine," he said.

"Good." She started untangling the earphone wire. Apparently, she'd taken it out of her ear when she stopped to check on him. She didn't smile back or ask anything else but seemed eager to be on her way. He watched as she adjusted it in her ear and got ready to go back to her running.

With his heart pounding and palms sweating, to his own surprise, he stammered, "So, you like to run?"

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

She turned and looked at him without responding. Maybe she hadn't heard him—he hoped.

"I'm Angel. What's your name?"

"Sarah."

All he could manage was a smile as the name sunk in.

"Well, have a good one," she said and ran off.

He watched as she ran up and across the bleachers. From a distance, she looked very small with little to no curves. Then it hit him—lost girl—from the first day of school. That's where he'd seen those eyes. He'd noticed them even then. He remembered feeling struck, but he hadn't seen her since and had almost forgotten about it. Almost.

He started his bleachers again, and his thoughts went back to his grades. Was he really gonna need to be tutored? He shook his head in disgust and picked up his pace.