A Reminders of Zuko's Kisses: A Romance Novel based on the real life of Colleen Grey, a girl who believed in true love by Delaila Adams

I was so determined on that first day of my last year. In only a few short months, I would be on my way to college, on my way to a life beyond high school. Up until my last year, I’d made considerable academic strides without receiving much acknowledgment. I liked it that way.

In Campbell High School, you quickly learned to fly under the radar. Anyone caught making an academic name for themselves was swallowed up into the twisted hierarchy of the school. The populars dominated, unloading all their homework and assignments onto the nerds so that they could skate through high school without a single thought in their pretty brains.

I always saw it differently, and I thought the smart ones did, too. While the populars dominated with charisma and power, the nerds had a full arsenal at their disposal: plagiarism, suspicious perfection, or purposeful disregard. For, even if the populars bothered to double-check each book report, would they notice a document copy-pasted from Wikipedia or if every answer was blatantly wrong?

“Take off the damned jacket, Colleen.” His voice was sinister, strangled.

“No, seriously. What is your problem?”

“That fucking jacket is the problem, Colleen.” He turned and unleashed on me, his face contorted in white-hot fury. “Don’t make me tell you again to take the fucking jacket off!” He screamed out each word, pounding his fist against his thigh, spit flying from his teeth.

“No.” My knees threatened to buckle under me. If I had any organs left in my body, they had dropped to my feet. My hands trembled at my sides, and I swallowed down the urge to throw up. “I can’t take it off, Zuko,” I whispered. He rushed up to me, gripped either side of the jacket, and ripped it open so hard my body jerked forward. When the zipper caught on itself around my waist, he yanked it over my shoulders and down, leaving it in a puddle on the floor; much like the one I had been standing in when it was given to me. A laid-bare, all-but-naked maiden cowering at the feet of the King. No shield. No spine. I folded into myself, wanting so desperately to cover up and run away. His eyes dropped toward my dress. The violent tension in his shoulders faltered as his eyes studied me, from my breasts to my thighs to my shaking hands.

My back slammed loudly against a metal locker as his body collided with mine. His lips were rushed and unwieldy. He kissed my lips, my jaw, my neck. His thigh pressed between mine and pinned me to the locker, one hand clutching onto my waist and the other gripping the back of my neck, holding me close.

“You drive me fucking insane, you know that?” he mumbled between gritted teeth. I gasped as he drove his thigh up into me. “I would rather die than have some fucking bastard have what is rightfully mine.” His fingers dug into my waist and neck, pulling me harder against him.