My Darling Arrow (St. Mary’s Rebels, #1)

by Saffron A. Kent

I’ve got something called witchy eyes.

They’re golden in color and they arch up at the corners, making them look sort of catty, witchy. Which is super poetic because I’ve got a witchy name too. Salem. Salem Salinger, and the second thing to know about me is that along with witchy eyes and a witchy name, I’ve got a witchy heart as well.

The boy with sun-struck hair and summer blue eyes.

The Blond Arrow. That’s his soccer nickname.

Holy fuck, they’re talking about Arrow. My Arrow.

His dirty blond, sun-struck hair is the first thing I see.

So he can’t come back when he was the one I was running away from.

My Arrow, the guy I’m in love with. My sister’s boyfriend.

Actually, every part of him is built and designed with such careful precision. Like someone up there decided to take their time with him. They decided to sit down and pick up tools, hammers and chisels so they could sculpt him and chip away at him and make him stunning.

Arrow Carlisle, the love of my life, is stunning.

His whole presence made me feel warm. Like he was the sun or something. My sun.

I’d never met anyone like Arrow Carlisle before.

So where do I fit in?

I don’t think I have any role except to be the villain in their love story.

We’re the girls in love with the boys who belong to someone else. We’re the girls in doomed love. When girls like us fall, there’s no one to catch us. Least of all that boy for whom we’ve taken the fall.

We’re the girls with secrets and witchy hearts. We’re the girls who listen to sad songs. Who slow dance to them with tears streaming down our faces, even as a smile lingers on our lips. Who cry in our pillows at night and who ride our sunshine-yellow bicycle along the empty, desolate, miserable places, where no one goes.

We’re the girls who run away in the middl...

Choose me, Arrow. Pick me.

The bar that we’re at is called Ballad of the Bards.

A vintage leather jacket. It’s black. Well, it’s so old now that it’s weathered and gray.

And he wears it all the time when he rides his motorcycle. Yeah, he has a motorcycle. Despite all the ways that he is so careful and disciplined because of his sport, he rides a Ducati.

my hair is curly – wild and savage

So he wears a locket, a silver thing he never parts with.

They don’t know what it feels like when a guy you’ve loved for eight years, who loves someone else, smirks at you, and his eyes shine because of it.

You lose your breath. You lose your sense. You lose all your goddamn goodness and almost tell him that you want him.

neon-yellow soccer cleats

Because it’s Saturday and at St. Mary’s, we plant gardenias on Saturdays.

It’s in the school crest and it’s there because gardenia represents purity and innocence.

“Secret love,” Poe tells me while clipping dead leaves. “It also represents secret love.”

Every night I write him a letter. I tell him about my day, about all the things I did, all the mundane details. Every night, I ask him about his day. About what he did, all the places he went, all the people he saw. Every night, I talk to him like a friend. Every night, I call him my darling. My darling Arrow.

Loving him is the most wonderful, most awful thing in the world. Loving Arrow is my doom. So he’s not my dear, he’s my darling.

I never knew that she shines brighter than any star that I’ve seen on the soccer field.

Because for some very strange reason, we keep clashing, him and I.

For some crazy reason, we keep rubbing each other the wrong way. We keep creating sparks and friction. We keep creating fire.

Just because the one you love is in love with someone else doesn’t mean your love isn’t gorgeous or real. It doesn’t mean that your love should be killed or it should be torn out of your heart and thrown into a river or burnt down like an extinct piece of architecture.

I play soccer gloriously, he said.

“What did you do before?” “Before?”

“Before I came around to catch you.”

What did I do before he came around to catch me?

“I fell,” I whisper.

I do have a thing for everything crazy and dangerous.

“A girl like me?” I whisper. “Raw, natural and stunning.”

He’s been my secret keeper like I’ve been his.

“What are you doing?”

His eyes are on my hair. “Untying your ribbon.” “Why?” “Because I don’t like it.”

“B-but I thought you hated messy things.” “I do.” He shifts his eyes away from my thick, scattered hair and focuses on me, my hastily breathing chest. “B...

“You’re the girl every guy runs away from. You’re every guy’s nightmare, Salem. Because you’re the girl with too much love inside you.”

“I’m the guy who’s a nightmare for a girl like you.”

“So if you think you’re dangerous, I’m a wrecking ball. I’m a loose cannon. A wildfire. I can burn houses down. I can burn cities down too. So don’t ever make the mistake of trying to kiss me again. Because I don’t want a needy girl clinging to me and you don’t want a guy giving you your first lesson in heartbreak.”

No matter the time, the season, the weather, I’ll always wait for him.