smitten | h.hart

Chapter One

C H A P T E R    O N E

     WALKING through the halls, the ocean of classmates drowning her, Juliette Dunlop attempted to make her way outside. She wanted to make it out of the building before Mitch Bilsky and his bundle of idiots, to avoid the unsolicited comments that would, inevitably, be thrown her way.

     It was mid-September, and the weather was beginning to grow colder. A burgundy colored sweater dress covered her body, black colored leggings underneath, and her favorite pair of black combat boots. The autumn wind swept the loose hickory strands of hair from her face, and whipped her ponytail as she exited the school doors.

     Onlookers wouldn't have deemed her as anything more than your typical high school student, until they got closer and she revealed her longing for adventure.

Juliette Dunlop was a loose cannon, taking every opportunity of adrenaline that presented itself; whether that be breaking into abandoned buildings, fighting random drunkards in the street — even vandalism.

     Her personality contrasted that of her brother immensely, and nobody quite knew why; they just shrugged it off as the "different twins" stereotype.

     Juliette and Jasper had always been close, despite their different takes on life. Even after Juliette decided to move in with their grandparents, their relationship remained as close as before.

     The girl sighed, pulling her keys from her bag and approaching the vehicle. She had mountains of homework to complete, and her usual study buddies had recently been too busy with their job; it was odd, they'd always be called into work at absurd hours for a plethora of different "emergencies" — but it only left her to wonder how many "emergencies" a junk shop truly had.

     Even her brother had been dragged into working at the store, leaving the younger twin feeling isolated from her friends most of the time.

     When she got in the gold 1973 Plymouth Duster, she quickly selected her favorite playlist and began the journey to her brother's workplace; Jasper, Charlotte, and Henry had all left school early for (yet another) work emergency. She figured she'd do them all a favor and bring them their work from the rest of the day.

Juliette pulled up to the vacant store, rolling her eyes as she put the car in park. How could a store with little to no customers have so many emergencies?

Pushing her doubt to the back of her head, she swiftly grabbed her bag and her friend's work from her passenger seat before exiting the vehicle.

Entering the store, her eyes first found the familiar t-rex animatronic on the wall before wandering to the register. Her eyebrows knitted together in confusion when she saw that Jasper wasn't in his normal spot; she walked to the glass case, finding a bell on the counter and ringing it an obnoxious amount of times in hopes to draw someone's attention.

After nearly five minutes of slamming the bell, she heard the ding of an elevator echo from the back. Why'd such a small store have an elevator?

"Jules, hey!" Her brother greeted as he appeared from the beaded curtain, his tone more awkward than usual as he took his usual place by the register. "What're you doin' here?"

Juliette sent the boy an unamused look, signaling that she could tell something was up; just as Jasper was about to create some out-of-this-world excuse, she cut him off.

"I'm not even gonna ask why you're being so weird." She sighed, placing the large pile of papers on the counter, "Are Hen and Char here?"

"Yeah, they're in the back, why? What's that?" He asked, his awkwardness dissipating and being replaced with curiosity at the large stack.