An entire week goes by with me doing a good job of keeping my new crush to myself. I’m still unsure about it, and wondering if I’m just suffering from delusional tutoring-induced emotions. Would I have liked Jonah if I never had to tutor with him?
Hell no.
So maybe all this studying is just rotting my brain.
The only good thing about being forced to go to tutoring and paying attention in class is that I’m not solely worried about the store anymore. I’m still stressed about it, and I still work there every day after school, but it’s not the number one thing on my mind. Between the store, studying, and thinking about Jonah, there’s barely any room for sleep.
But on Tuesday morning, I know my thoughts are about to spill over and come rushing out of my mouth because people can only keep these things to themselves for so long. The thing is, I need to make sure I control what I say instead of letting it escape accidentally. So I decide to tell April about my crush. She’s the one who first pointed it out, after all. She is the best person to talk this through with me.
Only…as we’re walking to school, I keep chickening out. I want to tell her, I do, but I can’t make my mouth say the words. The thing is, even if I do have a crush on Jonah, I can’t act on it. We are totally different people in very different social circles. He hangs out with the band nerds and fellow smart people and I keep to myself since I’ve lost most of my friends over the last year. I focus on the store and nothing else.
I don’t even have time for a boyfriend.
“Are you okay?” April says as we approach the front doors of the school. “You look like you’re going to puke.”
“I might puke,” I say and she jumps back. I laugh. “No, not like literally…”
“So you’re figuratively going to puke?” she says, giving me a look.
I shake my head and tuck into an empty part of the front lobby. “I need to tell you something, but only because I can’t keep it to myself.”
She lifts an eyebrow. “Okay now I’m intrigued.”
I take a deep breath and prepare to embarrass myself. “I think you’re right. I think I might like Jonah.”
“What!” she squeals. Her bright blue eyes seem to turn into glitter as she grins so big I can see all her teeth. “I knew it!”
“Shh!” I say, grabbing her hands before they can clap together excitedly. “The whole world doesn’t need to know.”
“But are you going to tell him?” she says, bouncing on the balls of her feet.
“No,” I snap. Now I’m regretting telling her because this is all just too mortifying.
“Oh come on,” she says. She puts her hands on my shoulder and looks into my eyes like she’s giving me some serious Yoda advice. “There’s nothing wrong with liking Jonah.”
At that very instant, the guy we’re talking about walks up behind her. His eyes shine in greeting and his lips part like he’s about to tell me good morning, just like he did the last couple of times I saw him before school started.
I shrug out of April’s grip and I try to tell her to shut up before he hears anything. He’s only a few feet away, getting closer with each step. But she’s faster than I am.
“I know you said you’d never date a nerd like Jonah, but come on. He’s cute.”
“Morning,” Jonah says quickly, glancing at me for a split second.
“Good morning,” I say back, but he doesn’t act like he heard me as he walks a little faster, his back to me now.
“Oh my God,” April whisper-yells as she covers her mouth with her hands. “Do you think he heard me?”
My heart pounds so hard I can hear it in my skull. “I really, really hope not.”
My throat goes dry as I walk to class. All of my muscles start to ache with worry and now it’s all I can think about. Jonah was totally close enough to hear April call him a nerd. But it is loud in the hallways and maybe he wasn’t paying attention.
Or maybe he was.
I have no idea, and the not knowing is driving me crazy. Because of this, I make a sixty on my Shakespearian quiz in English and I don’t even hear when my History teacher calls my name three times in a row.
By the time the final bell rings, I don’t know what to do or say when I see Jonah at tutorials. I decide to pretend that nothing happened and that everything is totally normal. After all, maybe he didn’t hear it.
He was just passing by this morning. He was looking at me, so he probably didn’t even pay attention to what anyone else was saying.
I’ve almost convinced myself that everything is okay until I get to our table in the library and Jonah’s sitting there with his notebook open, his foot tapping impatiently on the floor.
“Let’s get started,” he says instead of a hello.
I swallow the lump in my throat and sit next to him, noticing that his chair is about six inches further away from mine than usual. He opens the history textbook to the chapter thirteen study guide.
“I’ll quiz you on the vocab words,” he says, never looking up at me.
My heart lodges in my throat. I can deny it all I want, but he definitely heard what April said this morning.