April covers her face with her hands. She shakes her head slowly and I feel her embarrassment for me just as strongly as I feel the morning breeze in my hair. “Oh my God,” she says, uncovering her eyes. She’s still shaking her head. She looks down at the sidewalk and kicks a rock. “Oh my God.”

“Is that all you have to say?” We come to a stop at the intersection before school and I give her a look. “I could use a little…I don’t know, support.”

She barks out a laugh. “Natalie, I don’t know. That’s just…” She shakes her head quickly. “So sad. And cringey. And—”

“Okay, enough.” I hold up my hand to silence her. “I have to stop telling you these embarrassing things because you only make me feel worse, not better.”

“I’m sorry, Nat.” April takes a deep breath. “I am here for you. What can I do?”

A school bus drives by and then we cross the road onto school property. It’s Monday morning and I’ve just told her what happened on the beach with Jonah this weekend.

I sigh and try to push out the memory of Jonah’s face when he called me on my nerd comment. “Can you invent a time machine?” I ask her. I try to smile but it doesn’t really work. “Then I could go back in time and never let him hear you call him a nerd.”

“Hey you called him a nerd!” she says, pointing a finger at me.

“Yeah, but you said what I said out loud and he heard it.”

She rolls her eyes. “Semantics!”

I grab my backpack straps and stare at the cracked sidewalk as we make our way to the school. Today is one thing, but tomorrow I have tutoring with Jonah and I just don’t know how I can handle it. I feel so awful.

“So nothing happened after he said that?” April says. “He didn’t like… try to lighten the mood or anything?”

I shake my head. “He was like, ‘You of all people should know that’ and then he ran a hand through his hair and walked off.”

April’s eyes go big. “You should have said something.”

“I know!” My voice is so loud it makes two guys look over at us. I roll my eyes and keep walking. “Trust me, I know,” I tell April. “I feel like shit. I mean, here I am crushing on him and he totally hates me now.”

“So what did you say his ex-girlfriend looks like?” she asks.

“Short, dark hair, olive skin,” I say with a sigh. “Prettier than I’d like to admit. If she were ugly then maybe I wouldn’t care as much.”

“She’s an ex,” April says. “You can fix this.”

I shake my head. “I don’t think I can. He hates me now. And it’s for the best because what was I even thinking?” I scrunch up my face and try very hard to believe what I’m saying. Deep down I know the words are true. “I don’t like Jonah. It was just a momentary lapse of judgement.”

“Okay,” April nods sharply as if she’s also going to lie to herself in order to believe what I’ve just said. “See you at lunch?”

“Yep.”

April turns down the hallway with all the freshman lockers and I keep walking toward my first period class. April likes to stop at her locker between every class, but I never use mine. I’m lazy and prefer to lug my backpack around everywhere.

As I near the math hallway, someone calls my name. I turn around and see the guy I’ve truly been crushing on jog up to me. My heart skips a beat.

Caleb is wearing distressed dark wash jeans that hug his muscular thighs in all the right places. His shirt is white and also tight-fitting, showing off the bulging muscles he works hard on in the gym. His physique is bigger and bulkier than Jonah’s, but you can expect that from a jock.

Oh my God, am I still thinking about Jonah?

I smile and try to clear my thoughts as Caleb gives me this smirk that’s so hot it could melt the lockers he leans up against now. “Hey,” he says as his smirk turns into a grin. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Well, you know how much I love the math hallway,” I say, gesturing to our surroundings. “If you need me, I’m usually here.”

He laughs even though my joke wasn’t that funny. “So, Natalie—” He reaches forward and pokes me in the shoulder and I have no idea why my insides turn to goo at just a simple poke. “I was thinking we should hang out this Friday.”

“Yeah,” I say entirely too eagerly, which makes heat rise in my cheeks. I clear my throat. “Yeah, that’s cool. Any reason why?” I have to ask because I can’t be sure what’s going on here. My heart is dying for a date with Caleb Brown, but what if this turns into some stupid misunderstanding and he really wants me to meet up with him for non-romantic reasons?

He shrugs and leans against the lockers in this way that makes him even sexier, if that’s possible. “Just thought we could hang out,” he says, reaching out and letting his fingers slide down my arm. Goosebumps prickle along my skin. “You seem like a cool girl.”

Oh my God oh my God oh my God.

It’s a date.

It’s a date, date. Not a misunderstanding.

Be. Cool.

I draw in a breath slowly and consider my words before I let them fall out of my mouth. I will not be that stupidly eager girl who throws herself at him. I won’t be lame. I’ll be sexy and mysterious and make him want more.

“You said this Friday?”

He nods, his blue eyes peering into mine in a way that reminds me of that shaggy haired boy he used to be, not the clean cut short haired jock he is now.

“Let me guess, hopscotch and bicycle races like in the old days?”

He looks confused for a minute and then he smiles. “Man, that was a long time ago. It’s weird that we knew each other as kids.”

“Well, we have lived in the same town and gone to the same school our whole lives.”

“And our parents own businesses on the boardwalk,” he says. “We practically lived there as kids.”

I nod. Back when Jack Brown wasn’t a threat to my mom’s business.

“Unfortunately,” Caleb says, brushing my arm again, “I wasn’t planning on bike races this time. You’ll have to settle for hanging out with me without a bike.”

It takes everything I have not to jump up and down with excitement. “Sure,” I say with a casual nod. “Friday sounds fun.”

“Cool,” he says with a grin. “Give me your phone.”

I hand it over and he types in his number then presses the call button before handing it back to me. “I’ll text you later,” he says. His fingers touch mine when he hands me my phone and it sends a jolt of something through my body. Lust? Desire?

I don’t know, but I do know I want more of it.

 

***

 

The next day, April and I haven’t found anything else to talk about besides my upcoming date with Caleb. We gushed about it at lunch yesterday and then on the walk home from school and then on the walk to school today and now it’s lunch time and we’re back at it. That’s the best part of hanging out with a freshman—they don’t pretend to be too cool to talk about boys. My old friends would have never cared about this.

I dunk a fry into nacho cheese sauce and gaze across the cafeteria toward the athletes’ table.

“You should go sit with him,” April says, nudging me in the arm.

“No way.” I shake my head and reach for another fry. “He hasn’t even talked to me since then.” As if on impulse, I glance down at my phone that’s on the cafeteria table in front of me. After I saved Caleb’s number into my phone, I’ve spent pretty much every second of my life hoping he’ll text me. But he hasn’t. It’s only been one day though, and guys are notorious for making girls wait three days.

“He asked you out so he obviously likes you,” April says. “Go say hi.”

“No way. He’s sitting with his friends and I’m not going to be the girl who’s clingy and annoying on day one. You have to slowly win over the friends.”

“Screw the friends! A hot guy has a date with you on Friday. Go flirt with him so you’ll be less nervous on the actual date!” April gives me this exaggerated wink that makes me laugh.

“I’m not doing it,” I say with an adamant shake of my head. “I’m going to be the cool mysterious chick who he has to chase.”

She rolls her eyes. “Whatev.”

“So in other news,” I say as my heart starts to beat a little faster. “I still haven’t looked at it.”

“At what?” April says with her mouth full of food.

“It,” I say, tapping my binder on the table.

“Oooh,” she says. “This semester’s progress report.”

I reach for the paper, which is folded in half and stapled together. That’s how our homeroom teacher passes them out each semester so the grades are somewhat private. I’ve had mine for a few hours now and I’m too scared to look. I take out the paper and slide my finger under the staple, ripping it open.

“You can do it!” April says.

“It’s only been a couple of weeks. My grades won’t be much higher,” I say, chewing on my lip. We haven’t had enough grades yet to even out my average, but I’m still hopeful that I might be passing all of my classes.

With a deep breath, I open the paper.

Last time I was failing math, chemistry, and history.

This time I’m failing math, chemistry, and history.

My shoulders fall.

“It’s not so bad,” April says as she leans over my shoulder to see the grades. “You had thirties and forties and now you’re in the sixties.”

“Still not passing,” I say, folding the paper back up. I don’t know what I was expecting. Having a thirty-six in math class takes longer than two weeks to turn into a C or a B. A thirty-six is like…a triple F.

“You’re being too hard on yourself,” April says sweetly. “You’re really close to passing and there’s still two and a half months of school left.”

“Yeah, I know.” Without thinking about it, I look up at Jonah’s table.

He’s looking right at me.

Chills scatter across my arms as we make eye contact. I want to smile or wave at him, or show him my grades since I know he’d be interested. But I am frozen with shame for what I called him, and how badly I’ve hurt his feelings, so I don’t do anything.

His ex-girlfriend grabs his arm and tugs his attention away from me. She says something to him and then runs her hands through his hair, shaping it into a bigger version of a side-sweep. Then she cups his cheeks in her hand and says something that makes her laugh.

I look back at my food, wishing the sight of them together didn’t send a wide array of emotions through my heart. He deserves someone better than her. He also deserves someone better than me. He just deserves…better.

I shove my food away, unable to eat anymore with the turmoil that’s bubbling up in my stomach. April fills the silence with stories from her Home Ec. class, and I shove my progress report deep in my backpack so I don’t have to look at it anymore.

I try to go back to being excited for my date on Friday, but knowing I’ll have to see Jonah after school today makes me feel sick to my stomach.

Just before the final bell rings, I take out my phone and look up Jonah’s number. He’d given it to me on our first day of tutorials in case I ever needed to reach him. So far, we haven’t texted at all, but I send him one now.

 

Me: Sorry I can’t make tutorials today. Something came up

Jonah: no prob. See you Thursday

 

Well, I think, as I stare at the first new text I’ve had all day. At least he doesn’t seem to mind.