My eyebrows rose. Mostly because I’d never heard Allison be so blunt before.
“Well, then I’m sure he will.”
“Girls.”
The teacher’s
voice caught our ears and pulled us into the classroom. He held the door open for us and we made our way to the back. Where we always took our seats. I kept peeking over at Allison, trying to read her face. As we cracked our books open and focused on the lecture that would surely put us all to sleep, I wondered what was going through her head.
I didn't have to wonder long. Because once our teacher turned his back, she leaned toward me.
“Do you think I should drop hints?”
I kept my eyes on the teacher. “Yes.”
“What kind? I’m not good with this kind of stuff.”
We kept our voices low. Trying our hardest to make sure our conversation didn’t interrupt the lecture. Or catch our teacher’s attention.
“I mean, just start talking about things. You know, like prom dress shopping, or the fact that you don’t have a date yet. Michael’s smart. He’ll eventually catch on.”
Allison sighed. “I really hope so.”
I grinned. “You really want this, don’t you?”
She shrugged. “Yeah. I do.”
“It’s nice, seeing you admit it.”
She looked over at me. “I don’t really know when I started feeling this way, you know.”
“I mean, sometimes you don’t.”
The girl in front of me turned around, giving me a mean-ass look. But I simply glared back at her. She needed to shut the hell up with that face of hers. Allison and I were having a very important conversation. My best friend of all these years was finally admitting that she wanted to be more than friends with Michael.
This was a monumental moment.
Allison held back her giggling. “He’s been really sweet lately, you know. We’ve been spending a lot of time together.”
I smiled brightly. “I feel a story coming on.”
The girl in front of me whipped around. “Are you two serious?”
And even though our conversation had gone unnoticed, her harshly-whispered outburst caught our teacher’s attention.
“Ashley. Turn around and pay attention, please.”
She tossed me another glare, but I simply smiled at her. I wiggled my fingers at her, waving goodbye as she turned around in her seat. She slumped down, crossing her arms over her chest. And as our boring-ass teacher struck up his pointless lecture again, Allison pointed to her notebook.
I nodded my head.
I sat there, waiting for her note to be scrawled out. And while she wrote, I thought about how normal this all felt. Allison and I always talked away biology. Science was easy for me. Always had been. So long as I read the chapters, I’d be okay. Not once did I ever have to take notes in my science courses all throughout school. It just… clicked for me. Things made sense in the science world. Hypotheses and testing to figure something out? That resonated with me in an ethereal sort of way.
Hey, if video game design didn’t work out for me, maybe I had a career in some science field somewhere.
Allison tapped my shoulder before passing me a note. And when I unraveled it, the smile on my face grew wide. My eyes flittered across the words, warming my soul and making me happier than I’d been in a long time.
Allison was totally smitten with Michael.