Seven

two: stalker status

to Manda, for being my friend since Day One of Kindergarten. I will forever cherish us talking trash, our haunting memories, and the time we went to Santa Cruz and I wouldn't stop singing the Banana Song. Sorry.

Look, you'll probably think I'm crazy after reading this chapter. I understand if you don't want to read my crap after this, but here we go!

In fifth grade, I found out this boy Alex's number. My friend Hanna and I decided that at one in the morning, we would prank text him. Little did we know that he knew Hanna's number. So he told Hanna to back off, and then Hanna got a Facetime from some random person.

"Answer it! Answer it!" I told her. Looking back on that, I probably should've shouted "Stranger danger!"

She did answer it like the dumb little ten year olds we were. She made it face the floor and asked "Who's there?"

And then we saw its face. It was Jackson freaking Nickles. Jackson, the boy I'd had a crush on for practically forever had just Facetimed Hanna and I. Hanna switched the camera back to the front and smiled.

"Oh, hey, Jacks," she said. Jackson and her 'boyfriend' were good friends, as well as Alex.

"Hey, Hanna. Is Maddy there?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said, coming into view.

"I knew it was you. I told you Alex's number and that's how you use it? I thought you were going to ask him if you could be like, his girlfriend or something," laughed Jackson. "Not blackmailing us in the middle of the night."

"We weren't going to blackmail you!" Hanna announced. She smiled sheepishly.

"Ew, Jackson!" Alex said. "I like Emma Carter, and you know that."

"What!?" I laughed. "Emma would never go for you." Alex frowned. "I'm sorry, but we're in fifth freaking grade."

That was the beginning of what ended up to be a creepy obsession.

We had this super old math teacher named Mr. Bynum. He said that he was older than dirt. And of course, we had to use spokeo.com and whitepages.com to search him up and find his age.

Mr. Bynum was sixty eight and still teaching. He said that he loved teaching and that we were all his kids. I was on the phone with Hanna.

"Okay, I'll check out Mrs. Fyer," Hanna said.

Mrs. Fyer, who said she's been around since the dinosaurs, was only fifty three. And so on... We ended up finding out our teacher's numbers, addresses, and ages. It wasn't exactly our fault. It just happened?

I didn't stalk/Google someone for over a year. But then Luke Alan, a super cute seventh grader who was such a good basketball player that he could be on the eighth grade team, came into my life. He had this uh-dorable scar on his left eyebrow and he looked so much like Lucas Gottesman from Pretty Little Liars in season one, the Lucas with short hair and no stubble.

Adriana had asked him to the dance for me, as you already know. Although that was super embarrassing, I didn't stop liking him. He was just so cute. Every chance I got, I glanced at him. Until one day, Adriana Hubbard, me, and my ex-bestie but my now friend Jennah Avila decided that we were going to hang out in the library. And with that, Leo brought up White Pages and Spokeo. Both of those websites are basically perfect for stalkers.

"Hey, let's go outside," Adriana thought aloud.

"Yeah. I want to borrow Jaxon's Beats," said Jennah.

They got up, and not wanting to be my loner self, I went with them. Adriana gave a sly smile to Jennah and walked straight up to Luke's best friend, Gideon. I furrowed my brows and looked at Jennah with a confused look. Jennah gave me a look that said "Just you wait."

"Hey, Giddy," Adriana said, "you know, Luke's dad is always asking me if I want a break and he'll do stats, and when I call him Mr. Alan, he says, 'Oh, don't be so formal.' So, what's Mr. Alan's name?"

"I don't know," responded Gideon. "Yo, Luke, what's your dad's name?"

"Michael," Luke answered. "Why?"

"No reason!" I rushed out too quickly. I grabbed Jennah and Adriana's hands and pulled them into the library. "Not White Pages, guys!"

"I know you want to," sung Jennah.

"Yeah!" Adriana laughed.

I shrugged. It was tempting. Jennah pulled out the laptop she had checked out from the library's laptop cart. She opened it up and typed in the url for White Pages, as did Adriana. Adriana nudged me again. I opened up the laptop I had checked out and went to White Pages.

I typed in Michael Alan. Tons of them came up, but only one lived near our school. There was his address, phone number, and age. I didn't really care, but Adriana clicked on the address button. It came up on Google Earth. It was a pretty freaking nice house.

"Zam," whispered Jennah. "That's a hella nice house. But water the grass."

"We're in a drought, Jen. If you can refrain from watering your lawn, the state would like you do that," I said.

"Way to sound smart even when we're stalking people," laughed Adri.

About two days later, I Googled his mom. And the best thing in the entire freaking world happened. I cried.

His little brother, Max, had a congenital heart defect. I know, that sucks, but my baby sister has one too! And I knew that it was meant to be. So, yeah, I stalk people. But I also am totally in love with Luke.

Okay, so the real Luke does have a little brother with a heart defect. We are meant to be!!!! Anyways, he doesn't even know my name, but I'm going to talk to him about it. I'm really nervous. Hope you enjoyed and don't think I'm crazy.

lots of hugs and no kisses

madds