All Shook Up

"Well he touched my hand what a chill I got"

The day at school follows the same routine. We have the same greasy pizza as yesterday, and the same daily drama occurs. It should feel like a boring, normal day, but I haven't had one of those in a while. There's something to look forward to now, although I loathe that I have to get through a day of classes before getting to see him.

I told this to Ivy, who shook her head, an amused smile crossing her lips. "I never expected you to do this."

"We've been over this. He's—"

"Worth it, I know. But you've got it bad, Amy. I never thought you'd fall this hard so quickly." She ate a grape, pushing her empty tray towards the middle of the table. People around us started getting up and gathering their stuff. Lunch was ending at a very inconvenient time.

I frowned, rejecting her words the moment they left her lips. "I'm not falling. There's no falling and there isn't going to be any falling. This is," I searched for a word and grew frustrated when I couldn't think of anything. "I don't know," I said, finally. It was lame and I didn't need Ivy's unimpressed look to tell me that.

"It's okay to fall, you know," she said after a moment. She got her bag and shrugged the straps onto her shoulders. "It's not a bad thing."

Easy for her to say. If she fell and it didn't work out, there were other people asking her out. The stars didn't have to align for her to have someone else love her back. But that was an awful thing to say to her. I knew that. Part of me hated myself for having the thought because it wasn't her fault. Still, the bitter feeling remained.

"Just because I went on a few dates with him doesn't mean I'm falling in love." I put on my backpack. "I like him. I think he's funny and sweet, and evidently, I don't mind going on dates with him, but that's not love, Ivy."

"Okay." Her response was clipped, a tone she used when she knew arguing was useless. "Then you're definitely not sneaking out to go to the rehearsals tonight?"

I started to say that that was not connected to being in love when I stopped short. "How do you know they're rehearsing tonight?"

"Gotta have some secrets of my own, don't I?" She said, wiggling her fingers in lieu of saying goodbye. I let her walk away, clearing our lunch table from the green tray that still had half a pizza slice on it. It looked wet from all the grease.

All the way to the locker room and during gym I thought of how she could've known. In hindsight, the reason was painfully clear. I should've been able to figure it out before she even left the cafeteria, but I forgot the one detail that would've made that possible.

Malcolm.

Angus must've told him that I was coming, which meant he told Ivy, which means Ivy and him were—

I shook my head, continuing to work through the stretches the gym teacher had us do after a run. One leg stretched out in front of me, the other tucked in. The teacher called for the next stretch, and we stood up and bent at the waist, trying to reach our toes, and I was beginning to think that it was a far easier task to reach for my toes than it was to reach for answers. It was messy work, reaching for answers. Too much assuming and guessing. No, I was better off leaving it alone until Ivy talked to me about it. I had my own problems. Like how I was going to get back into the house after tonight.

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It was going onto 6:30 pm and I was standing in front of the sink cleaning a plate, the last of the dirty dishes. I wasn't due for this chore until tomorrow, but doing a few dirty dishes was worth it if it distracted my mother from questioning why I was going to bed so early. I decided I'd tell her I was worn out from studying. She wouldn't check up on me then like she would if she thought I was staying up doing homework.