My Hallway Crush

Chapter 16

In another classroom, Melody is stunned, shocked, surprised. She shoot her shot by writing a letter to Nate that nobody, except a friend in her class and her sister, knew about. And now she is staring at the letter she received in return.

She spends half a minute (though it feels like an hour to her) staring at the folded paper, ripped straight out of a small notebook, with her name on the front. Just by studying the handwriting of her name she knows it's from Nate, she spends so much time studying next to him at the library.

She suddenly feels the same feeling she felt when she wrote her letter.

Melody sat at her desk the week before, feeling anxious about Valentine's Day. She wrote the whole thing in one go, and read it over more than a hundred times to convince herself that it was fine. But she didn't believe herself. She kept feeling something in the guts that made her uneasy. It wasn't the usual flutter of butterflies. It felt more like a punch, a punch filled with anxiety and nerves. And throughout the whole week, she had felt that same punch every time she recalled her letter.

She feels the punch again, but this time it's stronger. Strong enough to make her want to vomit.

Deep breaths.

Melody finally brings herself to open up the letter, slightly folding it the other way to keep it straight.

Carefully, she reads the text and blushes while doing so. She thought she wouldn't be his type, thus having low expectations of being liked back. But the proof in her hands argues against her.

"Please tell me that's from the boy you like," says the girl sitting next to Melody. Her eyes beaming and a smile spreads on her face.

"Yeah, it is." Melody replies while her eyes are still glued to the letter. She can't pull herself to look away, it's almost as if it would disappear or stop being real if she does.

A phone buzzes on the desk, and Melody can finally peel her eyes off the letter. And to put the cherry on top, she received a text from Nate.

"So do we go on a date this weekend?"