Lovebirds

AMBROSE-FRICK'N-HOLLEY

Spencer does her best not to let her thoughts get tied up on the latest post—not that of she and Vincent in the skating rink, but in her home. Last night. Kissing.

She messaged Freddie this morning, requesting he take down the picture. Strike Three. If nothing is done by the end of the day, she's reporting the account.

"Hey."

Ambrose takes his seat beside her in anthropology. Spencer sighs, releasing herself from her mind to set her feet safely on the ground again; to return to the present.

"Hi!" Spencer greets with unprovoked enthusiasm, trying to make herself deaf to her fears, apparently.

Ambrose points to the board. "Do you think he's serious?"

For the first time since she entered the room, Spencer looks at the whiteboard. In big, blue, dry-erase letters is a single word: sex.

Fantastic.

"It's Mr. Davis," she reminds him with a shrug, "who knows what that man will do next."

Ambrose chuckles, pulling notebook and pencil from his backpack. Spencer fiddles with the pages of her own spiral, suddenly remembering its presence. In all her thinking, she'd forgotten she'd pulled it out. Mr. Hubbard would tell her its encoding failure. And that she needs to sign up for her AP test (which she's already done).

Ambrose licks his lips. "So, um," he begins. Spencer keeps her eyes on her notebook a little while longer, fighting to recover the memory; losing the battle to psychology. "I had fun at the hockey game last week. I was wondering—If you're um... free, that is—if you'd like to come to the basketball game with me next Friday?" Spencer's attention flicks to him, taken aback. "It's senior night and a couple of my friends are getting recognized, and since we—since the hockey game was such a blast, I was hoping you'd... join me..."

His cheeks are bright red when he finishes.

Spencer ponders his request. Considers the boy beside her and the eagerness in his voice as Mr. Davis jumps from his desk at the back of the room, asking the class what they can tell him about the word on the board. Her mind wanders to Vincent as Mr. Davis writes the word associations around the big blue letters; thinks about her head on Vince's shoulder and the way he's always so gentle with her. Never pushes, never pries; Spencer thinks about their two hours of comfortable silence and the way he held her steady at the race.

But as Mr. Davis writes the last few words from the last of the brave students willing to contribute, Spencer thinks about the Instagram account. Three pictures, three pushes, three walls of a box quietly closing. And her heart seizes as she rips the corner of a page from her notebook to write three heart-wrenching little letters:

Y-E-S.