The New Guy

Chapter 4

Josh

I nervously stood at the end of the hallway, bouncing on my toes, my hands getting sweaty. Where could she be? She always met me right here after her lunch period. This was the first time that she was nowhere to be found at 1:15.

I should have known something was up when she didn’t respond to my texts last night. Maybe that was it. Maybe she knew I wanted to ask her to homecoming, that I was madly in love with her, and didn’t want to cross that barrier. We were great friends after all, so maybe it would make things awkward if went to the school dance together. I didn’t have any idea. All I knew was I probably blew my chances with the girl who had a complete grip on my heart.

So there I stood, probably looking like a complete idiot as I felt ready to combust out of anxiety. Scanning the crowded hallway, I searched for her tall brown head in the crowd. I finally found her, and was about to call out to her when I saw what was happening.

Her face was lit up with laughter, a million dollar smile that made my stomach turn into a knot. She had her arm hooked into along, muscular on, and the body attached to it was too close to hers for my liking. He was a tall, well built guy. The perfect height for Alyssa. His face was screwed in a mocking smile, his eyes shining at her in adoration. The way he looked at her made me want to punch him in the face. She. Was. Mine “Who is the tool anyway? And why does he think he can run around with my girl?!?” I thought to myself.

My fists clenched, I began to make my way over to them. Halfway there I stopped. I couldn’t just go over and slug this guy. He’d technically done nothing wrong, despite how I felt about the proximity of his body to Alyssa's. She and I weren’t dating. Hell she didn’t even know I liked her, and probably didn’t feel the same about me. I also couldn’t make any assumptions about this guy with her. I took four deep breaths to calm myself and unclenched my fists. If I wanted to talk to her at all, I didn’t need to be pissed off.

I took a step in their direction, but two things happened at once- first they turned the corner, and then the bell rang.

“Well shit,” I thought. I wouldn’t see her again until 6th period World History, and we weren’t really allowed to talk in that class. Any real discussion would have to wait until the last class of the day- English. And that is if she wants to talk to me.

God I’m an idiot.

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Alyssa

It wasn’t till I got to 5th period (Algebra 2) that I realized how distracted I’d been with Ryan moving here. Like distracted enough that I forgot about Josh. Completely.

I let out an audible groan that made the chubby girl in front of me turn and give me an odd look. Ignoring her, I took out my phone.

I have a very important question to ask you ;)

Even reading it for the second time, the text sent chills down my spine. Knowing him, it could have been anything. Probably something stupid like can you come bring cookies to my house. Right?

That’s what I kept telling myself as I responded back. We didn’t often text in class, but he had debate this period and the teacher was totally cool with cell phones in class, and my algebra teacher was too old to see what I was doing at the back of the room.

Hey! Sorry for the no reply. I’ve been super busy. Whatcha wanna ask me that’s soooo important? ;)

I hit send before I could rethink anything. I prayed he wouldn’t think I was avoiding him. I hadn’t seen him in the halls all day, and we usually walked together to a few classes. Between that and not texting him for almost 18 hours, (probably a record for us) I was being a pretty crappy friend.