⌁ 𝕚 𝕔𝕒𝕟 𝕤𝕖𝕖 𝕪𝕠𝕦 ⌁

⌁⁘ 𝕚'𝕧𝕖 𝕓𝕖𝕖𝕟 𝕨𝕒𝕥𝕔𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕗𝕠𝕣 𝕒𝕘𝕖𝕤 ⁘⌁

~ 𝓪𝓷𝓭 𝓲 𝓼𝓹𝓮𝓷𝓭 𝓶𝔂 𝓽𝓲𝓶𝓮 𝓽𝓻𝔂𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓷𝓸𝓽 𝓽𝓸 𝓯𝓮𝓮𝓵 𝓲𝓽

» walker pov «

~ ⁘ ~ ⁘ ~ ⁘ ~

I totally wasn't even paying attention. "Oh my gosh, I'm-" The words died in my throat. She was already halfway down the hall in the opposite direction. No point.

I ran a hand through my curls and huffed out a breath. My friend Mason snickered and shook his head. "What an impression."

He knew I'd been hung up on this girl since I first got to the school. Last year, sophomore year, was my first year, and now we were two and a half terms deep into junior year. That's eighteen months of pining. I tried to tell myself it was irrational, how could I like her if we'd never spoken? But it didn't matter. I couldn't not like her. She was so smiley, and she was always laughing and joking with her friends -- she just seemed like such a genuine person. That girl that you didn't even have to know to know you wanted to be friends with her.

And she didn't even know I existed.

Heck, I didn't even know her name.

And there went my first impression, a shoulder-checking. What a way to kick things off.

I didn't stand a chance.

⌁⁘⌁

Lunch came and went, and next thing I knew, it was the end of the day. The last hour and a half, all of fourth block, was spent crammed into the gym. Assembly day.

Go team.

The principal rambled on about something to do with our standardized testing scores, trying to get everyone hyped for them to roll back around this year. Then he went on to talk about how the football team had a rough season, but the basketball team was pulling through, and the baseball season was about to begin. The cheerleaders went out and did some kind of dance, but my attention was somewhere else.

In my direct line of sight, she was sitting with her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking with silent laughter as her friend Nico coughed and choked and spluttered next to her, Leah beating on her back to dislodge whatever was stuck in her throat.

Leah was in my third block. I only knew Nico through Mason. I'd tried to convince him to ask Nico for the girl's snap for me, but he'd told me I need to grow a pair and do it myself. It looks bad if I have to ask her best friend's boyfriend to ask her best friend for her snap.

That would be an even worse first impression than shoulder-checking her in the hallway.

I blinked once as the principal's voice vaguely registered in my head. "Walker Scobell."

I whipped around to my friend Brady, the alarm evident on my face. "Dude, what's going on?"

Brady's twin brother, Connor, laughed. "You were too distracted eyeing your laaadyyy," he sang.

I scowled. The principal kept calling names. "Shut up, Con. Seriously, what's going on?"

Brady grinned. "They're calling the names for the game."

"Oh," I said, standing. "That's not so bad." As I stepped down the bleachers to the gym floor, the rest of the juniors were finished being called. I surveyed what would be my team. My friend Dylan, this nice redhead Olivea, this girl named something like Meredith or Myrtle or something, a guy I once watched fall into the sink in the bathroom and rip it out of the wall, Nico, my friend Aryan followed down the steps right after me, and-