Ana

One Last Stand

Ana inched forward, heart thumping loudly in her ears. In the school courtyard, all the grades were having a yearbook signing. Around Carolina was the largest amount of multicolored haircuts that Ana had ever seen in one place. Being the only brunette in the crowd, Carolina stood out, but in a good way. Her shoulder-length brown hair glistened in the mid-May sunlight, and her long brown legs looked too good to be true. Ana tried to tear her eyes away from those legs as she stepped forward slowly, clutching her yearbook in front of her almost like a shield.

The sea of neon-colored heads parted slightly to let the short girl through, but not enough that she didn't constantly bump their shoulders and get stabbed by the sharp, hardcover pages of their yearbooks.

"Ow- sorry! Sorry, sorry, excuse me, ow!"

Soon Ana reached the front of the crows of excitedly chattering seniors, where Carolina was chatting casually with a boy with a shaved head and lip ring. Once there, she took a deep breath and half-shouted, "Carolina!"

The beautiful girl's head snapped around and her eyes met Ana's in an instant of surprise. Before Carolina could get a word in, Ana continued, "Um, would you- would you please sign my yearbook?" With this, she thrust the green book forward with both hands, face flushing expectantly. A faint look of confusion crossed Carolina"s face, but she reached forward and took the book from Ana with a hesitant, "Sure."

Carolina opened the cover and saw that the inside was mostly blank, so she scrawled, "Have a gr8 summer! xoxo! Carolina" in black marker. She handed it back with a smile and turned to resume her chat with the boy with the lip ring, but she stopped and looked back when she saw that the younger girl wasn't walking away. She looked like she had something to say, and her face had somehow managed to flush an even deeper red than before, so Carolina put forward a "....Yeah?"

Ana jumped as if she was startled by this question (but it was really only because she had momentarily lost herself while looking at Carolina's cheekbones) and stammered, "Oh! Uh, um, uh... Well, I was just wondering, like, if maybe, I could sign yours? Just a thought, I mean, if you don't want me to, that's fine..." Her voice faltered and grew weaker, eventually coming to a stop. As if to take pity on the poor soul, Carolina interjected, "No, no! I want you to! Here."

She reached under her seat and handed Ana her yearbook, which was already covered in marker, even the covers and spine. Ana took it with trembling hands and opened it.

Around her, the rainbow chattering hadn't ceased, except for the boy with the lip ring. If anything, he seemed the most surprised by this whole ordeal.

Inside the yearbook, almost all the pages were written on, so Ana had some difficulty deciding where to write. She flipped to the page that read "Sophomores" and found her name under "C". She scribbled, "Read this. Ana." Then, she reached in her pocket and pulled out an envelope and shoved it in, snapping the book shut and handing it back to Carolina. She then promptly dashed away, almost knocking over a girl with pink ponytails.

Carolina was almost at a loss for words. She had never seen the girl before today, and suddenly she wanted to write in her yearbook like they were best pals. She turned to her bald-headed companion and remarked, "Who was that?" He shrugged his shoulders and said, "Dunno, probably a freshman." Carolina shrugged too and put the book back under her chair. Freshman or not, a girl that blushed like that was pretty cute. She then resumed her conversation and forgot all about the strange freshie until much later that day, when she was lying on her stomach on her bed with her hair tied up, looking through the signatures on the yearbook.

As she reached the end of them, she suddenly remembered the strange younger girl, who ran away after shoving something into the book near the middle. Carolina flipped through the book and came to "Sophomores". She murmured, "Hmm, not a freshie after all..."

Next to a picture of a small, awkward-looking girl with jet black hair and small ears were the words, "Read this. Ana."

Inside the envelope was a letter written in infuriatingly small script by an unsteady hand. Carolin couldn't exactly read it all, but the parts she could make out were adorable. Something about noticing her at the first GSA meeting and then coming to all her tennis matches. Okay, maybe that was a little creepy, but it was cute nonetheless. At the bottom, there were the words, "Call me?" followed by a phone number and a blushing face drawn in. Carolina smiled and reached into her pocket. She programmed the number into her phone and typed, "Ana".

Out of all the people who signed that yearbook, she knew one that she would be calling that summer.