My Second kiss

Chapter 26

Chapter Twenty-Six

I breathed in a heavy sigh and turned around to face him. He looked so perfect, especially for seven forty in the morning. He had fresh gum in his mouth, and his lips were just slightly parted with a bit of a smile as he spoke. Yet somehow my stomach didn't flutter-not one bit-as he looked humorously into my eyes. "Your locker is actually in the elementary school a few blocks down the road."

I bit my lip as an effort to smile at his joke, but I had too much on my mind to actually find it funny. "Trace," I said before I could talk myself out of it, "you didn't ask me to dance last year at the Valentine's dance."

Trace's lips fell as he took in what I was saying.

I continued with a nervous laugh, "You probably don't even remember this, but my friends Clarissa and Nina asked you... "

"I remember." Trace hugged his arms around his chest and narrowed his eyes as he spoke, "Of course I remember that."

"So why are you paying all of this attention to me when you obviously don't like me?"

"Who said I don't like you?"

I threw my hands up in the air. "You didn't ask me to dance, Trace! If you liked me you would have asked me to dance!"

"I was planning on asking you dance." He leaned closer to me with a sense of urgency in his voice. "It took me a minute to find you, okay? But by the time I did find you, you were already dancing with Jess Tyler."

I swallowed as I recalled that day. I supposed I hadn't given Trace much time before practically leaping into Jess's arms. "You could have cut in," I said flatly.

"And take you away from Jess Tyler?" Trace shook his head. "I watched you two together that day. There was something going on there."

"Maybe there was," I said gloomily, "but not anymore."

I wasn't talking to Drew either. Or maybe she wasn't talking to me. I wasn't sure anymore. I noticed in German class that she always sat alone in the back. Carmen, Stella, and Stephanie sat on the opposite side of the room, and Trace usually found a seat somewhere around me. I liked talking to Trace, and it was great to have someone to walk with through the halls, but despite what everyone in our class was thinking, we were just friends.

It was almost noon on the last day of school. The halls were mostly empty since everyone was let out early to go sign yearbooks on the soccer field. I was running late though, mostly because I still hadn't cleaned out my locker and partly because I didn't know who I would possibly ask to sign my yearbook.

I was walking through the halls with my hands full of old notebooks and a few pop cans that I had just scoured from my locker. I was sauntering slowly past the lockers, soaking in my last day as a junior high student when I noticed a familiar shadow at the end of the hall. It was Drew, and she was at her locker. She was squatting on the ground, stuffing the last of her things into her backpack when she turned to the sound of my footsteps echoing in the hall.

"Hi," I said as I approached her. I stopped next to her locker and waited to see how she would respond.

She stood up slowly and looked me in the eyes. "Hey."

"Can I ask you a question?"

Drew bit the side of her cheek as she considered it. Eventually she nodded.

"Why did you become friends with me?"

Drew folded her arms. "Truthfully?"

"That would be nice."

She watched me carefully as though trying to determine whether I could handle what she was about to tell me. She stood perfectly still, barely moving her lips when she said, "You looked lonely."