Once When You Were Mine

Chapter Seven

                                                     "It's not like me to pretend, but I'll get you,

                                                                          I'll get you in the end..."

                                                                                    - The Beatles

Over the next couple of weeks, I lived for physics assignments. It meant I had an excuse to call Nate for help. It was an excuse I tried not to exercise too often. Perhaps it was the influence of Mom's etiquette book. Never call a boy, it said. His family will tease him and he will not appreciate the fuss it will cause.

"That's ridiculous," Austin had said firmly when I read him that bit from the book. "It takes so much pressure off when girls make the phone calls. Besides," he added, "You've never let that bother you with me."

"Yeah, but you're different."

"Thanks a lot," he muttered.

"No, no!" I tried to explain what I meant, but I just dug myself in deeper. To tell the truth, I wasn't quite sure what I meant. Austin was different from any other boy I knew. There were things that we talked about that I didn't even bring up with my female friends. It was odd to be able to discuss relationships and dating with someone of the opposite sex, but I liked it. It helped me not only to understand the male viewpoint, but to realize that boys were not nearly as mysterious as I had once thought. They go through a lot of the same stuff as teenaged girls, and share a lot of the same anxieties.

Austin and I related to each other on a special level, and I recognized that what we had was different and rare. I didn't want anything to change it.

At the same time, I was starting to see that Nate was different from a lot of the other boys I had had crushes on. I couldn't really explain why, but for one, when I was dating Rob, he didn't consume my every waking thought like Nate was starting to. Unfortunately, in physics, he sat at the lab table next to mine, which didn't give me much class time to interact with him.

The only time I managed to interact with Nate was the day we did an experiment on electricity at the end of class one Tuesday. Mr. Thomas told the class to get in a line across the room and hold hands. I cleverly worked myself over until I was next to Nate. Then Mr. Thomas started up the Van de Graf generator. He grabbed the hand of the student nearest him, touched the generator, and then told Dave, who was at the end of the line, to grab the metal sink faucet. I felt an electrical charge pass through my body, quickly traveling up one arm and down the other, causing my arm muscles to twitch.

"Ow!" the unfortunate Dave yelped. When he had touched the faucet, he had gotten the worst of the electrical discharge.

I was still massaging my left elbow when the bell rang. Nate smiled at me on the way out o the room, and said, "Well, they can't say we don't make sparks!"

Well. I was still contemplating the meaning of that remark when Austin grabbed my arm.

"Hey, where are you going?" he said. I had inadvertently walked right past him without even noticing. "Hello..." He waved his hand in front of my face, shaking me out of my reverie.

"Oh, sorry, Austin." I focused on his face, which was hovering before mind. "I just got out of physics. Oh, and hey," I accused, "You should have warned me about the electrical shock!" I punched him lightly in the arm.