Dreaming of Alten

Chapter 2. Real Life

My best friend Lily picks me up for school the next morning. It's obvious that she's got something on her mind, and she starts talking before I'm even in the car. "Can you believe that the dance is a week away and Jacob still hasn't asked me to go with him?" She slams her hand onto the horn even though there aren't any cars in front of us. "What is his problem?"

For the hundredth time, I wonder why someone as smart as Lily—she's captain of the debate team and an honor roll student—bothers with someone like Jacob, who thinks the entire world is made up of basketballs and video games.

Seriously, Lily could do so much better than Jacob.

"Maybe he's not ready to go public yet," I say, fighting the urge to roll my eyes. The fact that Jacob doesn't want anyone to know that he and Lily are dating is one of the things about their relationship that annoys me the most. I know it's none of my business, but it still annoys me. In my opinion, if a guy can't even admit to the world that he's dating a girl, that guy doesn't deserve a relationship with my best friend.

And also, back when they first started dating, Jacob did promise Lily that if they were still together by then, they'd go to the dance together and make it public, but now it looks like he's trying to get out of that as well.

"Well, we've been dating for two months now," says Lily. "If he's not ready to go public now, he probably won't ever be." She cuts off the car behind us and turns to look at me. "He hasn't been answering any of my texts or calls. Do you think he's going to break up with me?"

I wish I could get hold of Jacob and knock some sense into his thick head.

"Have you tried talking to him in person?"

"I don't really want to confront him unless I really, really have to. I mean, I don't want to be one of those clingy girlfriends, and I don't want to push him into some big ultimatum, because—" She looks out of her window and chews on her lower lip, not finishing the sentence, but I can guess how it ends. If she gives Jacob an ultimatum, there's every chance that he'll walk away. "Maybe he's planning some sort of surprise," she blurts out, after a minute of silence. "And he's deliberately trying to make me nervous so I'll think he's going to break up with me, but he's actually going to do something special, you know what I mean?"

I doubt that Jacob's mind works that way, but I don't want to be mean, so I take out my lip gloss and apply it to avoid saying anything.

"So what about you?" she asks, with fake cheerfulness. "Are you going with anyone? Tyler told me he was going to ask you."

"He did." Tyler's nice and a great friend, but there's only one person I want to go to the dance with, and it's not him. Although considering that Alten exists only in my head, there's no chance of us going to a dance together outside of my dreams. "But I didn't want to say yes and give him the wrong idea."

Lily gives me a sly look as she pulls into the school parking lot. "What kind of wrong idea? I think you guys would be perfect together. Plus, he's had a crush on you since, like, third grade."

I play with the shoulder strap of my bag. "I just think we're better as friends."

Lily heads for a parking space, but just before she can slide her car into it, Kimberly Mason cuts in front of us and glides into the space as if she owns it. "Hey!" shouts Lily, leaning out the window and slamming her hand onto the horn again.

Kimberly's gotten out of her car by now and is mincing her way towards us on impossibly high heels. The look she gives us is pure attitude. "What is your problem?" she demands.

"I was here first!"

"And now you're not," says Kimberly, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. "There's another space over there."