Stupid Love

One step closer

"Mac has gone Hollywood." Jace jokes when I walk into school Monday.

I roll my eyes, "what is your problem?"

He shrugs, "you know what my problem is."

Nikki laughs, "He’s in love with you Mac. Always was and always will be."

     We walk to our first period class, chemistry; Jace avoided my eyes as much as he could. I loved Jace but not in the way he wanted me to. He was like my brother and he was too blind to see that we were always going to be just that.

"Oh look, Hollywood." Jace snarls looking at Jake.

I smile at him, "I thought you graduated."

He laughs, "I did but I volunteered as teacher assistant so I could see you more,"

I roll my eyes and walk to my seat, "I don’t think that was a good idea but it’s good to see you."

     The rest of the kids started to parade in class, all smiling and walking over to Jake, I had forgotten he was famous; he was so normal, so simple. He seemed like someone I’ve known my whole life.

Mr. Vaughn, my teacher walks over to Jake and whispers something into his ears. Jake nods and walks to the front of the class. He looks around the class and stops at me.

I grin and look away from him. Nikki and Kyle were laughing and of course Jace was being his jerk of a self.

“I’m Jake and I’ll be assisting your teacher in your lab today, I hope that’s okay. I suck at science, it was never one of my favorite classes.” He says and we all laugh, “But I’ll try my best to not waste any space.”

     I hadn’t realized I was scribbling his name all over my notebook. Jake. I think I may just be losing it.

“You draw really well.” He says looking down at the paper.

I laugh sheepishly and close the book, “yea whenever I’m bored.”

He chuckles, “so I’m boring is that what you’re saying?”

I push his shoulder, “you’re a jerk okay, please just walk away. You’re drawing attention to us.”

He crosses his arm, “I’ll leave when you promise me one date.”

“no.” I say quickly.

He stomps his feet against the ground like a little kid and pout at me, “just one Mac”

I look back at Nikki whose telling me to go for it, “fine, just one.”

       I wanted to scream, I wanted to say yes the second he asked me. I couldn’t because I would come off as the celebrity obsessed freak trying to get her fifteen minutes of fame.

He took me to a Thai food restaurant just at the edge of town, it was nice and soft music wavered through the air. He pulls out the chair for me, so corny, and pushed it back in after I sit. I roll my eyes at him quickly and laugh.

“I’m glad you said yes” he says looking at the menu in front of us.

I shrug, “well you made it kind of hard to say no.”

He curves his lips into a witty grin, “I could have stood there forever and you could have said no. Admit you wanted to say yes. Behind that wall of yours, there’s something called emotions.”

I blush, “and maybe behind that confidence of yours, there’s a scared little boy afraid of rejection.”

He moves his face closer to mine, his lips just a few inches away, “you can try to deny it as much as you want Mac but when you’re around me, you’re happy. You smile because you want to.”

I peck his cheek, “we’re friends hanging out, no feelings attached. Can we agree to that?”

He shrugs, “we’ll see.”

         His energy was refreshing. I liked playing hard because when you make it easy, they take advantage of you. Maybe we wouldn’t be friends or maybe we would become something so much more, I was just glad to have him around.