All You Wanted [Lizzie McGuire]

chapter 7: skipping

Dirty and sore from being pushed to the ground, Gordo chased after Miranda in hopes of apologizing. He made it to the lunch table they were once sitting at. Her tray was there, but Miranda was absent. Gordo looked around at all the heads in the schoolyard, searching for her; she wasn't anywhere, but Gordo knew just where to find her. He went behind the school to the field where a giant oak tree stood. Miranda sat under it, against the stump. She had one leg bent at the knee and the other sticking out straight. She had her book bag next to her and writing something in a notebook.

"Miranda, are you mad at me?" Gordo asked when he was a few inches from her.

He looked down at her; she was silent and writing long sentences. Gordo breathed in and out, then knelt to the ground and crawled over to her, sitting next to Miranda under the tree. Gordo's shoulder touched Miranda's, and he could feel strands of her black hair brushing against him.

"Look, I didn't mean to embarrass you," Gordo said. He stared at the side of her face with deep eyes. "That was never my intention."

Miranda closed the notebook, but she didn't look him in the eyes. "I'm not mad at you, Gordo. I'm just disappointed." She plucked out a clump of grass and sprinkled it off to the side.

"Disappointed?" Gordo repeated.

Miranda met his eyes. "It's my first time working with Ethan, and you know that."

Gordo nodded solemnly. "I know, and I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize, Gordo," Miranda said. "I just want to know why you asked Miss Stevens to switch. Did you not want me to be with Ethan?"

"No, I swear that's not why I asked her to switch." Gordo sat crisscrossed now, his body angled towards Miranda instead of directly at her side.

"Then why?"

"I just wanted a change, you know? I always work with Lizzie, hardly ever with you," Gordo explained.

That was half a lie and half true. He did want to work with Miranda again, but he didn't want to work with Lizzie because he couldn't handle it.

After a brief moment of silence, Miranda asked, "Are you sure that's the only reason?"

Gordo slowly smiled. "Why? Do you not think I'd be a good parent?"

Miranda's face flushed with embarrassment. "No, of course not. I just—"

Gordo kept his smile as he grabbed one of her hands. He held it between two of his hands and shook it around. "Miranda, I can guarantee you'll have more fun with me than Ethan on the project. Pleeease let me be your fake baby's father?" He put out an exaggerated and comically pleading voice.

Miranda shook her head, unable to refrain from smiling. "You're weird, Gordo."

Still holding her hand, he said, "You chose to be my friend, so what does that make you?"

Miranda loosened the grip on his hand, and he dropped it. "Shut up, Gordo," she teased with a smile.

Gordo unraveled his legs and let them stick out in front of him as he leaned his back against the stump. Unaware of the time, Gordo and Miranda sat under the tree for minutes as lunchtime was withering away. Students began to throw away their garbage and put their trays away, and they headed to their following classes. Because of how far Gordo and Miranda were away from the school, they did not hear the bell go off. They sat in peaceful silence for a moment, but a random question broke the silence.

"Gordo?" Miranda looked at his face. There was a significant pause between her sentences. "Am I attractive?"

Gordo, whose vision had been fixed at the line that divided the sky from the grass, widened his eyes and stopped breathing for one second. His heart raced. The question she'd ask was a topic they had never crossed before. It took him by surprise. He didn't know how to react.