All in my Head

Chapter 10

Jonah's POV

I walk by Ava's desk, hurrying if only to avoid talking to Kacie. The first cluster is right by the bathrooms, meaning that every time I get up to go to the bathroom Kacie has the perfect opportunity to catch me and drag me into a conversation. I feel relatively safe today, though, because Kacie seems to be deep in conversation with Ava, both of their backs towards me as they face each other and discuss something that seems to genuinely have Ava enraptured.

"...a secret admirer over in Cluster 2," I hear Kacie tell Ava, who looks pretty shocked to hear this information, as I walk by them.

I'm just as surprised at overhearing this information. Not because I don't think Ava would have other people who are attracted to her, but because I don't recall ever hearing anything about this at Cluster 2. Did I maybe slip and tell Evan about my crush on Ava without even realizing it? Sitting back at my desk now, I decide to go right to the source of all gossip

"Hey, Evan," I whisper. He turns his head, responding "WHAT" far too loudly. I gesture towards my ears, miming pulling headphones out so he'll do the same.

"Oh, sorry," he says in a much quieter voice. "What's up, man?"

"Um, maybe we shouldn't do this here, follow me," I tell him, heading into the kitchen behind me. We both huddle around the coffee maker, ready to use making coffee as our excuse if questioned about our mysterious mid-morning trip to listlessly stand in the kitchen. "So um, did you happen to hear anything about someone in this cluster having a crush on Ava?" I ask quietly, pretending to be an indifferent bystander who simply desires to know the gossip of the intern-folk.

"Oh yeah, dude, it was wild," he begins, lowering his voice down to a whisper, glancing over his shoulders. I hold my breath. "Nick comes in the other day all riled up about something. Like seriously, seriously jazzed. And he just starts blabbing -"

"Blabbing?" I interrupt. "Nick was blabbing about something? He barely says more than a sentence a day!" I insist, suddenly feeling defensive and nervous.

"Yeah, I know, man, that's why I was so confused," he responds. So he's going on and on about how much he likes Ava and how she's absolutely perfect for him and how he's going to ask her out as soon as he can muster the courage," he finishes.

"You're kidding me," I respond, trying not to sound to disappointed at this definite wrinkle in my own plans to eventually ask Ava out.

"No, dude, I'm telling you I've never seen Nick talk with such conviction before. I don't know when he's planning on doing it but I can't imagine Ava will say yes. She seems cool and Nick is honestly kind of a predator apparently."

"Yeah, Ava's definitely a cool girl. No way she'll fall for Nick's bullshit," I say outloud to Evan, but mainly to myself.

"For sure," he says, staring at me suddenly. "Are you okay, man?" he asks.

"Yeah, totally fine," I lie. "I had just overheard someone talking about it and was curious."

"Cool, just making sure," he says with a tight, suspicious smile. I would tell him about my feelings for Ava but I knew Evan would immediately spill it to Jul who would in turn tell Ava, and I wasn't a huge fan of that middle school way of hearing that a friend of a friend of a friend heard that so and so like-likes you. So I stay quiet, hoping this thing with Nick wouldn't work out the way he hoped it would.

"Oh shit, J-man, don't look now," Evan says, quickly diverting his eyes and making a beeline for our desks. "Our man Nick is on the move already."

I look over to my left and unintentionally stop in my tracks as I see Nick seated on - yes literally on - Ava's desk. Ava laughs about something he says, and I crumble just a little. How can she possibly be laughing at anything that drip of a person says? I fear suddenly that I've missed my chance, but also don't want to interfere with she and Nick if she genuinely likes him. Frick.

I force myself to keep walking and make it back to my desk. I see Jul, who's sitting on Evan's desk, share a "did you just see that" look. I close my eyes and roll them internally, silently urging them not to say anything. They don't. I rest my head on the desk, wanting this day to be over.