Dandelion Wishes

Chapter 2

I barely make it through the ride to school without throwing up from first day jitters. They get me every year, but more so since we started high school. In grade school, at least I had a few other friends besides KC and Lily—people who talked to me and invited me to birthday parties and the skating rink. Now I have KC and Lily. And I have a sneaky suspicion that Lily's only my friend to be close to KC, but at least I can pretend she cares about me, too.

KC pulls into the reserved-for-football-players parking spot with his name on a vinyl sign in front. "I have to go meet with the coach. I'll see you in Home Ec, okay?" He already has his door open and one foot out while I'm still staring straight ahead, breathing in through my nose as deeply as my lungs allow. "Come on, Mel. You got your coffee and your book. Just walk in there and pretend they don't exist."

He's right. This is silly. I've been to school every year for the last eleven years with these same kids. So, I'm not one of the kids everybody wants to sit by anymore. I have KC. What else do I need? "Okay."

As he meets me in the front of the car, he grins. "Chin up, Mel. It's just school."

"You're right." For one minute, I really believe him. I open my book to read as soon as I step through the metal double doors that lead straight to the senior hallway. This hallway's inhabitants change every year with its rotating roster of popular kids, jocks, band geeks, science nerds, and scholarship candidates. Not a single one looks my way or notices me much at all, not even when I roam the hallways with KC. Oh, they notice him. He's our star wide receiver, the kind of pretty boy jock that draws attention. Everybody knows him. Everybody loves him. Still, even with him at my side, I'm invisible.

I have a cup of coffee from Quik Mart in one hand and a jacket Mama insisted I bring to combat the ninety degree weather *insert dramatic eye roll* laid over the other arm. My copy of The Outsiders is folded open. I keep my head down, eyes on the book.

Just as Ponyboy steps out into the bright sunlight...Bam!...someone shoves me hard to the left, and in reward, I get a face full of chest...hard, masculine chest. In slow motion, I scream as my cup crushes between me and the aforementioned pectoral muscles. The caramel flavored coffee spills down the front of Tucker Fallon—all-star quarterback, last year's homecoming king, and boy of my dreams. Any genetic social graces I could have hoped to been blessed with have all been bestowed upon my sister, so I freeze. No way to spin this in my favor anyway.

Looking back, I could have reacted in a million different ways, but in this moment, no viable options come to me. So, by the sheer power of instinct, my lightning fast reactions, and good sopping skills, I knee-drop right in front of him and use my jacket—in a very regrettable up and down motion—to scrub the coffee from his khakis. My skin burns hotter with each swipe against his pants, but I can't stop. Nothing in the world is more important to me in this minute than undoing what I've done.

I don't look up at Tucker to see what is probably terror on his face. There is a stain spreading across the front of him, and I've turned into a jackhammer of super-scrubbing power. In the meantime, my heart threatens to beat out of my rib cage, and my arm keeps pumping. Up and down. Up and down.

The laughter comes in quiet spurts at first, and I ignore it until it's a symphony of sound. I lurch my head around. Here I am face to zipper with Tucker Fallon, vigorously rubbing my fleece jacket over his crotch, humiliating myself on levels it will take an act of God to bounce back from, and it seems the entire student body has crowded into the hallway to watch. And laugh.

Shame bubbles out of me in a sob, but I keep jerking my jacket over the spot where my coffee is soaking into his pants. In his defense, he tries to push me away once, until a new round of catcalls sounds and he drops his hands.