Ellie Sandberg would love to reinvent herself. When she earns a spot at an elite boarding school for young inventors, it seems like the perfect opportunity: A summer away from home, away from her overprotective parents, and away from the hopeless cr...
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E L L I E
"I kind of started liking someone else."
That's what Maddox said, a week ago today, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since. He had a certain look on his face when he uttered those words—a look that I now have filed away in a previously undiscovered corner of my brain called: HAPPINESS.
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"I kind of started liking someone else."
An insecure person would record that under ANXIETY and come up with a million-and-two other people he must have been talking about when he said it. I mean, there are ten other girls in this program not named Eleanor... not to mention seven other boys...
If you know any insecure people like that, you might want to tell them to stop selling themselves short. As for me, I know with 100% certainty who Maddox meant. I could see it from the way he kept looking at me through that whole conversation. Alternately staring at my painted toenails, and then my eyes, and then my lips.
Like he might, at some point in the future, find it not altogether unpleasant to do something more than stare.
And then that kiss between our avatars...
Does it count as a real first kiss if only your virtual lips make contact?
It didn't feel real. And I don't just mean the InstaKiss... That whole conversation, sitting beside him on the rock, felt like some out-of-body experience. Not the real Ellie interacting with him. More like watching an avatar of myself acting all the ways I wish I could act in real life.
I don't know if it was the adrenaline fear-rush from finding myself ten feet from the edge of a cliff, or my irritation with Maddox for putting me in that position... But somehow, I forgot for half-a-second that I had a crush on him. I forgot to feel self-conscious about the fact he was sitting next to me, and his arm kept brushing mine. I forgot the endless stream of over-analytical self-criticism that usually runs through my head whenever I'm in his presence.
I was just me. Ellie Sandberg. Unfiltered.
And he liked me.
I spent a solid 48 hours afterward floating on air. I'm still floating a week later, although deflating a bit more each day, like a helium balloon that's slowly leaking out its insides. If he likes me (and he's as single as he claims), then why hasn't he laid a finger on me in the days since? If anything, Maddox has been less hands-y than before. No more accidental brushes of his fingertips, leaving trails of gooseflesh on my skin. It's been seven days, and he hasn't touched me once—other than that time he caught me by the elbow, when I was so busy "not-looking-at-him" that I nearly walked headlong into a glass study-room door.
He still stares at me, though. At least there's that... I've caught him more than once with those long, lingering looks when he thinks my eyes are on my laptop screen. I know I'm not imagining it. What does it mean, if a boy says he likes you with his words and his eyes, but not with his lips or fingertips?
I wish I had someone I could turn to for advice. Girl talk. That's what I need. Some good old-fashioned girl talk. I'm so sick of being stuck inside my own head. If there's ever been a time for an InstaBFF to walk into my life, this is it.
Too bad I'm still a total pariah, with my single dorm room and social status of a flea. The other students here are willing to interact through InstaLove prompts, but no one's said more than three words to me all week without the benefit of visors.
No one except Maddox...
What does he want? Does he like me or not? Maybe he's waiting for me to make the next move?
I frown, fighting back the questions that keep swirling round and round. I need to stop thinking so much. Be the girl I was on top of the cliff. Confident Ellie. Comfortable-in-her-own-skin Ellie. If I could just be that girl on a regular basis, life would be golden.
The library building looms ahead. I push my way through the revolving door, lips moving slightly as I practice all the clever things I'll say when I see him. I'm not even worrying about the fact that I'm here for a group meeting with the other members of our foursome. Reese and Eleanor have some new side project they're working on for their half of the presentation, although they haven't told us what.
Do they know about the "kiss"? Probably.
Wow, this going to be awkward.
The prospect should fill me with dread, but I refuse to let it. Why am I so intimidated by Eleanor Winthrop anyway? She's just a girl. A girl that Maddox no longer wants to be his girlfriend. Because why, Maddox? Oh, that's right...
"Because I kind of started liking someone else."
A secret smile curves my lips as I make my way up the library's wide central staircase—a modern minimalist affair, suspended by nothing but thick wire cables that hang from the sky-high ceiling.
Guess who's back to floating on air again? Ellie 2.0.
This good mood of mine is dangerous. Last time I felt this giddy, I was using my visor for the first time at Dr. Carlyle's garden party. And we all know how that ended. Face first in a swimming pool.
I need to keep my wits about me. That's all. I haven't forgotten Reese's warning, when she caught me with Maddox's face at the top of my InstaCrush column. At the time, I was too busy feeling embarrassed to think about what she meant, but I'm pretty sure I get it now. This whole break up between Maddox and Eleanor... it's a messy situation. Complicated. Hazardous terrain. That's why he's acting weird now. And the last thing I want is to get caught in the cross-fire between the two of them – or worse yet, used as a pawn in some chess match I don't understand.
Is Maddox manipulative like that? Is it possible that our whole clifftop flirtationship was fake?
I mean, technically, it was fake. His avatar kissed mine. Our actual lips did not come anywhere close to meeting. So, maybe it meant nothing. Maybe he's just playing games.
The old insecure Ellie would probably jump to that conclusion. Maddox was flirting, but he wasn't really flirting. Old Ellie would then proceed to dissect and rehash every word that Maddox had ever said to her, and explain away why none of them meant anything.
But the old Ellie is retired. Rendered obsolete. Ellie 2.0 is here to take her place. So Reese can take her ambiguous warning message and stuff it. I'll put Maddox in my InstaCrush column if I want. I'll InstaKiss him, and I'll kiss him for real too if the opportunity arises. A boy I like actually likes me back, for the first time in the history of my life.
I refuse to let anything—or anyone—destroy that.
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