@Robertopancake: A Story About a Boy

Chapter Nine

On Monday morning I'm as nervous as a heifer in a field of bulls during mating season. Everywhere I go, I'm looking over one shoulder, searching the crowd. My eyes graze the glassy faces of my peers as they stream through the halls like zombies. Lockers slam and an old-fashioned bell rings like it's being hit with a tiny hammer from the inside. People scatter as if a bomb's been dropped in our midst.

Deenie. The crowd parts and it's like a scene from a play: she's center stage, a spotlight on her shiny, unsuspecting head. (This is the part where the supporting cast would start singing from off-stage, allowing the leading man to approach his lady and slyly charm the pants off her.)

She is tucking her long hair behind both ears, bending over to pull things from her backpack as it rests on the ground. White jeans hang over her feet and the toes of her shiny red shoes poke out from under them. She's wearing a tight black shirt and I can see each vertebrae of her narrow back as she leans forward and digs through her bag.

"Hi." I'm standing directly behind her, my own backpack slung over one shoulder. I shift from foot to foot, feeling awkward and not at all like a smooth-talking leading man.

She spins around, surprised. "Rob!"

"Who else?" Lame. I suck. Total fail. More than a week goes by, during which we have zero interaction, and when I finally see her, the coolest thing I can think of to say is Who else?

I mentally kick myself in the ass. Repeatedly.

She stands and stares, backpack still on the ground. "So how are you?"

"Good." The hall is empty. "You're late for class."

"So are you."

"Walk you to first period?" I offer.

She shoves two books into her backpack. "You never responded to my text," she finally says, her voice smaller than normal.

"What? I never got a text from you!" I go into a full-blown panic attack. She texted me...and I missed it? Does she think I was slagging her off?

"Are you kidding? I sent you a text on New Year's Eve. You didn't get it?"

"I was in Florida. But no, I never got it."

"Wait—you were in Florida? What for?" She grabs my arm.

I can't help it: I look down at her hand clutching my arm and I feel blood rush to the unmentionable places it usually goes when I'm in the presence of the luminous Nadine Hobbs. She's touching me. She smells good, and she's touching me. I need to think of something else—fast.

"I went to stay with my dad."

"Your dad? Seriously?" Her nose wrinkles. "How was that?"

"Long story. But suffice it to say that I'm glad to be home. And I'm infinitely sorry that I didn't get your text."

"No worries. Listen, I need to get to class, but don't be a stranger, okay?" Deenie backs away, stopping at the door to the next wing. God, I've missed her. The smell of her hair, and her crazy flavors of Chapstick; the way she gives me shit right back without missing a beat when I'm teasing her; the way she frowns or wrinkles her nose when something puzzles her.

"Lunch today?" I ask. Hope sprouts inside me at hyper-speed like a blooming flower in one of those time-lapse photography videos.

"Sure. Yeah. Lunch," she says, pushing the door open with her hip.

I'm already down the hall, racing towards my own homeroom when I stop short. My shoes squeak on the shiny floor. "Wait, Deen!" I call. It echoes off the metal lockers and shiny linoleum of the empty hall.