The Life I'm Running From

38\ So... You're Into Space Rocks

One kiss. Just one, small, meaningless peck on the cheek changed everything.

Okay, I'm being overdramatic. But it did cause Adriana to go crazy.

"Harley kissed you?" Adriana was practically standing from her seat, her eyes so wide they could direct a plane. "Since when was that a thing?"

I sat down at our usual lunch table, where Charlie and Skylar were staring at me just as incredulously as Adriana. Thirty seconds ago Harley had kissed me on the cheek before we split to our separate lunch tables. I guess he felt emboldened after our first date two days ago.

Yeah. First date. As in, there's going to be more.

"Me and Harley?" I asked Adriana, as if I didn't know exactly what she was referring to.

Charlie leaned over the table, her curls bouncing around her shoulders. "I thought you and him were just friends. I thought you liked Parker."

"Don't you?" Skylar looked from Charlie to me, her voice tight.

I turned my head to find Peter in the cafeteria. He was sitting in the corner with his fellow nerdy friend Josh, and they were tinkering with a small metal robot. It sparked, and Peter nearly fell off his chair. Both boys started laughing. Without meaning to, a small smile came onto my face. Did I like Peter?

My view of Peter was cut off when Devin ran in front of his table, chasing Harley for his phone. Devin elbowed Harley in the gut, causing Harley to drop the phone. Both boys started laughing, just like the other two dorks I had been watching a few seconds previous. Harley caught my eye and smiled widely, his eyes lighting with something I couldn't describe as anything but joy. I smiled back, but I didn't feel like I matched even half of his joy.

"I'm dating Harley."

I turned my head to look at my best friends' reactions. Adriana grinned and pumped her fist. "Yes! I knew you two were a thing! But why am I only hearing about this now?"

"We only clarified it this morning on the bus." I responded to Adriana, but my eyes were on Charlie and Skylar. Both girls were firmly silent.

Skylar adjusted her beanie on her head, and her eyes seemed to look everywhere but at me. "That's good." Her words were empty, and I could almost picture her staring out at a cemetery of her past loves."I'm happy for you."

I wasn't the only one who heard the lie in her voice. Charlie was staring at Skylar, searching for something. When she didn't find it, she offered me an attempt at a genuine smile. "You'll make a good couple."

"Thanks."

And then the conversation died. The sad thing was, only Adriana seemed to be emotionally invested in the news. And I was the one dating Harley.

Not until Adriana started talking about English class did the rest of us respond with interest. But in Math, with no Adriana, we lived through it in a lull. Usually I could survive the brain-numbing work in Math with a running witty commentary with Skylar and Charlie. But they were silent. Charlie kept darting looks at me, but Skylar kept her eyes deliberately trained on her paper. And so, with no distractions, the alphanumeric equations meshed into my brain, making my eyes see decimals and causing the song lyrics in my head to fall to pieces.

When I stepped out of Math class, I'm not going to lie: I was relieved. For whatever reason, my news had made a rift erupt between us.

I didn't understand why. So what if I was dating Harley and Skylar had a crush on him? It's not like she had been dating him, or in a relationship with him currently—cough, the Bradley situation, cough—all Skylar had was a crush on him. She never talked to him. We were friends, he liked me, I was well within my rights to date him.