AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Isn’t it?” I add.
“Was it different for Jacinda Cunningham?” she asks, name-dropping my girlfriend from junior year.
“Jacinda?”
She waits for an answer.
“Jacinda was…” I pause, my hands fidgeting at my sides. “And you’re...”
“I’m... what?” Her annoyance is clear now, the tiny wrinkle between her eyebrows firm and dark. “Weird? Unpopular? Ugly?”
“No. You’re beautiful.”
Dana snaps her mouth shut.
“I mean...” I clear my throat, taking the split second to stall. “I just think you should wait for someone who cares about you. That’s all,” I say, finding a few words that don’t sound dumb at first thought.
“You don’t care about me?” she asks.
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
I don’t answer. I’m not even sure how.
“Look, just forget I asked,” she says, stepping back again. “I only came to you because we’re friends and...” a quiet pause, “you’re the only person who has never treated me like I’m breakable, so I thought that… I don’t know what I was thinking.”
My chest clenches. “Dana...”
“It’s fine.” She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “In fact, it’s great. I have other candidates in mind.”
Candidates?
A car horn blares from the street, cutting off my question. The Kirby’s car passes by, slowing down as it turns into their driveway, followed closely by the Novak’s car, too.
“See you on campus, Connor,” Dana says, her tone light and playful, as if she didn’t just reach her hand into my chest and squeeze. “Go, Bearhawks.”
Her family hops out of the car. Alex and Ben included.
Be cool, Morgan, I tell myself. In the rush of thoughts and emotions attached to Dana’s request, I hadn’t considered them.
If I said yes, they’d kick my ass.
A lot.
“What’s going on here?” Alex asks, his eyes bouncing between us.
“Just… walking her back safely,” I say.
“Thank you, Connor,” Rose says, extending her arm to hug Dana as she walks past. “That’s very sweet of you.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Ben says, his hand jingling his car keys as he pulls them from his pocket. “Wanna go get tacos?”
“We just ate, man,” I say with a laugh.
The twins shrug.
I glance at Dana as she follows her parents into the house, followed by Daisy, Hunter, Violet, and little Aster, taking one last look at her yellow sundress, showing off more skin than she ever did in high school.
