“My what?” I come to a dead stop in the middle of the hallway. “Is that today?”
His hand slides down the strap of his messenger bag and he nods. “You have Mrs. Lapin fifth period, right? She’s giving the exam to all of her senior classes today.”
I sigh and toss my head back, muttering a curse under my breath as I stare at the ceiling. “I completely forgot. I was supposed to study this weekend.”
Jonah’s lips slide to the side of his mouth, and I can practically hear his thoughts about how if I’d just been at tutorials last week we could have studied for it. “I can study with you at lunch, if you’d like.”
“Really?” The flash of excitement I get is quickly overshadowed by my history with Jonah. “Wait, I can’t make you sacrifice your lunch for me.”
“Sure you can,” he says with a shrug. “Plus, I’m offering. I don’t mind.”
“What about your girlfriend?”
“Tutoring comes first,” he says, glancing down the hallway instead of looking at me. “If you fail this test, it looks bad on me so I’m really doing this for myself too, if it makes you feel better.”
“That does make me feel better.” I don’t really hear the words I’m saying because I’m struggling against the pain my chest. Jonah’s reply is not what I wanted to hear. I wanted him to say something like,“Girlfriend? What girlfriend? The only girl I care about is you.”
But that stuff only happens in fantasy worlds, I guess.
“Thanks,” I say, trying to smile. “Let’s meet at lunch.”
“Meet me by the recycling?” he says, glancing at me quickly before looking down at his phone, even though the screen is off.
“Sure thing.”
I do my best to pay attention in math, chemistry, and English classes because I know I’ll get to study for the history exam during lunch. Now that I’ve been actually working on my grades, it turns out paying attention to the lesson as it’s taught is much easier for me. I actually understand what’s going on now that I’m somewhat caught up in class. Still, that lingering exam in History class is nagging at me and I wish I’d remembered to study for it this past weekend.
Anger replaces my regret and I could kick myself for wasting so much precious time thinking about Caleb. I think it’s pretty obvious he doesn’t even like me that much. If anyone else had told me that a guy treated them so pathetically on their first date, I would tell her to leave him. Yet here I am, still wishing he’d text me.
Why am I so pathetic? I shove down the feelings that I’m still not over my little crush on Jonah and that it’s making me focus on Caleb too much. I miss the days when I didn’t really care about any guy. When my life was composed of worrying about the store and skipping school.
At lunch, Jonah is waiting for me at the recycle bins that are next to the doors to the cafeteria. I’ve already texted April to tell her I won’t be in lunch, but I still feel slightly bad about ditching her.
“I secured a study room for us,” Jonah says, flashing me a grin as he walks out of the cafeteria. “Mr. Hawkins said the room across from his is empty so it’s all ours for the day.”
“Can I come here every day during lunch?” I say, thinking how great it would be to avoid looking over at other tables and seeing people I don’t want to see, like Jonah’s girlfriend.
“Doubt it,” he says, oblivious to my thoughts.
The classroom is empty except for rows of desks. We sit at the back and Jonah pulls his desk toward mine so that we’re facing each other. “I’ll quiz you,” he says, pulling out his history textbook and opening it to the chapter about the Civil War.
I’m trying to decide if Jonah has suddenly gotten cuter or if I’m just used to his nerdy polo shirt and khakis by now. In a way, it’s almost sexy how he doesn’t care if he’s dressed like a middle aged businessman instead of a teenage boy. My thoughts float back to seeing him on the beach, shirtless in flipflops. He looked like his age there. My cheeks redden.
Jonah asks another history question and I answer it, my voice a little raspy. I clear my throat and tell myself to stop thinking about what he looks like without his shirt on. This history exam is important. I have to focus.
“This was fun,” I say as the lunch period is almost over. “I missed studying with you last week.”
“I missed you too,” he says, closing up his textbook and putting it in his messenger bag. My eyes widen. Did he mean to say those exact words—he missed me—or did he mean he missed our studying?
“Look, Jonah…” I swallow the lump in my throat and take courage from the fact that we’re all alone in here. “I’m really sorry about that day…when you heard April talking about you…”
His bottom lip pulls under his teeth and he looks at the desk. “It’s fine, Nat.”
“No…it’s not… I mean, I don’t know what all you heard, but—” I take a deep breath even though my cheeks are burning and I feel like an asshole and this is so embarrassing. Jonah is a good guy and I can’t stand the thought of him going around life thinking he’s a nerd, or someone unattractive. I have to make this right. I look up at him and he’s watching me, a curious expression on his face.
“When we first started tutoring together I was just mad about it. I didn’t want a tutor and I didn’t want to go, so I bitched about it to April. I called you some unflattering names, but I would have said that about anyone because I was mad about the tutoring.”
He watches me, his expression softening. I continue, “So then we were talking about you, and I was saying you’re not so bad and she repeated what I’d called you, and that’s the part you overheard. But it’s not true, Jonah. I didn’t mean it. You could have been any other student tutor and I would have said the same thing.”
