The two weeks I spent with my parents in the mountains of Pennsylvania were a roller coaster for me. I would wake up in the morning, bursting with excitement over my newly-realized love for Quinn. And then by lunch time, I’d be brooding and depressed— sure that she could never see me as more than her best friend from childhood. I spent hours trying to remember whether Quinn had ever acted interested in any boys in our class, and I spent an equal amount of time remembering how often she had chosen to be with me over other people.
By the time we got home, two days before school began, I was nervous and jumpy. My parents turned to their fall-back position of worrying that this was some new symptom of my disease, but I explained that I was just anxious about the new school. They bought that. My mom told me long stories about her life as a teenager, and my dad just kept patting my shoulder, telling me it would all work out.
I didn’t call Quinn before school began because we never did that. If I had called her just to talk, she would have known something was up. So I suffered in silence by myself until my mother dropped me at school on the morning of the first day.
I scanned the lines of kids milling around in loosely formed lines, but there was no sign of Quinn. After a few minutes, Leo came up behind me and gave me his signature light punch on the arm.
“Hey, Nate. You ready for this?” He spun his finger around in a circle, encompassing the whole school, the kids, everything.
“I think so,” I said. “Just another school, right? Hey, have you seen Quinn?”
“I don’t think she’s here yet. At least I haven’t seen her.” We both looked around, checking it all out. It was weird to be with older kids, people we hadn’t seen since they’d left our elementary school. They looked a lot older than I remembered. Leo eased back until he was leaning against the brick wall of the school, and I moved to stand with him.
A few minutes later, Leo caught my eye and tilted his head. “There’s Quinn.” I turned and saw her mother’s car, and then Quinn coming around from the passenger side. My heart began to pound. This was the first time I’d seen her since I really knew that I loved her, that I wasinlove with her. I couldn’t remember how to act, what to say or where to look.
She looked so pretty. She was wearing a skirt that was made out of jeans material, and a pretty blue top. Her hair, always so curly and unruly, was partly pulled back into a clip so that I could see her face, her eyes bright as she caught sight of Leo and me.
She smiled, and my breath caught. She was beautiful. The girl I loved, the girl who would always have my heart, was really and truly beautiful. I wanted to run and jump and shout and do all those things I’d never been able to do, just to show the world how I felt.
I smiled back as she approached us and blurted out the first thing I could think to say. “Hey, Quinn. You look really pretty.”
She looked down as if she’d forgotten what she was wearing and ran a hand down the skirt. “Thanks, Nate.” For a fleeting moment I had her full attention and her gratitude, and it felt amazing.
And then I saw her glance up at Leo, who was still standing against the wall. Something flickered in her eyes that I didn’t quite understand. Leo made some comment about how her mother must have dressed her, and Quinn snapped back. She lost the look of eagerness that I’d seen on her face a few minutes earlier.
I was confused, wondering what had changed. Quinn and Leo had always had that kind of relationship, where he teased her and she shot back at him. I didn’t know why his joking would have bothered her now.
Leo looked off over her shoulder, and this time it was his eyes that flared. Obviously he saw someone or something that interested him. Quinn followed his gaze, and her face changed again. It wasn’t curiosity so much as it was hurt. I was still confused.
Quinn snapped at Leo again, something about kick ball which I didn’t quite understand. And then Leo wisely changed the subject, asking about my vacation. I was eager to tell them both about the canoeing we had done, how excited my dad had been when I could handle a canoe on my own; the idea of going out for something like crew gave me hope that they might be something me, a way to be more in Quinn’s eyes.
Before I could tell them too much about it, a girl walked over behind Leo and said hello. Her name was Sarah. I was curious, since I couldn’t figure out how Leo would have met her, but he explained that her family was a client in the lawn mowing business. For some reason, it made Quinn really mad. I could tell that.
The bell rang, and everyone surged forward toward the doors. Quinn stayed close to me, and I knew she was making sure I didn’t get knocked over by the bigger kids. We found our lockers, and I was able to work mine without any problem. Quinn was grumbling at hers, and then she turned to me.
“Where’s Leo?”
I shrugged. We had lost him in the crowd. But since he and I were in the same homeroom, I was pretty sure we’d catch up to him later.
Sure enough, he was just about to go into the classroom when we got there. Quinn snapped at him again, and he seemed embarrassed about the fact that she referred to Sarah as his girlfriend. Before they could get too far into this discussion, I saw that the teacher had risen from her desk and was beginning to take attendance. I pulled Leo into the room with me, and turned just in time to see Quinn wave to me before she shot Leo another dirty look.
Leo and I found two desks next to each other, and he flopped down in the chair. “What’s her issue, anyway?” he grumbled.
I shrugged. “I guess maybe she just didn’t feel like getting teased today. Maybe she’s nervous about the new school.” I waited a beat and then went on. “She did look really pretty today, though.”
“Yeah,” Leo conceded. “But she was acting like—I don’t know. Girls are just crazy sometimes, I guess.”
I thought about it for a long time as the teacher went through the typical first day of school spiel. Quinn had seemed all right when she was with me. It was only Leo that was bothering her. And she had clearly been hurt when he didn’t compliment her the same way I had.
A new thought dawned in my mind, more troublesome than I cared to admit. What if Quinn really didn’t feel the same away about me that I did about her? What if she was in love with someone else? And worst of all, what if that someone else was Leo?
My palms began to sweat, and my heart pounded again. These were my two best friends. What would I do if Quinn was going to break my heart?
