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“I hope you didn’t pay for that.”
“Naw, it’s free, but I’ve paid for worse,” he says before moving to hold open the door to the center of the school for me. Woodbury is a sprawling wheel with all of the departments branching out from the common/cafeteria area.
“Thanks.” He nods with a half smile. When we reach the vending machines, he puts away his iPhone and pulls a few dollars from his pocket.
“What’s your poison?” he asks, gesturing toward the rows of candy, chips, granola bars, and beverages.
“You don’t have to buy my food.” This makes him smile full-out, which zaps me like I’m sticking a butter knife in a light socket, but in a good way.
“You left your bag in class.”
I look down, as if it would be dangling from my neck if I had it with me. But he’s right; I have no money. “Fine, then I’ll take a Twix.”
“Good choice.” He buys two Twix bars and two bottles of water and hands me my half.
“Thank you.”
“Least I can do,” he says.
“Huh?” I unwrap my candy while he does. “What do you mean?”
“I missed,” he says. When I scrunch up my face at him, he clarifies. “I tried to catch you, but I missed. The least I can do is buy you a candy bar.”
“How chivalrous of you.” I can’t help but laugh.
“Can I record you saying that and play it back for my mom?” We start back toward class.
“Sure,” I say, wanting to add something witty but coming up dry.
We’re quiet again through the English hallway, but just before the door to our classroom, he turns to face me.
“You look different today.”
“Uh…” I’m not sure what to say. I’m frozen, gripping my water bottle, probably with chocolate in my teeth.
“Not in a bad way,” he says. “Good different.”
“Oh.”
He pauses for a second, like he might say more, but then he nods toward the door and walks into the classroom. I follow behind, the plastic bottle protesting in my viselike grip. Once again, I’m relieved that I’m not wearing the necklace: I’m pretty sure my heart rate just surged to somewhere near the red zone. As I sit down in the only open desk in the classroom—the one right behind Guy—I think about the enormity of what just happened.
Maybe for the first time in my life, someone noticed.
He noticed me.
three
“Hey, you know that guy in creative writing?” I ask Ella the next morning at breakfast. “The one with the hair? He sits in our usual seat? Thanks for the warning about that, by the way.”
She looks at me funny, maybe because she’s clueless, probably because she’s wondering why I’m asking. On the verge of blushing, I start buttering my toast so I have something else to focus on.
“Yeah?” she asks. “What about him?”
“He said hi to me and I felt like a moron because I didn’t know his name.”
Ella just stares at me.
I roll my eyes at her. “Ella!” I shout. “Quit messing around. What’s his name?”
