Page 51 of Sending Love Letters to Animals

I laughed.

“Well, I don’t know about that,” I said, “but I’m pretty sure we’ll be friends now.”

“Cool.”

“Yeah,” I said. “But, uh, care to give your best friend in the whole world some advice?”

“I can try, I guess.”

“Um, the last thing he gave me was a photo,” I said. “I mean, obviously. And he was sitting in front of a heart in it.”

Davud stared at me.

“Yeah,” I said, “I know. Do you think he is sending me a message? Maybe he hasn’t just forgiven me, but maybe he wants to pick up where we left off, you know? Has he remembered where things were probably headed back in junior high and he wants to rekindle those feelings?”

“I don’t know, man.”

“What if I read it all wrong, though?” I asked. “What if he doesn’t ask me out? Should I ask him out? What if he says ‘no’? How bad will that hurt? And will I look stupid? I can’t figure it out.”

Davud turned to stare out the window again.

“He texted me last night,” I explained. “The first time he’s texted me since he transferred to Whitemane. That has to mean something, right? He even said his report only said nice things about me. That means something, too, right?”

When Davud didn’t say anything, I panicked a bit. We were almost to the school and I wouldn’t have much longer to pry advice out of him.

“What do you think?” I asked desperately.

“You don’t know how he feels if you don’t ask,” he said, simply.

“Well, why hasn’t he just said how he feels?”

“You weren’t supposed to be talking,” Davud sighed. “And even if you were, sometimes it’s hard to tell people how you feel. He probably needs you to make the first move. Because…maybe he’s scared you won’t feel the same way about him?”

I nodded along.

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess that makes sense.”

“Maybe he thinks he’s not good enough for you,” Davud said with a shrug.

“Why would he think that?” I laughed as we pulled into the school parking lot.

“After what you guys have been through?” Davud explained. “He might still be a little gun shy after that.”

“Yeah. That makes sense, too.”

“Just tell him,” Davud said, undoing his seatbelt as I parked. “You should always tell people how you feel about them. If you can. The worst he can say is ‘no,’ right?”

“True,” I said. “Thanks, man. That makes a lot of sense. I’ll do that.”

“Great,” Davud said.

Once Davud was in his chair, we headed into school. Luckily, we had timed things right and both of us got to our classes right as the first bell rang. The ride to school and getting advice from Davud had calmed my anxiety over Chris considerably, but I was still nervous. Not about Chris per se, but about our English report in Ms. Tabatabai’s class. It wasn’t that I thought Chris had lied to me and was going to say something mean in his report. I simply wasn’t a great public speaker. Hearing someone else talk about me was not appealing either.

In fact, knowing that Chris was planning to say nice things was even more anxiety-inducing than if I thought he’d roast my ass for three minutes in front of the class. Accepting compliments gracefully is not a skill of mine. All I could do all morning was hope that I somehow lost the ability to hear before English, then regained my hearing after class.

At lunch, I could barely focus on my friends. I was so distracted by the thoughts swirling through my head that I couldn’t even crack shady jokes about the fact that Connor Payne was suddenly part of our group. Jules looked so disappointed, too. Not that she loved being teased, but the fact that I didn’t say anything made her worry about me.

If your friends don’t rag on you when an opportunity arises, it’s a sign that something is wrong, right?