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Ava throws her hands over her ears. “I don’t think we should be hearing this. I plead the fifth!”
“Okay, I’m in,” Willow says. “Now where do they keep all the security footage…?”
All four of us gather around her desk.
“Hey, you guys want to know how you did on your math exams?”
“No!” we all say.
“Okay. Geez. Ah, here we go. This folder holds all the security camera footage from this semester. It’s sorted by date.” She searches the files for the date when I received my first letter. “Here it is.”
We lean forward as Willow finds the right camera, the one that’s right across from my locker. She fast-forwards through the footage, since no one is around at night and all we see are rows of lockers.
“Wait, students are already coming.” Lily points. “Did we miss him?”
“Maybe I fast-forwarded too much. The guy is like a ninja.” She taps her chin. “He couldn’t have come earlier than an hour or two before school started, right? I’ll focus on that time frame.”
She rewinds to two hours before school starts and slows down.
“Why isn’t anyone showing up?” I complain. “You think my secret admirer is a ghost?”
“Ooh, maybe he’s like the Phantom of the High School,” Ava says with a giggle. “He’ll bring you down to his lair underneath the school and—”
“There!” Willow points.
We nearly topple over each other as we push closer to peer at the screen. The video is black and white, has no sound, and is a little grainy because the camera isn’t the best quality, but we can see a guy in a baseball cap rush up to my locker, quickly look to his right and left, and then slide a folded piece of paper into my locker. Then he vanishes from sight.
“He really is a ninja,” Lily says. “In and out like a pro.”
“But I can’t see his face,” I say. “The quality is so bad. I’ll never know who he is.”
“Maybe we can find more footage?” Ava suggests.
“I have a program to make the video clearer,” Willow says as she pulls up the program. “Just give me a few seconds…”
“Makes me wonder how you spend your nights, Willow,” Liam jokes.
“Usually working on my app or curled up with the book we’ve chosen for book club,” she says. “Don’t worry. I’m not always up to nefarious activities.”
The program finishes with the video, and we’re met with a very clear picture of my secret admirer. The video is still black and white with no sound, but it seems like the guy has straight dark hair. The baseball cap nearly shields his eyes, but I can still make out his face.
I squint at the screen as my heart picks up pace. “Who is that? I’ve never seen him before.”
“No clue,” Lily says.
“I know him!” Ava says. “He’s Derek Chen. He’s in my bio class. He’s super, super smart. And sweet.”
My body lights up with excitement. “Really?”
“Yeah! But um…he’s a freshman.”
It feels like my world just came crashing down. “A…freshman?”
“But he’s so cute!” Lily says. “And Ava said he’s sweet and smart. He’s taking junior-level classes.”
“But he’s afreshman. Guys, he’s two years younger than me.”
“So?” Ava asks. “Lots of women date younger men. Besides, it’s just two years—”
