AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Why not experiment on yourself? You could date him. Then it wouldn’t be secondhand information.” Rylee glances at Owen—I think this is something she must have learned in his class because he gives her a small, approving nod.
I swallow. “That wouldn’t really work.” I shake my head, waiting for Owen to jump in, to help me out—but he doesn’t. “We’re friends. I get my information first-hand—through him.”
“That isn’t how first-hand information works,” the helpful boy next to Rylee says.
“Besides, don’t you want to be friends with your significant other?” Rylee says. “I read something you wrote last year that said something like that.”
Huh. Rylee is my sister’s spyanda fan.
Okay, puberty-bound Rylee, let’s do this.
“True, I did write that. But most relationships don’t start out as childhood friendships. There’s attraction and—”
“You don’t think Mr. Bailey’s cute?” The small crowd of girls sitting behind Rylee begins to giggle.
There are twenty-seven sets of eyes on me. Each burning holes into my Grateful Dead T-shirt. I look to Owen for help—shouldn’t he have a fireman hose to calm the girls down? —but he’s crossed his arms over his chest, his brows raised. He looks as if he’s waiting for me to answer.
“Well, sure. Mr. Bailey is very cute.”
“But he’s notattractive?” the boy next to Rylee asks. His blond hair is combed back, and his blue eyes are relentless.
“I didn’t say that.” I shake and nod and bobble my head in all sorts of incoherent ways. “He is. Mr. Bailey is very,veryattractive.” My mouth goes dry as the desert. There is no correct way to answer this girl’s questions.
“So, what’s the problem then?” Rylee asks.
“Well,Rylee,” I say, the girl’s name coming out more like a curse word, “there’s more to a relationship than attraction.”
“Like what?” says the boy whose name I wish I knew—just so I could use it like a curse as well. These two are out to get me.
Finally, Owen opens his mouth. “Hand, Sam. Raise it, or she doesn’t have to answer.”
Does that mean I have a choice?
Sam raises his hand and, without being called on, repeats, “Like what? What else?”
I clear my throat. I suppose that means I’m answering. “Like similar hobbies,” I spout. “Like a real found respect.”
“You don’t respect Mr. B?” Sam says, hand raised and tone totally offended for his teacher.
“I do.” I cross my arms over my chest, attempting to protect myself somehow. “I respect him very much.” Then, I start topace in front of the first row of desks. If I weren’t so flustered, I’d laugh at the seventy eyeballs traveling left then right along with me. “There’s just more to it. Okay? Communication.”
“You don’t talk?” Sam says—no hand.
“We talk all the time,” Owen says. “Every single day.”
I give him a small glare. Why isn’t he getting us out of this mess? He’s the teacher. Where’s his teacher voice? Where’s the principal? Heck, I’ll even take Phyllis, the body-building nurse, at this point. “Yes,” I say, “but also a special sort of trust.” I stop pacing and stomp. “And before you ask, Sam, yes, I trust Mr. Bailey!”
Then, Rylee shoots that never-tiring hand of hers up into the air. But at least she won’t speak. Not if I never call on her.
“Ry?” Owen says.
Ugh. What. A. Traitor.
“I’m confused. So, why aren’t you dating him?”
“Maybe she has a boyfriend,” says a girl at the back of Rylee’s column.
I point at her. That’s thinking, nameless girl in the back!
