I hoped so. I wouldn’t want a friendship she’d had for many years to fall apart.
At the end of the day I couldn’t take it anymore. I was pissed off she was ignoring despite me several attempts to make eye contact.
I walked right up to her locker where she stood with several of her friends. Everyone fell silent, meaning not just the people beside her, but in the entire hall.
“Hey, Kel,” I said, forcing the words out and to sound normal. “Can we talk a second?”
You could have heard a pin drop as I waited for her reply.
All eyes turned to Kelly, but her eyes stayed on mine. I saw her answer in the blue depths before she even spoke. She quietly begged me to understand, she silently whispered and apology.
“I’m busy right now,” she said.
“Seriously?” I said, anger making me hot.
“Get lost, geek,” one of the other girls said, stepping in front of Kelly.
“I’m not a geek,” I said, my voice hard and cold. The eyes of the girls eyes who were standing around went wide. They expected me to just rush away. “Being a geek implies I’m really smart, but as it turns out, I’m pretty stupid.”
“Eric,” Kelly said softly, and the girl in front of her turned to stare. It wasn’t her way of apologizing—it was just another plea for me to understand.
But I didn’t.
I never would.
I walked away and didn’t look back.
That night, Mom and I packed our stuff and went back home.
I’d thought maybe things would be different.
But the more they changed, the more they stayed the same.
Buggin’ – when you are worried about something.
It was just like all those years ago.
Eric approached me at school and everyone started to laugh.
I turned him away.
I was too afraid they’d laugh at me, afraid they’d turn their backs for good.
It was the worst thing I’d ever done. Worse than stealing boyfriends, and stringing them along. Even worse than that time in third grade when I pretended not to know him.
This time, I knew all the facts, I understood how we grew apart and I’d been there when we fell back together.
I turned my back in spite of that.
I regretted it the instant he walked away.
What was the point in being popular if you were that way for all the wrong reasons? What was the point of being popular if getting that way earned you a horrible nickname?
I glanced around my locker after Eric disappeared and I realized something.
I didn’t like any of these people.
I didn’t trust them.
So why did I care?
Was I so worried someone might not like who I was, that I totally went against everything and hurt the person I liked most?
I couldn’t do it.
I wouldn’t turn my back on Eric a second time. I wanted a friendship with him. I wanted a relationship.
I wanted a man who was solely mine. Not because I flirted and manipulated. Not because I stole him away. I didn’t want to “chew him up and spit him out.”
I just wanted to be happy.
Eric made me happy.
After school, I went to Mandy’s. I had some major making up to do. Out of everyone she was the one friend I wanted to keep. She was someone I actually liked. I was ashamed of myself for acting the way I had with Tad and I was glad he told her the truth.
I said all of that. Every bit. And then I told her about Eric.
By the time I left her place, it was almost dinner and she and I were on our way to a real friendship, not one that was just based on social status.
The second I walked in the front door, I looked for Eric.
I raced into the kitchen expecting to find him waiting for dinner, but no one was there but Mom.
He’d gone home. Packed up and left.
I raced up to my room and dialed his phone number. Even after all these years I still knew it by heart.
His mom answered. She told me he wasn’t home.
I knew it was a lie.
I’d screwed up. I screwed up so bad I was terrified I’d never be able to fix it.
Eric wasn’t like Mandy. I couldn’t have a girl heart to heart while we did each other’s hair and be besties again.
He’d opened up to me, basically laid it all on the line. We spent a night together I would never ever forget.
Then I threw it in his face.
It couldn’t be too late. There had to be something I could do. It couldn’t just be words and promises. He wouldn’t believe me. He’d think the second things got tough I’d turn on him again.
I couldn’t even blame him.
I’d have to show him. I’d prove he meant more to me than every ounce of popularity I had.
It was going to have to be something big.
A grand gesture.
I just hoped I wasn’t too late.
Gag Me with a Spoon – a way to say you are disgusted by something or someone.
Two days later…
The beaker in front of me bubbled up with bright blue liquid and I knew immediately I’d screwed up. I watched with boredom as it bubbled up and spilled over the sides and rushed down onto the table.
The white foam spread out around the glass and I just watched.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Ryan exclaimed grabbing a handful of brown paper towels to start cleaning up my mess. “This is a basic formula! You could do this in your sleep.”
“Too bad I wasn’t sleeping,” I retorted mildly.
His eyes about fell out of his head.
“All right,” he said, tossing down the towels and running his hands along the elastic bands of his suspenders. “That’s it. You’ve been acting like you’re on drugs for almost a week now.”
I rolled my eyes and he leaned close.
“Are you on drugs?”
You know your life has officially become a shit circus when your best friend literally thinks you’re on drugs.
And when you mess up a totally basic chemistry lab.
Mr. Brawn approached the table with a displeased look on his face. “Is there a problem here, gentlemen?”
“No, sir,” Ryan hurried to say. “We just mixed up a couple elements.”
“Clean it up and do it again. Right this time.”
“Of course,” Ryan agreed and picked up the paper towels again.
When Mr. Brawn was back at his desk, Ry looked at me. “Well?”
“No, I am not on drugs.”
“Then what is it? Your mom get a boyfriend? Did you get a boyfriend?”
“For someone so smart you sure do say some wacked out shit,” I muttered.
“Girl trouble?” he guessed.
I glanced away.
“Holy crap, that’s it,” he whispered like he was in awe I would have any kind of relationship with a girl that would constitute “trouble.”
I ignored him and cleaned up the mess I’d made and carried the ruined beaker to the sink to trade it out for a clean one so we could start over.
“I want to know everything,” he demanded.
“No,” I said.
“You can’t say no. I haven’t had any action… like… well, ever, so I have to live vicariously through you.”
I couldn’t help it. I smiled.
He thought that meant I was going to spill my guts. I didn’t want to talk about Kelly. It still stung too bad. It still hurt.
Ever since we moved home I’d been in a permanently distracted and foul mood.
Mom even tried to talk to me about it and I bit her head off. I knew she knew it had to do with Kelly. Hell, she wasn’t blind.
But I refused to talk about it. Period.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” I told Ryan.
“Is this about the party over the weekend?”
I glanced at him, my mouth agape.
“What? I hear stuff too.”
I laughed.
“So you and Kelly… is that just a rumor?”
“Hey, you hear that?” the girl at the table beside us asked her lab partner.
Just about the same time I heard the muffled sound of music in the distance.
Everyone in the room started looking around, trying to figure out where it was coming from. A couple people went to the windows and a few pressed their faces to the windows on the classroom door.
“Calm down, everyone,” Mr. Brawn said.
No one listened.
The music started to grow louder. As in whoever had it playing must be busting an eardrum because I could hear every word of the song.
It was by The Police. “Every Breath You Take.”
“Hey look!” someone said, and pointed through the glass in the door. The entire class crowded around and started talking all at once.
Over the announcement speakers came an announcement.
Music is not allowed in school. Whoever is playing it needs to shut it down immediately or they will be given detention.
The music didn’t stop. It seemed to get louder.
“She’s just standing there,” a student said loudly. “She’s looking right at us!”
“Okay, step aside,” Mr. Brawn said and went to open the door.
He reared back as soon as he did because the music was just that much louder.
“Ms. Ross,” he yelled into the hallway. “What on earth are you doing?”
“It’s Kelly Ross!” someone else said excitedly.
My stomach dropped just hearing her name. I sat down at my seat and pretended not to hear the music or the commotion.
Ryan looked at me like I grew an extra head, and took off.
Everyone was talking now. And singing along. I heard doors out in the hallway open up and people begin to crowd the hall.
About a minute later Ryan came back. “Uh, man. I think it’s for you.”
I jerked up. “What?”
“Go look.”
“No.”
“Dude, if you don’t go look out in the hallway right now I might start doing drugs.”
I rolled my eyes. He grabbed the back of my shirt and dragged me off my seat.
“Fine,” I muttered and went to the door. Only problem was, there was a crowd of people standing around.
I shoved my way through only to be met with even more of a crowd. People were laughing and staring, they were whispering.
“Turn that off right now!” Mr. Brawn yelled.
I glanced ahead of the crowd and saw what looked like the top of a boom box.
I shoved through the crowd, and suddenly it gave way to a large open circle where everyone gathered around and pressed into the hallway.
In the center, standing between people and lockers, was Kelly.
She was dressed in Jordache jeans, converse sneakers and a bright pink top.
But it wasn’t what she was wearing that got my attention. It was what she was doing.
She was holding up a gigantic boom box over her head as it played the song.
When she saw me she smiled.
“What the hell are you doing?” I yelled over the music.
“Waiting for you!” she yelled back.
The crowd was getting larger, even the teachers were watching with interest, no one even tried to break up whatever madness she was doing.
The song went off and the PLAY button on the boom box popped out.
Everyone waited.
I waited.
She sat the box aside and motioned for me to step forward. When I didn’t, she came to me and grabbed my hands.
“I was a total idiot. I got caught up in all this stuff that didn’t matter. In popularity. I should have done this the other day at my locker, but I was scared.”
People were whispered, some laughed. She didn’t seem to notice. It was like we were the only two people in the room.
“You are the most genuine person I’ve ever known. You don’t take any of my crap and you don’t care about my status. You were my very first friend, even before we knew what the meaning of friendship really was.”
“What are you saying, Kelly?” I asked.
“I’m saying I want that back. I want to be friends. But more than that, I want to be more than friends. You’re the first guy in this entire school who’s ever stopped me in my tracks and made me think about who I am as a person.”
“Man-eater,” someone yelled from the back of the crowd.
“Yeah, maybe that is what I was. But not anymore! I don’t have to steal boyfriends, or play games just to keep my status. Real friends wouldn’t care who I like or what my hobbies are. Or even the way I dressed.” She glanced at Ryan and I was pretty sure he peed in his pants a little.
“That’s me!” he called out. “She meant me!”
People laughed.
“Dork!”
“No!” Kelly cried. “No more names, no more labels. Ryan isn’t a dork because he wears suspenders and Eric isn’t a geek because he likes science.”
My heart swelled and I tried not to give in. I tried not to fall just a little bit more.
“I’m telling the entire school, right now, that I, Kelly Ross, am totally into Eric Seaver. I like his glasses, his messy hair and his love of science. And if anyone has a problem with that then they can bite me!”
“Language,” Mr. Brawn scolded.
Kelly grinned and squeezed my hands, but there was a question in her eyes.
I hesitated.
Kelly let go and turned away. My stomach fell. But she didn’t go far, she hit pulled out the cassette tape, flipped it over and put it back into the boom box.
The second she hit play, the same song by The Police started playing again. She lifted the box above her head and stood there.
She looked ridiculous.
It was pretty damn irresistible.
I walked into the circle, her eyes never left me. “What are you doing, Kel?” I asked.
“I’m standing here like this until you agree to give me another chance.”
“That boom box is awful heavy.”
“Don’t you see? You belong to me,” Kelly said.
“Wow. That was cheesy,” I teased.
“I’ll start singing. All the lyrics. Every. Last. One.”
“Kiss her already!” Mandy yelled. I hadn’t even noticed her on the edge of the crowd.
I looked back at Kelly.
She nodded.
I set the boom box aside, but let the music play.
“I think I’m falling in love with you,” she told me.
Right there in front of half the school.
“What do I gotta do to get you all the way to love?” I asked.
“Kiss me.”
“Okay,” I agreed. “But this time I’m not going to let you go.”
“I’m counting on it.”
She was laughing when I pulled her into my chest and pressed my lips to hers.
We were still kissing when the song ended.
We were still kissing when everyone was ordered back to class.
Kelly Ross was my friend before we even knew was friendship was. She was my change that remained the same. She was my hardest goodbye and me sweetest hello.
She was my first love.
My last love.
And everything in between.
Turn the page for a look at Cambria Hebert’s award winning new adult novel #NERD!
#NerdIsTheNewSexy
#NERD
The Hashtag Series #1
by Cambria Hebert
Rimmel
Being nervous was stupid.
I wasn’t a stupid person; even still, I couldn’t shake the nerves coiling in the pit of my stomach like a cornered poisonous snake. The paper clutched in my hand trembled like the coloring leaves that dotted the trees outside in the cool autumn air.
I didn’t want to be here. I’d probably rather be anywhere else. But the choice wasn’t mine today. In f
act, it wasn’t going to be between the hours of five and seven p.m. on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for the foreseeable future.
Saying no wasn’t an option. This “job” was presented to me as something I had to do to keep my scholarship. Considering none of the other scholarship recipients (that I knew) were practically ordered to tutor struggling students, I wondered if this really was a requirement.
Not like I would say anything, though. I hated confrontation; it made my stomach hurt. And I certainly wasn’t going to argue with the dean over what I needed to do to keep my free ride. So I agreed. It was only a few hours a week, right? And I’d get points for doing a good deed.
Inwardly, I cringed.
Everyone knows the nice guy always finishes last.
Once I was good and committed to the tutoring, I was given a sheet of paper—the same sheet I was now crushing in my nervous hand—with a list of the subjects the student needed help with. Math, English, and history.
Geez, it was like half this person’s schedule. Did they do no studying on their own?
Then I saw the name.
There it was, typed neatly at the top of the paper, right there in black and white. It appeared so simple, just letters arranged in a row. I remember being slightly shocked the second I read his name that fireworks didn’t appear overhead and the marching band didn’t storm through the hall, playing the university’s fight song.
“You want me to tutor Roman Anderson?” I’d squeaked, and the pathetic sound reminded me of the nickname my nervously high voice had earned me in high school.
Mouse.
But this wasn’t high school, and I didn’t squeak anymore. Okay, not much.
“Is there a problem with that?” the dean had asked, choosing to ignore my shock.
Yes! He’s like way out of my league. I cleared my throat again just to be sure my voice was normal when I spoke. “I guess I’m just surprised he needs a tutor.” There was no reason to even pretend I didn’t know exactly who he was.
Everyone knew Romeo.
“Being the incredible athlete that he is, football takes up a great deal of his time. We thought it would be best if he had some additional help with his academics,” the dean replied.
“We?” I asked.
“Myself and the coach.”
1982: Maneater (Love in the 80s #3) Page 11