by Jaclyn Weist
Mom sat up and stretched. “Sleep sounds good. Love you, sweetie. I’ll plan on dress shopping for Saturday.”
She kissed my forehead and left the room with the box of pizza and shut my door. I waited until I heard her going down the stairs before I pulled open my email.
Starlight, star bright, first star I see tonight,
I wish I may, I wish I might,
Take you to the dance next Friday Night.
I was torn between swooning at the sweet message and being upset by the fact that I already had a date. Which wasn’t fair to Brandon. He deserved someone who wanted to go with him. And there was still nothing saying that these emails were meant for me. I forwarded that email to Mr. Reynolds and closed my laptop.
There was only a week and a half left until the dance, which meant that if this person was going to get the date they wanted, they’d better hurry up and admit it. Otherwise, they’d miss out.
I’d miss out on finding out who it was.
Waiting for Heather’s response was totally worth it. I could hear her squeal coming from down the hall before she nearly tackled me. She rolled up the newspaper and hit me over and over on my shoulder.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” She tried to glare at me, but her grin was too wide. “How long have you known?”
I rubbed my shoulder. “Since yesterday.”
She huffed. “And you couldn’t tell me?”
“Nope. That would have taken all of the fun out of it. It might have been a little less painful, though” I opened my locker and put my books inside. “How are you going to answer him?”
She held out a paper. “With this. I hope it works.”
I read the paper, ignoring her staring at me while biting her thumbnail. It was a poem, but it was her own personal twist to it. I grinned. “This is perfect. I’ll write it up and get it in the paper for Friday.”
“Thank you.” She hugged me, wrinkling the paper in my hands. “Oh, I’m so excited. When are we going to go shopping?”
“Saturday.” I unrolled the paper and stuck it in my backpack so I could save it. “Did you see the secret admirer message?”
She nodded. “You’re sure you don’t know anything about them?”
“Nothing. The email doesn’t give anything away. It’s about as generic as you can get. And while the poems are sweet and they clearly know the person they’re asking, they don’t actually give anything away.”
“Frustrating. And so romantic.” She sighed. “I kinda hoped it would be about me.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Everyone at school does. It’s all they talk about.” Heather nodded toward a group of girls who were reading and giggling at the back of the newspaper. “That’s what they’re talking about. And those guys? They’re arguing about who they think it is.”
I blinked. How had I not noticed? This person was supposed to be mine. Maybe I should have left the emails off. But if I had, maybe they would have stopped emailing.
Heather snapped her fingers in front of my face. “Hey, you okay?”
“Yes. Sorry. I just didn’t realize how big it was.” I hugged my books to me. “I better get to class.”
She grabbed my shoulder and leaned in. “You think it’s about you, don’t you?”
“Like you said, every person thinks that.” I shrugged her off and waved. “See you at lunch.”
I bit my lip as I walked to class, trying to get past the fact that the secret admirer emails were such a big deal to the school. It really was cool. I’d created something that the whole school was enjoying. All the other seniors could come up with their own senior project to be remembered by. I’d done it. Twice. With the column, and with this whole secret thing. Okay, so that was the mystery person, not me.
Brandon sat next to me during health class and leaned over. “Hey, do you know what color of dress you’re going to wear yet?”
“Nope. Is Saturday too late to get your tie?” At least I assumed that’s why he was asking.
“Nah. I’ll just send my mom after that. And what’s your favorite flower again?” He smiled.
I frowned. “I don’t know. A lily?”
He brightened. “That’s my mom’s favorite too. That’s perfect.”
“Great.” I didn’t know what was wrong with me. Yesterday at this time I would have been bouncing off the walls to get a date with Brandon. Now I kept comparing him to whoever this person was, and I didn’t even have much to compare him with.
I was the worst.
Maybe Brandon was right. Maybe whoever it was should just announce who they are already. By the time I finished my health assignment, I was back to being excited about my date. I had talked myself into it even more by play practice.
I dropped my bag on one of the seats in the auditorium and grabbed my script from my backpack so I could join Max and Heather on stage. “Hey, guys, what’s up?”
Heather raised an eyebrow. “Someone is rather happy today.”
“What’s not to like about today? Everyone likes the newspaper. We all have dates to the dance. I think I finally have my lines memorized.” I sighed.
“Wait. Hold up. When did you get a date?” Max’s eyes narrowed. “How did you not tell me—us—this?”
My mouth dropped open. Surely I said something at some point. I’d taken Max to school that morning and then talked to Heather about her date. I looked over at her and she shook her head.
“You said nothing.”
“I swear I did.” I pulled out my phone to look at our group text. Nothing. “You’re sure?”
Heather shook her head. “Who are you going with?”
“Brandon.” I was surprised by the hurt in Max’s eyes when he looked away. He was that upset that I hadn’t told them?
Heather’s eyes widened. “As in hot new guy Brandon? How did you manage that?”
I shrugged. “I help him in math all the time, so we’ve been hanging out. He asked me yesterday. You’re sure I didn’t say anything?”
“Do these look like the faces of people who knew you had a date?” Heather rolled her eyes. “I mean, that’s awesome, but why didn’t you say anything?”
My explanation was interrupted by the beginning of play practice. We would be going over my scene, so I didn’t have any time to tell them what was going on. How I was obsessed with the secret messages.
Mrs. Carrington was less than impressed with my lack of expression with my lines, so we had to keep going over the scene. It didn’t bother me because that just meant I could actually memorize the lines, but the others in the class weren’t quite as pleased.
I turned to the rest of the cast once she was satisfied. “Sorry, guys. I’ll do better with this next one. Promise.”
There were a few mutters, which meant I’d better shove everything else aside and concentrate. Be as dramatic as possible.
Except that the scene Mrs. Carrington picked was the one in the forest. The one I was hoping we could skip. It was awkward having to sing the love song with my best friend. Especially when it was super icky anyway.
But since Max seemed less than thrilled to be doing that scene as well, I knew I’d better act my little heart out.
And I did. At least, I think I did. Max’s acting could have used a little less grumpy and a lot more romancey, but who was I to judge? I played it up instead, which earned some giggles from the girls.
We had to do it two more times before Max got the voice right, and then we moved on to the scene. You know, the scene. Max pulled me into his arms and held me close while he sang, but when he moved to lean in—and my heart was ready to explode—he pushed away.
“No, I can’t. We can go over it tomorrow.” He stomped off the stage, leaving me in the pretend woods of the stage.
What just happened?
Mrs. Carrington rubbed her forehead and checked her clipboard. “All right. Let’s move on to Red Riding Hood and the baker.”
I searched the cast for Heather, but she was too
busy watching what was happening on stage with Ethan. Max was nowhere to be found either, which didn’t surprise me. I knew where he’d gone.
My backpack was left behind with Max’s and Heather’s as I jogged up the aisle of the auditorium and straight for the astronomy lab. Max stood there readjusting the telescope. He’d loved the stars for as long as I could remember, and nothing made him happier than getting to use the school’s equipment to see them.
“Hey, Max. Why’d you run out?” I kept my distance. Pushing him would just make him clam up even more.
“I don’t know.” His voice was low, and he wouldn’t look over at me.
“Did I do something?” I fought back tears. We never fought. Ever.
He pursed his lips, but stayed quiet as he adjusted the lens. His silence was worse than him yelling at me.
I stalked forward and put a hand over his. “Max. Talk to me. Obviously I did something wrong and I want to know what it was.”
Max yanked his hand away. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you . . . what?” I hadn’t told him a lot of things lately.
“About the date, Alayna. Why didn’t you tell me?” He finally met my eyes. His were filled with pain and betrayal. “Don’t you think I would have wanted to know?”
I opened my mouth to say something, then closed it again. I mean, I knew it was bad that we hadn’t talked as much lately, but to have him so hurt I didn’t tell him I was going on a date with another guy? That was so completely unlike him.
“It didn’t even cross my mind. I’m sorry. I guess I was too busy going between figuring out how I felt about going with him and working on the newspaper and the secret admirer, and—”
“Whoa. Stop right there. Secret admirer?” If anything, he looked even angrier. “You have one of those too?”
I stepped back. “Dude. Seriously. Calm down. It’s the same secret admirer that everyone else has been talking about apparently. They’ve sent several poems to the newspaper with no name, so I just put them in that way. I just . . . it seemed like maybe it was for me. But a lot of the other girls thought the same thing. And then Brandon said the guy was a coward for not coming forward and just asking the girl.”
Max snorted. “A coward? At least he did something.”
“That’s what I was thinking. Anyway, I was trying to get past the hurt from not having the person actually ask so I could be excited for Brandon asking me.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I thought you would have been ecstatic.”
“I am. Was. Something. But now that you’re mad at me, I don’t know what to think.” I rubbed my forehead, but I had to admit that getting it out was a relief.
“Be excited. The guy of your dreams asked you instead of some random person who obviously doesn’t know what they’re doing.” He turned away from me again.
Even if he said it was okay, he was still acting odd. I stepped closer. “At least we can all go together, right?”
He shook his head. “I’m not going.”
“Wait, what? You’re not asking Anna?” Talk about keeping things from other people. “I figured she’d already have a dress picked out and everything.”
“She does.” He glanced over at me. “It’s just not so she can go with me. We broke up when she tried to keep me from hanging out with you. But apparently that doesn’t matter because you’re too busy hanging out with Brandon.”
“Hold off. You’re mad because I’m tutoring someone? You didn’t even tell me you broke up with Anna.”
Max sighed. “No. And you know that. I just . . . I don’t know. Please tell Mrs. Carrington I’m sick or something I need to finish this assignment.”
I blinked. “You don’t even have astronomy.”
“She doesn’t know that, does she?” He glanced over at me and went back to the telescope.
It was obvious I wasn’t going to get anything else from him, so I turned and left. Play practice was just finishing up, so I grabbed my bag and waited for Heather to finish her scene. Mrs. Carrington was too busy with the witch to go talk to her, but Max was already mad enough that I didn’t want to push it by not saying something.
Mrs. Carrington finished and turned to me. “Ah, you’re back. I trust Max is okay?”
“He’s fine. Just working with the telescope. He wanted to tell you he was sorry.”
“It’s all right. We were pretty much done already, but we do need to practice that scene. We can’t keep avoiding it forever.” She smiled at me and turned to another student.
I knew we had to practice the scene, but I had no idea how I was going to get Max to agree to it. Maybe we could work on it now, though. I didn’t have much homework, the newspaper column was already fizzling since it was so close to the dance, and as far as I knew, Brandon didn’t need more help.
Heather found me and grinned. “I figured out how to answer Ethan, but I can’t do it without you.”
“Uh, okay.” So maybe I could talk to Max after that. “What’s your plan?”
She grabbed my elbow and pulled me toward the door. I stopped long enough to grab Max’s backpack and then hurried to catch up to Heather.
“Glow in the dark stars. All over his ceiling. I got permission from his mom while I was waiting for my turn on stage.”
“Perfect. He’ll love that.” I spotted Max at the end of the hallway. “I’ll meet you at my house. I need to give this to Max and then drop my car off.”
Heather nodded and left the building and I ran to meet Max. He seemed like he was in a slightly better mood, but I still hesitated before talking.
“Hey.”
“Thanks for getting my bag.” He took it from me. “You talked to Mrs. C?”
I nodded. “I’m going to go help Heather answer Ethan if you want to come with us.”
Max glanced out the window. “You sure you want me there?”
“Of course. We can talk. Besides, you’re taller than me so you can reach the ceiling better.” I nudged his arm. It was a long-standing joke since I was a good six inches shorter than him.
“Well, you’re my ride, so I guess I’m stuck with helping the short girl.” He opened the school door for me.
I wanted to hug him. Or jump for joy. He was actually talking to me. And if he was willing to crack jokes, he was feeling a little better. We drove to my house in silence and climbed out. Heather was there waiting for me in her SUV, and I wondered who owned the other cars in front of my house as I ran in to drop of my bag.
Several unfamiliar men stood in the entryway of my house. Mom spoke quietly to them, her cheeks tear-stained.
“Mom? What’s going on?” Panic boiled in my stomach as I looked between them. “Is Dad okay?”
“He’s fine for now. But these men are here to make sure that we stay safe too.” She wrapped her arms around me.
I pulled away from her. “What do you mean?”
“Your father ran into some trouble today. Word got out where he was, so we had to move him. We just have to make sure that they don’t come here to try to find him.” The man speaking seemed nice enough. He had the same short haircut as my dad, and his eyes were kind as he tried to make me feel better. That seemed to make it worse.
“What kind of trouble? What happened?” I looked between them. “You can’t just tell me vague reassurances.”
Mom’s eyebrows narrowed. “You apologize. They’re just trying to—”
“It’s all right, ma’am. She has a right to be upset.” The man turned to me. Some of the men he’d been working with found out he wasn’t who he said he was. They’ve been detained, but we aren’t sure if they got the word out before that. He got a little roughed up, but he’s fine.”
The door opened. “Hey, Alayna, what’s—whoa.” Max’s eyes widened. “Who are you guys?”
The men moved toward him, but I jumped forward. “No, he’s fine, guys. He’s my best friend. Max, maybe you should go with Heather. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
The door shut behind
him and he moved closer to me. “I’m not going anywhere. Are you two okay?”
“Young man, I really—”
Mom put a hand out. “He’s been her best friend since she was young. Practically one of the family. It’s okay.”
The man sighed. “We’re just trying to do our job. If you two could pack a few things, we’ll be going.”
“Where are you taking them?” Max took my hand and squeezed it for comfort.
“If I told you, it wouldn’t be secret, would it?” The man stared at Max. “I know you want to help her, but right now, the only way to do that is to walk away. I’ll let her contact you from a secure location as soon as it’s safe.”
Max opened his mouth to argue, then glanced down at the man’s gun poking out from his jacket. “Fine. But if anything happens to her . . .”
He kissed me on the cheek. “I’ll go help Heather. You just stay safe.”
I nodded, unable to speak. When he left and Mom was busy talking to the other men, I reached up and touched my cheek where his lips had been. I ran to the window to see if they’d left already and found them staring up at the house. Heather finally started her car and pulled out.
“Hey, Mom?” My heart beat rapidly. “There’s someone following them.”
“That’s one of our guys.” The man next to me made me jump. When had he moved over by me?
I glared. “You’re having them followed too?”
“I assume you want them to be safe as well? We have to make sure everyone coming in and out is secure.” He pointed down at my phone. “Who is that?”
“Who is—oh.” I hadn’t even realized it was ringing. “My sweetheart dance date.”
The man picked up my phone and moved to answer it, but I grabbed it out of his hands. Instead of talking, I sent a quick text about being unable to talk and hoped that would be enough, then went to my room to pack some clothes, my laptop, homework, and headphones.
Mom was packed as well when I went downstairs. We were ushered to a black SUV—if that wasn’t obviously a government vehicle, I didn’t know what was—and I had to say goodbye to my house. Two of the agents stayed back to make sure it looked like someone was still there, and we were off.