“Oh look, there’s Poppy!” Lilah announced, completely ignoring me. She waved a hand crazily in the air. “Hey guys! Ov—” The rest of her sentence was muffled as I cupped a hand over her mouth and used the other hand to pull her waving arm down.
“Are you crazy?” I hissed. “She’s with Bear. I don’t want him to see me like this!”
But it was too late. Lilah had gotten her roommate’s attention and now she was walking over with her boyfriend, who also just so happened to be one of my best friends and teammate. The expressions on each of their faces as they walked up could only be described asgleeful—although Poppy showed it much more obviously than Bear, whose expressions only ever changed slightly. I’d just known him long enough to be able to read his every emotion.
“So…” Bear said as we came up. “How’s your day going?”
I just glared at him. Poppy and Lilah, meanwhile, had stopped bothering to hide any of the glee they were each feeling and they both dissolved into fits of laughter. I sighed and tugged at the dark green shirt I’d been practically forced into.
“It wasn’t my decision,” I mumbled. Lilah just laughed even harder. Even Bear’s lips were twitching like he was going to smile, though he managed to keep himself from actually doing it. I turned to Lilah. “Didn’t you want to get back to the school? We should get going, don’t you think?”
When Lilah turned back to look at me, Poppy gasped. “What happened to your head?”
“Tino slammed a door into my head,” Lilah said flatly. Poppy’s eyes widened and she turned to me with a look of shock.
“What? Why?”
“It was an accident!” Something I really wished wouldn’t have needed clarification. She was looking at me as if I went out of my way to hurt her best friend. “I was checking if the coast was clear in the alley and she happened to be running and?—”
“Woah, woah, back up,” Poppy said, holding her hands up in a stop motion. “If the coast was clear from what? And what alley?”
“It’s a long story,” Lilah sighed. “I’ll tell you when we get back, okay?”
Poppy still seemed a little unsure as she glanced between Lilah and me, but she finally nodded. “Fine. We were walking back to the school anyway.”
We set off again, the four of us walking in a line up the winding road in the direction of the boarding school we all attended. Lilah started slouching into me as we got further and I started to worry that maybe she was a little worse off than she was implying. When I wrapped an arm around her shoulders to help stabilize her, I waited for her to shove me off and say “nice try.” The fact that she didn’t do so told me all I needed to know.
“Hey, Lilah,” I said. It was probably the worst time in the world, but I had to try. Besides, her response could tell me a lot too—if this was the time she actually said yes, I was pretty sure she would be on her death bed. “What do you say we put these costumes to good use and actually go out to a party together?”
She snorted. “I’ll give you one guess on what my answer will be.”
Despite the rejection, I smiled to myself. I couldn’t quite name what we were, because I wasn’t sure I could consider usfriends, but I wouldn’t call us enemies or acquaintances either. We were just… us. And there were many things I loved about us, but this was, perhaps, my favorite part.
I ask her out. She says no. I laugh it off, even though it breaks my heart.
And then we repeat the cycle every day.
All in the hopes that one day, if I’m the luckiest guy in the world, she finally says yes.
CHAPTER 4
lilah
“Areyou sure your head’s okay?” Poppy asked me for the fifth time as we walked to dinner that night. She put a hand to my forehead as if hitting my head would somehow give me a fever. “Do you feel all right? You can always go back to the room and we’ll?—”
“I’m fine,” I said, shoving her hand away. “Just like I was fine thirty seconds ago and two minutes ago and five minutes ago.”
Poppy reddened slightly but shrugged. “I just worry!”
“And I love you for it,” I said. I’d spent years wishing for a best friend, somebody who would care about me for me instead of just getting close to me so they could meet my brother. Having Poppy, along with our other friend Saylor, meant everything to me, even if I wasn’t touchy-feely enough to actually tell her that. Wanting to get off the topic of my head, which was admittedly starting to pound with a slight headache, I added, “It’s all because of those fangirls chasing us anyway. How come you never get attacked when your sister comes to visit? It’s not fair.”
Poppy snorted. “My sister’s not famous.”
“But she’s practically famous! She’s dating a boy band member. Shouldn’t that count for something?”
“I don’t think it does,” Poppy said with an apologetic shrug.
“But don’t forget the time Ivy brought Zach along for a visit,” Saylor said from Poppy’s other side. The three of us were walking in a line, so she had to lean forward to look in my direction. “The three of them had to bribe a store owner to let them hide in the changing rooms until all the girls gave up.”
