“You know what? What the hell. Sure.”
Jamie’s eyes glow like they’re headlights. His smile notches entirely too high. It makes me feel the need to set something straight.
“It’s not a date.”
My words don’t dull his expression. “Of course not.”
I lower my brow. “I mean it.”
He nods. “Loud and clear.”
I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve gotten myself into something that would’ve been better avoided.
What’s really concerning? I can’t shake my anticipation for it, either.
9
JAMIE
Wow.
Wow wow wow wow wow.
Holy shit.
I have a date with Carmen.
I can’t sleep. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to sleep again.
I’m too excited. Buzzing from head to toe. Buzzing? Hell. I’m practically vibrating. I’m practically rattling.
My heart is going a mile a minute, my chest swelled with excitement, the synapses in my brain firing, still trying to process everything that’s happened tonight. My limbs are restless, my whole body inflated with too much energy. I feel like I need to sprint around the neighborhood at full speed for about an hour and a half to burn it all off.
I want to scream. But then I’ll wake up the whole house, maybe the whole neighborhood. Then when my roommates come in to check on me and see the state I’m in, they’ll think I’m crazy. I might get committed to an institution and miss my date with Carmen.
My date with Carmen.
I literally pinch myself and breathe a sigh of relief when I don’t wake up.
This is real. I have a date with Carmen.
I know, I know. She said it’s not a date. She went out of her way to very pointedly say it’s not a date. And I agreed.
But fuck it. It’s a date.
Wings flap in my chest. I’m actually starting to feel lightheaded, I’m so excited. I didn’t even feel this way before the championship finals last year.
The art class we’re going to is on Tuesday. Three full days from now.
Those days feel like a yawning chasm in front of me. I’m like a little kid facing down the entire last week of school before Christmas.
It takes ages for the excitement palpitating through my body to diminish to the point where I can slide into bed and lie still. And my mind is hyperactive long after that. Eventually, with a smile on my face, the fantasies of my date with Carmen turn into dreams.
The past threedays have felt like three years.
When it’s finally Tuesday evening, I’m in my room, psyching myself up. I’ve tried on about a dozen different outfits, finding fault with each of them when I look in the mirror.
I settle on a pair of light blue jeans with a brown sweater over a collared shirt. It looks good, like I’m putting in effort without being too formal.
