That wasn’t entirely true. There were a few hardcore studiers spending their after-school hours in the library. And each one of them was eyeing us now.
“What are you looking at?” Keith challenged, spooking the timid souls, who quickly disappeared back into their books.
Not satisfied with his tantrum, Keith rolled himself up on top of the long table and stretched out on his back, making a show of miming a very elaborate stabbing death scene. Only after his eyes had rotated back and his tongue had lobbed out was his sheer and utter misery accurately portrayed to his rapt audience.
It set off a frenzy of giggles in me that echoed through the room, although one glance around told me that not everyone was as entertained. One skittish student even packed up and left. The type of kids who frequented the library were still a bit uneasy having the infamous Keith McKallister in their midst.
“So mature,” I said, pushing his twitching carcass.
My lab partner had a way of easing my troubled mind. Before his flare-up, I’d been stressing hard over midterms and maternal tantrums. After his theatrics, I was smiling and breathing easier. It was hard to say why I completely relaxed around Keith, but I did. In fact I’d go so far to say I’d laughed more in those past weeks than I had in my whole life.
Shannon kept insisting I was falling for him, and although I vehemently denied it, there was no denying my crush. Keith was cute. He was funny. And he was the first boy to ever really want to know me. So yes, I had it bad, but I refused to admit it in words – not even to Shannon. Such an admission could only end in disaster because no matter how fun and flirty the boy was, he would never fall for a girl like me.
Still, that didn’t stop me from experimenting with different techniques to improve my overall appearance. Studying hair and makeup tutorials on YouTube had become an after school ritual, and I’d even started watching my calorie intake and upping my workout routine in hopes of dropping some of the extra weight I was carrying. Seven pounds were already gone, and my normally makeup-free cheeks were now dusted in a fine powder.
Not that Keith noticed. He seemed oblivious to my transformation. To him I was just a buddy – no, I wasn’t even that. Buddies acknowledged each other in public. Keith never did. Outside of the safety of the library, we were strangers, and as much as I wanted more from him, I knew it would never happen. We were just too different.
I knew where I stood – on the outside, where I’d always been. And I was okay with our friendship remaining firmly in the educational realm as long as I could stay relevant in his life. Pathetic, yes, but that was the reality of being me.
Keith lifted his head off the table. “Why do you always have to say shitty words like that?”
“Like what? Mature?”
“Yeah. We’re seventeen. This is the only time in our lives we get to be imbeciles. Embrace it.”
“Hey, you’re using the vocab words in sentences. Way to go!”
“I can’t help it. You’re a bad influence on me.”
“Some might argue I’m a good one.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t hang out with those people. Anyway, I’m not itching to be a genius. How about we just aim for functionally competent?”
Keith’s fears of becoming a genius were unwarranted. He still had a ways to go just to make the ‘utterly ordinary’ category of scholastic achievement, as evidenced by some of his recent zingers like ‘So you’re saying Egyptisn’ta religion?’ or ‘Are you trying to tell me that parallel lines never meet? How do they end?’
“You want to aimthathigh?” I teased.
He grabbed my arm and pulled me toward him, grinning that flirty smile of his. “You’re a lippy little thing today, aren’t you, babe?”
“Yes, I am. And stop calling mebabe.” I pulled my arm out of his hold.
“Why? You are a babe.”
“Not according to my mirror, I’m not.”
Keith flipped over onto his stomach. “Well, according to my eyes, you are.”
A flush crept over my cheeks. His words registered, but they didn’t make sense. Not once had he ever indicated that I qualified for babe status. Why all of the sudden was he acting weird? I slid back in my seat, away from him.
“Stop making fun of me, Keith. Now get off the table. I need to study. Unlike you, I can’t aim for ‘functional’ if I want to get into a good college back east.”
“Why can’t you just go to school in California?”
“Because it’s not far enough away from…” I stopped myself before revealing the truth behind my school choice.
That was enough to pique his interest, though, and Keith sat up on the table, tilting his head like an eager dog waiting for a bone. “Not far enough away from what?”
I looked down at my paper. “Not from what. From who.”
