I spent all of class staring at the back of Karla’s head, wondering why this girl—who hardly liked me—liked me enough to make me special tea so I’d feel better.
I felt like calling her beautiful again, but I didn’t.
Public, not personal, Ash.
But she was beautiful, the kind of beautiful that most people overlooked. My brother would’ve noticed it, though. Rian would’ve taken a million photographs of her, and they would’ve been my favorite pictures that he’d ever taken.
***
After class, I gathered up my items, moving a bit slower than normal. Karla beat me out of the classroom and looked in my direction. She smiled a little. “It’s kind of nice to have someone moving slower than I do,” she half-joked.
I cleared my throat before almost coughing up another lung. I tossed two cough drops into my mouth. “Everything hurts and I feel like I’m dying,” I complained. She laughed at me.
Shelaughedat me.
It sounded so good, too. I kind of hoped she’d laugh at me some more.
“Welcome to the club,” she said, nudging me. She touched me.
Shetouchedme!
That felt even better than her laugh. My whole body warmed from the slight touch.Whoa.I hadn’t felt that feeling before.
I’d dated two girls at my old school, but they never made my stomach flip like Karla just had. The other two girls were nice. They were pretty, too, like Karla. But I never felt tingling from their touches. I never felt as if I wanted the touch to linger. I never felt the urge to hug them, or to talk to them all the time. They didn’t stay on my mind after we stopped hanging out.
It was different with Karla. Whenever she wasn’t around, she was at the forefront of my mind. When we were together, I wished that she’d nudge me or accidentally brush up against me again and again.
“Where do you go for lunch?” I asked as we walked in the direction of Karla’s locker.
“What?”
“You haven’t been back to the cafeteria since Colton was a dick. Do you go to the cemetery to eat or something? Because I will join you for picnics in the cemetery if that’s what you’re into.”
“You’re so weird, Ash,” she said.
“Thank you,” I said playfully. She laughed again. “So...?” I asked.
“I don’t go to the cemetery. I’d never make it back without being late to class. I just go sit with... a friend.”
I arched an eyebrow. “A friend?”
“Yes. A friend.”
“A better friend than me?”
“No. Just a different kind of friend. An older, more mature friend.”
I paused my footsteps. “You’re eating with a teacher, aren’t you?”
“What? Pshh. No. That would be so uncool,” she said a little too nonchalantly.
I pointed a stern finger her way. “Yes, you are! Which teacher?”
“I’m not telling you,” she replied as she kept on to her locker.
I caught myself moving a little faster than her.
I slowed my steps.
