Food, Cats, and Being Lazy

Chapter Nine

I lied. Life could definitely get better. It could get much much better. It could get so much better that my heart might actually explode out of my chest.

I waited in the stairwell for Lara to meet me at lunch, and when she did she seemed even more excited than she normally did. In fact, she was never excited about anything. She would show up, sit down, and we’d eat lunch. But instead she barged in, looked at me, and said, “You’re not going to believe what I just heard.”

I was sitting on the bottom step with half a sandwich in my mouth.

“What?” I replied. She sat down beside me.

“I heard from my friend Rebecca in second period that Collin Denver broke up with his girlfriend.” I choked. No lie. I coughed and she had to pat my back a few times to stop me from dying in the stairwell.

“You’re joking?” I said when I could breathe again.

“No, not at all. Apparently they got into a huge fight yesterday and he broke up with her. She wasn’t going to come to school today, but everyone told her to come because it would make her look weak if she didn’t. But she spent all of first period crying. I heard the soccer team was out on the field today. Did you see him?” I nodded.

“Yeah, I saw him.”

“How did he look?” Beautiful. Gorgeous. Sexy.

“Normal.”

“Well, he’s taking it a lot better than she is, I guess. She apparently had to borrow mascara from your sister because she keeps crying it all off.” She pulled her backpack to herself and began to pull her lunch out.

“He talked to me,” I said. She looked up.

“He what?” she asked. I nodded.

“Yesterday I was walking down the hall during math and he passed me. He said, ‘What’s up?’ and then today I had to run the track because I got in trouble for not paying attention. And when he finished up he came over to me and gave me his Gatorade because he said I looked dehydrated. He called me Pip.”

“Pip? That’s probably the cutest nickname I’ve ever heard.”

“Yeah. Well, apparently that’s what Vincent calls me. But that’s beside the point. The point is that Collin not only spoke to me but obviously speaks ABOUT me to his friends.”

“Oh my God. What if he asks you out?” I scoffed.

“Like that would ever happen.” But oh God, how I hoped it did.

“That would be so romantic. Like that one movie with Rachel Leigh Cook. Or that other one with Hilary Duff.”

“I was thinking about the Hilary Duff movie too. But really. Me? I highly doubt it. He’d probably ask you out before he’d ever ask me. I look like Peter Pan, remember?”

“Yeah, but you’re Pip. I’m just—Lara.”

I went back to my sandwich, trying to be calm about the situation. Collin who? Psh. I don’t care that he broke up with Hannah “I’m too pretty for your company.”

But on the inside I was screaming and singing the Hallelujah chorus and coming up with multiple different ways that Collin could ask me out that would be so cute and perfect and oh my GOD. I was going to have a heart attack. What if he actually did ask me out? How would I handle it? I couldn’t be cool. I was never cool. I’d probably faint or cry or do that squeaking thing my mom hates even though she does it too.

I really needed to figure this out just in case it happened for real.