Blinded By Love: Loving My Best Friend's Crush

I was about to humiliate myself for Giselle Lyons in the middle of the cafeteria. Again. The drawing was burning a hole in the pocket of my jeans. I could feel the sweat from my palm bleeding through the folds. Forty-five minutes of Biology. Mr. Davis talking about cell division, mitosis, mitosis, mitosis, and me dividing my notebook page into a full-blown tragedy. A lion. With a crown that was too big for its head. Holding a heart with both paws. Inside the heart, in my best handwriting which still looked like a fifth grader trying too hard, I had written G. LYONS. I had erased the heart three times. The paper was thin there now. The whole school thought Prince Lyon and Giselle Lyons were already married. It wasn't just the last name. It was the way teachers called attendance. "Lyons, Giselle? Lyons, Prince?" Like we were a set. Like we came together. Like we matched. We had the same lunch table since seventh grade. Back corner, by the window that never closed right and let in cold air even in June. Me, Giselle, and Cassandra Jacobs. Giselle's best friend. My... I didn't know what I was to Giselle anymore. Her other best friend? Her background character? Giselle was already at the table when I got there. Braids over one shoulder, that new lip gloss that made her smile look shiny and wet. She was scrolling, thumb moving fast, bottom lip tucked in. That meant she was waiting. Jordan from varsity hadn't texted her all morning. He'd posted on his story an hour ago — Chick-fil-A with the team — but he hadn't texted her. So she was in that waiting mode where nothing else existed. Which meant I had maybe a ten-minute window before my entire day was ruined. Cassandra Jacobs saw me first. She always sees first. "You look like you're going to throw up, Lyons," she said, without even looking up from her lunch. Glasses low on her nose, actually eating her sandwich instead of taking pictures of it. "If this is another Giselle thing, please don't." "I'm not going to throw up," I said, sitting down across from them. My usual spot. "You have your face," she said. "What face?" "Your Prince-I'm-about-to-do-something-embarrassing-and-I-know-it face. It's very specific. Eyebrows too high, mouth too tight. Scientifically documented. I've been documenting it since seventh grade." Giselle finally looked up from her phone and gave Cassandra a look. "Don't bully him, Cass." "I'm not bullying, I'm observing," Cassandra said. "It's for science." Her eyes flicked down to my pocket. Where my hand was still shoved in, clenched around the paper. She knew. Of course she knew. My heart was beating so loud I was sure the next table could hear it. I pulled it out. The paper was damp and warm. I had folded it twice, trying to make it look like a secret letter and not like a sweaty Biology notebook page. "Giselle, I made you something." Cassandra made a small sound next to her. Not mean. More like a quiet _oh no._ Giselle took the paper from me. Her nails were painted light pink. She unfolded it carefully. I watched her eyes move — crown, mane, paws, heart, G. LYONS. For a second, there was nothing. Just the noise of the cafeteria, trays clattering, someone laughing too loud two tables over. Then that smile. That soft, nice, universal smile she gives teachers and lunch ladies and little kids who wave at her in the hallway. "Prince," she said, gentle. "That's so cute. You're so talented." Cute. Talented. The two words that mean _never in a million years._ The two words you put on a kid's fridge art before you throw it away when he's not looking. She turned it around so Cassandra could see, holding it by the corner like it might smudge. "Look, Cass. He drew a lion for me. Because Lyons. Get it? Prince Lyon drew a Lyon. Isn't that clever?" Cassandra didn't do the soft smile. She leaned in and took the paper out of Giselle's hand. Not rude. Like she was rescuing it. She actually studied it. Her eyebrows pulled together, that serious line she gets when she's actually thinking. "The mane is anatomically incorrect," she announced. "It looks like headphones. You put hair on the side like a human. Lions don't have side hair. And why is it holding a heart? Lions don't hold hearts, Prince. They eat them. Or step on them. They definitely don't cradle them like a baby." "Cassandra!" Giselle said, but she was already laughing, that shiny lip gloss laugh. "What? It's true," Cassandra said, dead serious. "If you're going to do romantic symbolism, at least be biologically accurate. Otherwise it's just lying." "It's supposed to be romantic, not accurate," I muttered. My face was hot. I could feel my ears turning red. "It's not a nature documentary." "Romance should still have correct anatomy," she insisted. "Otherwise what's the point?" Then her voice dropped a little, and she looked at me properly. "You spent all of Biology on this, didn't you?" "All of it." "Mr. Davis is going to fail you," she said. "You know that, right?" "I know cell division," I said. "Cells divide. That's literally it." For the first time, she snorted. An actual snort. Giselle never snorted. Giselle giggled. Cassandra snorted and didn't even apologize for it. "You know what," she said, her finger hovering over the heart I had shaded for twenty minutes. Her own nail polish was chipped, light blue, half peeled off. "You actually tried to shade this. That's hard to do. And you spelled Lyons right. Most people spell it with an 'i'." Before I could say thank you, Giselle's phone buzzed. Loud. It vibrated against the table. The screen lit up. JORDAN 🏀 Her whole face changed. It was instant. Like someone turned a light on behind her eyes, like someone plugged her back in. "Oh my God, he finally texted!" she gasped, already standing up, chair screeching loud against the tile. "He got Chick-fil-A! He's outside, he wants me to come out and eat with him!" She grabbed her phone, her bag, and was gone. She didn't take her tray. She didn't take her apple she wasn't going to eat. She didn't take my lion. She left it on the table, next to her tray, right where a ketchup packet was leaking. That was how I knew. That was my answer. The table felt ten feet wide with just me and Cassandra. Cassandra watched the cafeteria doors swing shut behind Giselle. The doors kept swinging for a second after she was gone. Then she looked at me, then at the drawing slowly getting closer to the ketchup. Without a word, she picked it up before the red could touch it. She smoothed out my bad, sweaty folds and refolded it. Better folds. Neater, sharper corners. Like it was actually important. She unzipped the front pocket of her backpack. The tiny one she calls her "important documents" pocket. She keeps old hall passes and hair ties and a lucky penny in there. "You know she doesn't like you like that, right?" she said. Her voice wasn't cruel. It was low. Like she was telling me something she didn't want the next table to hear. Like a secret between us. "If you knew, you would stop drawing her lions that hold hearts. You would stop making yourself feel bad on purpose." "I'm not making myself feel bad." "You're sitting at a table watching the girl you like leave to meet another guy while holding a drawing she called cute," she said. "How does that feel?" It felt tight. Like my chest was too small for my lungs. She slid the drawing into that pocket and zipped it shut. "It's not bad, Prince," she said quietly, tapping the pocket where my lion now lived. "You shaded the heart right. You tried. It's just for the wrong person." The bell rang. Loud. Lunch over. Chairs scraping, trays clattering, hallway chaos starting. Cassandra stood up, swinging her backpack over her shoulder. My lion was in there, safe in the important pocket. "Come on," she said. "Practice in ten. Coach is going to make you run laps if you're late again, Lyons." She said Lyons like it was just my name. Not like it belonged with Giselle's. Not like we were a set. And I followed her out of the cafeteria. Because she was the only one still at the table. And because somewhere between the ketchup and the crooked crown, I realized I wasn't upset that Giselle left. I was upset that Cassandra had to watch me watch her leave.