love me at my worst

CHAPTER TWO

The fluorescent lights hummed overhead as Emily packed her notebook with deliberate slowness, waiting for the classroom to empty. Twelve years at River High had taught her this: how to fold into herself so completely she became part of the furniture.

Across the room, Adam Smith lounged against the doorframe, his broad shoulders blocking the exit as he scrolled through his phone. Senior year had stretched him taller, sharpened his jawline, turned his once-messy hair into something artfully disheveled. The kind of boy who looked like he'd stepped out of a black-and-white photograph - all stark contrasts and like the deep end of a swimming pool. One second of contact that sent her pulse skittering.

Then it happened again.

A flick of his eyes. Dark blue, like the deep end of a swimming pool. One second of contact that sent her pulse skittering.

Making Emily drop her pen

By the time she looked up, Adam was gone, leaving only the faint scent of leather and wintergreen in his wake.

Emily stabbed at her salad, the croutons she'd painstakingly counted now soggy in the dressing.

"You're quiet today." Her mother didn't look up from chopping vegetables. "Everything okay"

Just obsessing over a boy who's never given me more than two seconds of his attention in twelve years. "Fine," Emily muttered. "Trig test tomorrow." Upstairs in her room, she opened the bottom drawer of her desk. Beneath old math tests and half-filled journals lay the relic: a faded "Happy 7th Birthday!" card signed in messy crayon.

To Emily,

Happy Birthday.

Adam

She traced the uneven letters. First grade. Back when Adam still knew her name. Back when he'd been the boy who shared his crayons when hers broke, who'd stood up to Tommy when he stole her pudding cup at lunch. Before the Smiths moved to the big house on Ridge Road. Before varsity hockey and honor society and the revolving door of perfect girlfriends. Before she became Emily Jacob the quiet fat girl who blended into the lockers.

Her phone buzzed. A Snapchat notification from Jessica a group selfie with Adam's arm slung casually around her shoulders, captioned "Senior skip day plans? "

Emily threw her phone face down on the bed.

This was pathetic. She was seventeen, not seven. Adam Smith hadn't been "that" boy in a decade.

Yet...

That glance today hadn't felt like indifference. It had felt like...

Recognition

Emily grabbed her calculus textbook with unnecessary force. She needed to stop this. In eight months, she'd be at State, and Adam would be at some Ivy League school, and this stupid childhood crush would finally die the quiet death it deserved.

The textbook fell open to a folded piece of paper tucked between pages. A note from last week's study session:

"You're the only one who actually gets this s**t. M"

Mark from study group. Nice, smart, saw her Mark. She stared at the note, then at the birthday card. Two versions of herself reflected in boys' eyes

the girl worth knowing, and the girl worth forgetting.