Why were boys so stupid? Like, seriously? Why couldn’t they see that their literal other halves were sitting only a few chairs away from them? How could they not pick up on the energy of obsession that wafted their way? Probably because the object of my obsession was a boy who barely knew my name, let alone that I was staring at him while pretending to read.
My eyes focused on the back of his head, willing him to turn around and see me. He shifted in his seat and I ducked behind the book. You know what? On second thought, don’t look over here. I’m good at being the observer. Afterall, admiring him from afar was what I did best.
Then again, that’s all I’d been doing for a while now. It was time to do something about this situation. In fact, I’d promised my bestie, Trista, this was the year I made him fall madly in love with me. The trick, of course, was getting someone like him to notice someone like me. He was the stereotypical high school basketball jock, and I, the forgettable Plain Jane. Yes, we were a cliché of teen romance, but those stories all had happy endings, so why couldn’t it work for us?
So far, however, nothing I’d tried over the last three years had worked on sealing our fate as a couple. In eighth grade, I took copious notes, seeing what things he liked; Mountain Dew, Sour Cream and Onion Pringles, and oddly, acting, or he did for that one year, anyway. I saw him in A Midsummer Night’s Dream six times. I’m sure the other actors were lovely, but I paid no attention to them mostly because he made a beautiful Puck. He also seemed to really like popular girls. But so did Blane in Pretty in Pink and that worked out okay for Andie.
Freshman year was going to be full of promise. We were in a new school, with new teachers. It was a chance to reinvent yourself. I didn’t, but lots of kids did. That was the year I’d joined the track team because he had, even though I loathed running more than anything else in the world. I did it for him. And it worked. He noticed me. Well, tripped over me is a more accurate description, but at least he knew my name now. I’d considered my resulting broken ankle a small price to pay for name recognition.
Sophomore year, I joined the Student Council because he was running for Treasurer. A boy with a mind for being careful with money? Swoon. I had fantasies where I would be the Secretary and we’d have long meetings, just the two of us, as we hashed out the complexities of Homecoming float costs and if there should be a band or a DJ at prom. Naturally, I didn’t become the Secretary of the Student Council. That would have meant running. And making posters, buttons, shaking hands with other students, and generally being known by the rest of the student body. That wasn’t me. I was mostly invisible, which made me an ideal candidate for the student body. They didn’t need to be elected, they just had to show up to the meetings. That year in Student Council, I’d earned two nods and a ‘hey’ from my soulmate, (future husband and eventual father to our children) Josh Allen Gavin.
I was now in my Junior year which meant it was time to do or die. The way things were heading, Josh was likely going to an Ivy League school on a sports scholarship and I, while being book smart, was a state school kid at best. Which meant I only had two years to convince Josh that I was his destiny. I needed to be big, bold, and bodacious, and convince Josh Gavin to ask me to the Junior prom at the end of the school year. Only Juniors and their dates could attend. It was like a pre-prom and it had been my dream to go with Josh ever since I first laid eyes on him three fateful years ago.
August 15, 2016. A date etched in my heart. I was outside, determined to tan my pale white skin into something less unintentionally goth, when I saw the moving van. Someone had bought the Hinckley house. At first, I watched with the general nosiness of a neighbor sizing up the newcomers. I’d procured the best place to watch through my mirrored sunglasses as he carried box after box to and from the house. I noticed how he worked alongside his mom and younger brother (by about two minutes). Yes, he was a twin. Not identical, unfortunately. How epic would it be if two Josh Gavins existed?
While I watched them, I noticed there was no father helping, so I deduced that he had died. (Actually, their dad was stationed overseas that summer, but then later died of a heart attack, so I had sort of predicted the future.) The heat of the morning was of particular note that day. I remember being ready to go in because it was too hot to gawk anymore. However, it was in that serendipitous moment my world flipped upside down. For that was when I saw Josh Gavin take off his shirt.
To be clear, I’d seen guys without their shirts off before, that wasn’t anything shocking, but there was something transcendent about the way he did it. Reaching his hand behind his neck, balling up the fabric and yanking it over his head, and wiping his brow with it before tucking it in his back pocket. Could anyone be more perfect? And no, it had nothing to do with his abs or anything, because honestly, back then, he was a scrawny boy with glasses. But at that moment, when he wiped his brow…I saw the real Josh Gavin. He was a hard worker. He had integrity. He sent the others in to rest and finished the load himself because he was awesome like that. The fact that I loved him even before he got contacts and turned into a Hottie McHotterton had to mean something, right?
It was on that summer day, I started to plan out a future with Joshua Gavin. It started with the Junior Prom, then Prom senior year. After that, it was easy. We’d graduate and move to whatever city he was going to college in. I would land a job that would mesh with our schedules, cook him all his favorite meals (after I learned how to cook better) and once he graduated college, we’d announce our engagement, have our wedding in Morocco and a honeymoon in Greece, before we settled down into a nice Tudor style house in the suburbs. It was all mapped out; all except the convincing him to ‘fall in love with me’ part.
“Alright class, in a moment, you’re going to pair up again with your writing partners,” Ms. Grove said from the front of the room. She was leaning against her wooden desk that had seen some abuse over the years. Behind her, was a whiteboard full of neatly written instructions, which no one besides me likely bothered to read. “Before you move,” she went on, thwarting the attempts to get up, “I want you to consider the theme of the short story you’re writing. You’ll each read your story to your partner. The task? Can your writing partner clearly pick up your theme? If not, then your theme is probably not strong enough.”
“Ms. Grove,” I heard a voice call out that I’d memorized, and I smiled.
“Yes, Josh?”
“Can you explain what you mean by theme again, like one more time? I think I got it, but I maybe don’t, ya know?”
Eloquent, he was not. I’d work on that with him.
Ms. Grove closed her eyes then folded her hands gently, almost as though she were counting to ten. “It’s alright Josh. We’ve only been working on this for the past four days.” She gave him a tight smile. “Theme is the moral of the story. What do you want your reader to learn with your words? Look on the board. Forgiveness, love, acceptance, etc.,” she said, pointing to the graphic that listed the ten most common themes in fiction.
Another hand shot up. “So, like, the theme of The Hunger Games is, Survival?”
Ms. Grove nodded, “Yes, but as the series goes on, that theme changes, doesn’t it?”
There are a few nods by kids who’d actually read the books, and blank stares from the ones who hadn’t. Josh seemed just as confused about theme as when he asked the question.
“My theme is Acceptance of Self, which I determined is the hardest of all the themes to accomplish,” Mathew Ryder proclaimed without anyone asking. I held back a laugh. Only in Mathew’s world was accepting who you were harder than not dying at the hand of your peers. There was no point arguing with him, however, because he’d have a rebuttal every time. He thrived on getting the last word. Ms. Grove was always telling him he should be a lawyer.
“That’s subjective, Mathew, but I don’t want you to tell me your theme. I want to see if your partner can figure it out based on what is written.” She turned her attention to Josh. As did I. “Does that help any?”
“Um, yeah, sure, I guess,” he said.
“Have your partner read first. Maybe that will help,” she said, her body language conveying she was fighting the clock to get this done. “Okay, using the last fifteen minutes of class, read your stories to each other. Listeners, your job is to determine the theme. Then swap. Go.”
There was the rustle of chairs as people moved into their pairing. I sat still watching Josh as he and his partner, Ted, pushed their chairs together. Ted obscured the square line of Josh’s jaw, but I could still see his thick waves of short dark hair bouncing over Ted’s oversized head.
“Hey, Heather, you got a little drool on your chin,” Trista whispered beside me. I envied Trista’s name with a passion. She was the only Trista in the school, where I was one of seventeen Heathers. Two in this class alone. Trista was unique. Flaming red hair, edgy clothing, and gorgeous personality. She stood out in a crowd while I hid out in her shadow.
“Not drool,” I said, turning my attention to her, “just abject adoration of my future husband.”
Trista smirked. “My theme, in case she asks, is about the fear of dying.” She leaned in, pretending to read her paper, but instead, she carried on a conversation with me through her paper.
“Today’s the day you’re gonna talk to him,” she announced. “Today is the day you conquer your fear and talk to him.”
“Oh, I’m not afraid of talking to him.”
Trista looked up from her paper and frowned at me.
“I’m afraid that once he starts a conversation with me, he’ll have no choice but fall head over heels with me, which would force me to leave you behind as we go off on all of our many adventures together.”
“What? I’m not invited to Morocco?”
I rested my chin on the palm of my hand and sighed, swooning at Josh over her shoulder. “I may not even be invited if I don’t get my butt in gear and talk to him already.”
“That’s why today is the day,” Trista said, smacking me on the arm like her older brothers did to her. I tried not to wince. Trista had grown up in a sea of boys, (all of whom are in college or married now) so she was oblivious to superficial pain, whereas I could bruise just walking close to a door.
“Hey, easy on the wimpy flesh,” I said, rubbing my arm. “And I was thinking today could be more of a reconnaissance mission.”
“Heather, you’ve been on that mission for years. You know every single detail about him. And because I’m your best friend, now I do too. It’s time to do or die.”
I knew she was right. My gut, however, was a coward. My whole life hinged on our going to the end of the year dance with him. The whole trajectory was blown if he didn’t give me the time of day, so it was kind of a big deal.
“If you don’t talk to him, I’ll do it for ya,” she taunted.
“And that is how you lost your invite to Morocco.”
Ms. Grove came by then, forcing Trista to pretend to read her story. “As she stood on the sidewalk, she looked over her shoulder for the love of her life. The tall jock with the square jaw,” she said, winking at me. I rolled my eyes at her. I knew her story wasn’t about a boy. She’d read it to me last night. It was about drowning, very dark, but that was the sort of thing she liked.
Trista was brilliantly twisted and could pull a plot out of thin air. She was gifted like that. And in so many other ways. Trista was my exact opposite. She was creative in ways I never could be and so funny. Throw in that she had long, cascading waves of red hair, the kind of boobs that boys noticed, and could make friends with everyone, and you had a literal perfect girl. If I had one shred of the confidence she had, I’d be set for life. That was so not me, though. I was the tiny moon that orbited around her general awesomeness. By contrast, I wasn’t outgoing or creative. I kept to myself for the most part. Even my hair was boring. Brown and basic, no real chest to speak of, and zero friends outside of Trista. Being Trista’s best friend was about as close to being unique as I ever would be. I often wondered why she chose me to be her best friend when she clearly could have been in any social circle she wanted.
We’d been best friends since kindergarten, plus she lived a block away, so we were always together. So, maybe it was loyalty? She said once she liked the challenges I presented. She enjoyed finding ways to get the turtle to come out of the shell.
“So, what are you going to say to him?” Trista whispered as the bell rang.
“I have no idea.” My eyes flicked to Josh as he flung his backpack over his shoulder and punched Ted in the arm playfully. Oh, to be on the receiving end of one of those love taps. I sighed.
“We’ll talk wording options at lunch, scaredy-cat,” Trista said wiggling her eyebrows.
“I’m not a scaredy-cat,” I muttered.
“Sure you are, but that’s why I love ya. Follow me and I’ll tell you my most epic of plans.”
Her ‘most epic of plans’ would be insane, that much I knew, but I followed after her because that’s what moons do.
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