Every time she did a lab in chemistry, it was hard for her to concentrate. Her love interest sat next to her every time and that did nothing to help her thought processes. The friend sitting diagonally to the left knew about how she felt about him but the girl across from her had no idea.
That was the only reason she could come up with to explain why the girl insisted on bringing up a matter that crushed her every time.
It first started in a subtle way, when the girl who sat diagonally from her was absent.
“So my sister said she overheard you telling another guy that you liked someone on the bus going home from practice,” the girl said casually as the boy brought a few bottles of chemicals to the black-topped lab table.
Her heart throbbed as he said nonchalantly, “Yeah.”
“Jamie?” the girl asked to confirm, watching him carefully.
He simply nodded his head and she glanced over at the girl who worked at a lab table four down. She thought she was going to cry and fought back the tears.
She had always suspected that he liked her, but didn’t like to think about it too much because it hurt. Yet she never would have thought the subject would be breeched while she was standing next to him. She might as well have been invisible like she appeared to be in many other classes, where kids didn’t even know her name after the seven months school had been in session.
As soon as the bell rang, she almost ran out to tell her friend so she could be relieved of her sadness, even if only by a small amount.
She tried to forget him. She was sad for a few days, and then that sadness transformed into quiet anger. She knew she couldn’t be mad at Jamie since it wasn’t her fault and she sometimes talked to her. So she resorted to being mad at Heath. There was no reason behind her anger, but she couldn’t deal with keeping all that anger held inside her on top of the stress of three hours of dance after three and a half hours of rehearsal for the drama club’s musical.
After a few more days, she knew that she had to stop liking him. But every time she passed him in the halls or he passed her something needed for a lab, her heart skipped a beat and she looked away.
When she didn’t think about him for almost a month, she thought she was finally over him.
“So do you still like Jamie?” the girl who sat across from her at the lab table asked him curiously when there were only a few days left of school before finals.
She paused in writing the name of an organic compound and listened intently.
He nodded.
Her heart thudded painfully in her chest.
“Are you gonna ask her out soon?” the girl asked him.
“Soon,” the boy said.
Her eyes burned and she knew that the tears would come soon. She thought she was over him. Her churning stomach and burning eyes and throbbing heart said otherwise.
She finished writing the name of the organic acid as if nothing had happened. She thought she saw the friend who sat diagonally across from her glance at her quickly, but she couldn’t be sure. She knew her facial expression had changed dramatically from the smile she wore minutes previously.
But he could never know how she felt.