After about an hour of staring at the send button Conner made a snap decision and pressed cancel. How exactly did you reply to “Ok, we can try.”? What does that even mean? Should he ask her out? Does she think that he already did? Sometimes girls can be so confusing.

Glancing at the clock he realized that 2 o’clock actually did happen twice a day. He slapped the laptop closed and decided to get some sleep.

Twenty minutes of winkless darkness later, he got back up. What to say? What to do? Why am I asking myself all these questions?

He sat down at his desk and stared at the books that lay in great heaps, some ancient relics passed down throughout the family line, a book on cooking, and a journal. Out of habit he took the journal and flipped it to the last page. Several entries were scrawled out across the sheet, mostly just silly stuff, but then there was the last entry, “Alright, I’m giving Mira the poem today, and whatever she says, I’m going to take it like a man, no hiding in the bathroom, no dodging the subject, and don’t do anything stupid.”

Well, that was a relief, he hadn’t left a single rule unbroken. Maybe he could make up for some lost time.

He opened up his laptop, loaded facebook, and wrote Mira a message, “Sorry for that awkward moment, how about I make it up to you over dinner this friday?”

The blue backlight of the laptop shone in his face as he stared at the message, simple, sweet, basic, it would do the trick. Without thinking twice, he pushed send.

***

Morning found his face squished to the keys with drool running down his cheek. The alarm blared. BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! There was no way to escape, no way to avoid the day’s tribulations. He slammed his fist down on the alarm, hoping that with the end of the noise his troubles would end too, but there was no such luck, his thoughts still tasted of mystery.

Conner leaned up, stretched out his muscles, and glanced at the clock. his eyes grew wide, “Eight o’clock!” he shouted to himself, “I’m going to be late for school!” Conner raced time itself now, brushing his teeth, grabbing a pop-tart, and hoping that through some stroke of luck he could make it to school on time.

He blared down the steps and out the door. He had to move faster! He glanced at his watch, 8:10, it was a ten minute bike ride, he could barely make it in time.

Pedals blazed that day, running in the hall was no longer banned, all that mattered was time!

Conner shot through the school doors and blared past the secretary’s office. The door to his first period class was jammed! What to do? What to do? He pulled harder and harder! It wouldn’t budge!

The janitor walked up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder. “What on earth are you doing? I get enough of you trouble makers during the week, now on Saturdays too?”

Conner crumpled to the ground, all of that racing for nothing. “Sorry sir,” he apologized, “I’ll be going now.” The janitor glared at him as he went, and after a while returned to his mopping.

He made his way back home, constantly thinking of two things, his stupidity in asking out Mira, and his stupidity in going to school on saturday. Apparently he was just plain stupid, but hey, who said you have to be smart to be lucky?

As Conner pried open his laptop he saw that Facebook was still open, and there was a little 1 above the mail icon, Mira had written him back.

The message was one of despair, of loss, of cruelty, and of many more words that fit that same category, it simply said, “Hey Conner, I don’t think it’s going to work out.”

Conner’s cries echoed in that room for the next two days, no amount of ice cream, cookie dough, or cheesy romantic comedies could ease his pain. Mira was gone, and there was nothing he could do. He couldn’t beg, he couldn’t fight, there was no way to reclaim her, and he could only see himself to blame.

Perhaps if he hadn’t hidden, maybe if the poem hadn’t been so desperate, maybe she would have gone out with him.

Monday rolled around, and the bus rolled on to the street. He would be strong though, he wouldn’t show any weakness, he would be the coolest kid in school. Like that would ever happen. Conner refused to cry, but not once did he crack a smile that day. It seemed as though the entire school knew of his failure. He received pats on the backs and “Good try”s from some of the guys, but it was mainly just laughs.

The week began to fade, but the whispers never did, some day they would drive him crazy. Wednesday passed like Tuesday, and Monday before it, however, there was one slight difference. Conner was lounging in the hall, reading a book and trying to take his mind off of Mira, when an average girl with glasses, freckles and an armload of books tripped over his biology homework. Pages flew everywhere, a pencil nearly impaled Conner’s hand as a textbook crushed his toes.

“I’m so sorry!” she cried, picking up pages and books, “are you all right?”

Conner bent down and helped her pick up her belongings, “I don’t think anything’s missing, you O.K.?”

She smiled, “Everything’s here.” she took a double take, “Hey, you’re the kid who wrote that poem for Mira, aren’t you?”

Conner caught his breath, “Yeah, that’d be me.”

“What'd she say?”

It was a moment before Conner could answer, “Apparently she thought it wouldn’t work out.”

The girl finished picking up her things and stood back up, “I’m Lilly,” she told him, “sorry to hear that, I thought your poem was great, and I know I would have gone out with you if that poem had been for me.”

Conner just stood there a moment, then smiled, then shot out of his shoes as the bell screamed at him that it was time to go to class.

“Hey, I’ll talk to you later,” Lilly said, “Do you have a Facebook?”

Conner picked up his Biology, “Yeah, talk to you later.”

“What just happened?” Conner thought, “am I seriously that lucky?” U.S. History was all lectures, so he had plenty of time to think. “Lilly... She was actually kind of cute in a way. The long brown streams of hair framed her face with a kind of fluid beauty. She wasn’t stunning, but the freckles on her face mirrored the stars, her dark green eyes reminded him of the forest, and her pinkish lips were the color of a midsummer sunset. She was sweet too, not cruel, not teasing, just sweet, like a whole grain cracker, pleasant, gentle, and it went well with a little bit of cheesy poems. Perhaps Mira hadn’t been a total waste of time after all.

Click. Click. Click. The quarter tapped against Conner's desk with all the urgency of molasses on a cold day, but behind his eyes, the boy was deep in thought. What was a kid to do? On one side he had the gorgeous redhead who'd left him for dead, and on the other he had a shy wildflower who was slyly leading him on. But Lilly really was more his type, not hot enough to burn him, but still beautiful in a gentle way. She wasn't sickeningly sweet, but her laugh sounded of chimes on a breezy day. As for her sanity, she seemed… generally ok, definitely interesting though. He flipped the quarter through the air. Heads he had a chance with this Lilly, tails it was going to be the same sad story. The coin span through the air, making delicate arks and spirals, adjusting itself to fit fate's fancies. Conner snapped the coin out of the air, "This is no way to make a decision," he thought.

Sitting down at his desk he took out a sheet of paper and drew a line down the middle. On one side of the paper he wrote, "She loves me," and on the other, "She loves me not".

On the first side he started making a list, she liked his poem, she was nice to him, she smiled a lot, she even said she would go out with him if he felt that way about her. He moved his pencil to the other side of the paper. A storm of thoughts crossed his mind, but not one of them was true, he couldn't think of one reason she wouldn't say yes if he asked her out.

In his thinking he flipped his coin through the air, it span a couple of times, shifted once or twice, and landed on the desk, heads up.

Glancing down at the silver disk Conner saw George Washington's face looking back at him. He prayed a silent thank you, threw the paper away, and prepared his plan.

***

She's carrying her books cradled in her arms, talking to a friend, one hand gestures to some invisible thing, a smile crosses her face, and she pushes a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Of course it happened much faster than it took to read it, but to Conner it was an eternity of thoughts.

Lilly's friends started to fade away when they saw him, giggling as they went, Connor had no idea whether that was a good thing, or if it was because they pitied him.

"So…" mumbled Connor.

Lilly smiled, "So?"

Lilly smiling caused Connor to smile, and when Connor smiled Lilly giggled, which in turn made Connor nervous again.

"So I was wondering if you had a date to the dance?" Connor asked, almost too quickly for Lilly to understand.

"Are you asking?"

"Are you accepting?"

They both erupted into laughter, Connor's was mostly nerves though.

"Sure," she replied, "the dance is on the twelfth, right?"

"Yeah"

"I'll see you around then," Lilly smiled, waved, and vanished.

It was February twelfth 2011, the night of the winter formal/Valentine's day dance. Over the hill the sun was quickly setting, and if you looked around, one could see birds swimming through the air, looking for a good dinner.

Dinner was, of course, the last thing on Connor's mind right now. His current problem was figuring out what on Earth he was going to wear. Normally he just grabbed a nice shirt and some pants for these occasions, but this was different, this was a night that could change his life. For the first time he had actually asked a girl out, not as a friend, to a dance, and she had said yes. Things were going good for the moment, but he had this feeling that at any moment his large amount of good luck would run out. At last he chose a Navy blue button-up shirt, and some black slacks, nothing too bright, dark colors went good with anything.

The car ride was silent, he had shut off the radio so that he could think about what to say, these things had to be important, right? He searched his head for something cool , something that would make her laugh. Nothing came to mind.

When he finally arrived at the little dance hall type building there were already a few car's there, he noted Lilly's and was hoping that she hadn't been waiting too long.

Sprinting to the entrance he was looking for her, and at last he saw her. She was wearing a dark blue dress, with elbow length sleeves, a small gold heart necklace, and as he got closer he saw the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, she was smiling.

He walked closer, trying to be cool and elegant, he would take her by the arm, walk to the lady taking money, and take Lilly inside. However, he tripped. His nose hit the ground first, leaving a small stream of blood running down his face. Sitting up, he pinched his nose shut, and when he stood up, Lilly was right there next to him, holding out a tissue, and softly giggling.

That night not one thought of Mira crossed Connor's mind, except when she tried to steal him from Lilly, and his only thought then was, "I think I agree with you now, we probably wouldn't have worked out." He stood by his partner, told Mira she could have any single guy she wanted, but he was taken. At this Lilly smiled, hugged Connor, and grabbed his hand.

That night was the beginning of the rest of their lives.