stepped out onto the gym, and assuming no one was there, shaked out my hair and ran my hands through it so the curls I put into it would look sexier than normal, because, you know: doesn’t it look so hot to have amazing thick curly hair blowing behind you as you run and block people? It feels great, too. I smiled happily also and skipped to the end of squad three and sat down. I sang a little song in my head about how much I absolutely love love LOVED gym class: Oh, I’m in gym Pasqua’s a very very happy person! Time to play some rugby!

As I sang my little song in my head, I noticed a sign of movement and turned to see someone I hadn’t expected to be there.

I started freaking out.Oh my god that hot new guy just saw me do stupid things and shake out my hair! Is he going to think I’m strange, weird, stupid, or worse yet... Cheerleader like? Oh god, please no.

I continued my freaking out all throughout exercises and freaked out even more when he got put into our rugby team. He sat down next to some guy I knew and they started talking, but Mr.Perfect occasionally glanced my way. I thought I was going to vomit. I didn’t like it when people thought bad of me!

After my gym teacher assigned us the flag color, field, and team we were going to play against, I grabbed a red belt and ran outside, noticing the whole time that the new guys gaze never lingered away from me. Creepy!

We got to our field and Mr.Perfect kicked off, the ball sailing in a perfect arch and landing in the opponents hands, exactly how it was supposed to. Wow. That took some skill, and he had what I loved in a guy: athletic abilities. I couldn’t help but stare at him, dumbstruck by his skills. I don’t think he noticed though, because his gaze never left the rugby ball, and was planning what to do next.

The opposite team started running with the ball, and I deftly intercepted them. Guess who complimented me? Oh wait, you would already know.

The game kept going, and I kept effortlessly intercepting most of the players, the others the new guy would take down. Mr.Perfect complimented me more than once, something that guys never do. He also got two goals for us, without getting intercepted at all! No one had ever gotten a goal without going down from any of the teams we played against!

Finally, the game ended, us winning two to nothing. I shyly went up to Ahmed (that was his name) and said, “Great job Ahmed,” and got a feel of his hand as I gave him a high five. He was so nice, too, saying “Thank you” and “you too”. I felt like I had done something super spectacular, even though it was really nothing amazing. When we got back into the gym, I ran as fast as I could to the locker room and started telling my friends Tilly, Kyleigh and Ryna everything that had happened. Even though they were really happy for me because they knew about how no guys were after super kind to me, they warned me against Ahmed’s actions.

“Pasqua, just to warn you so your heart doesn’t get broken, it doesn’t mean Ahmed likes you. Maybe it means he wants to be friends,” Kyliegh told me.

I knew that, and I relieved her by telling her that I wouldn’t set too high of hopes for me and Ahmed being together.

Boy was I wrong about the high hopes statement that I made, which I broke the next day.

About a week after that little “introductory” rugby game, my gym teacher decided to let us take a break from the love sport and she introduced to a variation of dodgeball: the titanic.

Now, playing the game was quite simple. Each team has two people wearing flag football belts, 5 bowling pins, 2 footballs, a jail and some dodge balls. The object of the game is to knock all of the opposites teams pins over. The twist though is if someone gets hit by a dodgeball from the opposite team, they go to their jail. Your team has to throw a football at you and if you catch it, you can go back to your side. The two people with the flag belts are allowed to run to the other team, steal one of their pins and bring it back to their side without getting their flag pulled. I know it sounds quite confusing, but it gets easier as you progress with the game.

Me and this girl from our team were picked first to wear the flag belts. We pulled them on, and ran multiple times to the other team and stole a lot of their pins. We always ran back unharmed and helped our team out by throwing the dodge balls and blocking the pins so the other team couldn’t knock them over. I got complimented by you know who a few times during the game.

Our team won the game, and we were all like, yay go us, and all that s***. I had to give the flag belt to another person on my team because it was the start of a new game, and I tried to get it off, but it was stuck.

I called my friend over and commanded her to help me take off my belt. She was just about to when Ahmed shooed her away and took off my belt for me. Do you know how embarrassing that was? I thanked him three million times and I was blushing like made because we were so close together. That immediately made me like him even more!

Ahmed took the belt from me and positioned himself close to to the other teams line, the serious look on his face making me want to go up to him and kiss him. He was so adorable, and made up for the fact that he had accidentally kicked 3 people in a soccer game yesterday (long story...). The gym teacher blew the whistle, and bam! Ahmed sped like a rocket to the other team and managed to steal one of their pins in no time at all. I was the only girl watching him and trying to participate in the game, and my eyes never left him. The second game breezed on by quickly, and we won again. It was a great game too!

Being the egocentric person I was, I told Kyliegh what had happened in the locker room and she was so happy for me, but warned me against the high hopes again. It didn’t bug me too much, though. Except for, those high hopes had developed quickly.

I observed the minute hand ever so gradually move on its path to the 12 on the analog clock. Finally, it was the periphery of the week, and I urgently needed to yak about Ahmed with my best friend Gisele. I kept glaring at the clock in discontentment and attempted to amuse myself with my neon pink bejeweled iPhone first generation. After I scrutinized my wattpad profile to see how my stories Frosty Love and In The Hall Of The Mountain King were going in the watty awards. My goal was to snare a watty award oh so desperately! It would be the initial step to becoming an author when I grew up....

I had been so warped up in the scarce precious minutes of checking my wattpad profile that I hadn’t been paying attention to the torturous minute hand, so when I did look up, I gave a yip of bewilderment and flew to the front door. I seized my blue Cubs sweater and yanked it over my head while kicking on my booties. I yanked open the front door and sprinted out of my house, yelling,” Mom! I’m going to Gisele’s house!”

I accelerated to Gisele’s front door and leaped onto the front step, and raised my arm to knock on the front door. The bewitching notes of Hedwig’s theme seeped from my hand as I joyfully knocked, and Gisele automatically opened up.

“Passy Poopy!” Gisele squealed, “Get your butt in here! You have to tell me about what happened with Ahmed today!”

Cheerfully hopping into her house and shaking off my black sketchers boots, I breathed in the scent of her familiar house. The smell of rich exotic spices lingered in the air, a smell I deeply enjoyed and loved to eat with the rice and potatoes her mom cooked up at their Indian parties that they hosted.

I plopped onto her soft ebony couch and informed her of today’s story, involving Ahmed and football.

“So,” I started,” We were playing football outside for gym, and it was as it usually was on our team: girls paid no attention to, guys yell at us for not catching the ball, blah blah blah. Then, after Ahmed had gotten five touchdowns for our team and the other team had five too, it was fourth down for our team. Our hitcher called Hike! And passed the ball to our quarterback, my little inamorato. OK, maybe not so little, but still. He was throwing the ball to another guy on our team, since the guys on my team are oh so sexist, when the ball veered out of his hands, and I miraculously caught it, which every could not believe since they thought I would run away from the football as I usually did. I heard the shouts of admiration as I scampered up the field and scored a brisk and fairly effortless touchdown for our team. My gym teacher blew the whistle right then, and everyone crowded around me, shouting their thank yous and statements of awe. Ahmed’s sentence had stood out of everyones: ‘Wow, I was throwing it to John, but you caught and got a touchdown for us! I hadn’t thought you’d catch it, but thank you! You’re our miracle’ It had been the most preeminent experience ever!”

Gisele gave a low whistle and smiled at me.

“Yes, great job Pas! Except, you need to talk to him more. We gotta think up a list of subjects to talk about with him, so then you can get enough courage to ask him to hang out sometime! I can’t believe you’re so lucky!”

I blushed a bit and returned her smile.” OK! Except I’m too nervous to talk to him since I don’t talk to guys a lot, and he won’t really make a move on me, so...”

Gisele snickered at me.” Won’t make a move? Oh please Pas! Even though I wasn’t there when he complimented you, undid your belt for you, or peered over Ryna’s shoulder to look at your school picture, I know he’s trying to get you to notice him, and you have to act up now! If you don’t, he’ll move onto another girl because you won’t talk to him!”

Now that really pissed me off.

“OK Gisele, I’ll try to talk to him. Let’s start thinking about what I could discuss with him!”

I grabbed my iPhone, and opened up to a new note in notes. We started discussing exactly what I would talk to him about that wouldn’t make me sound to desperate to get to know him better. By the end of twenty minutes of debating, acting, and discussing, this was my super long list of subjects to discuss:

How it was like in Albania Does he miss his friends Does he play sports because he’s really good If he wants to go bike riding or hang out at my house sometime



And Gisele’s favorite:

Do you like the Harry Potter series?



It was such a great list, and even if I didn’t have a problem with memorizing the topics to discuss with him, I needed to despairingly build up my courage to talk to him and ask him to go biking with me sometime.

Another few days later in gym, my all boys except for me football team and other boys football teams ventured out into the frigid 40 degree weather (most only in gym shorts and short sleeved shirts) and headed for fields three and four.

“Goddammit, it’s freezing outside!” Tilly muttered to me as we walked to the fields. She was on another all boys team, since us two were the only girls that had bravely volunteered to be on one of the four boys team for flag football. For the first time ever, Ahmed wasn’t on my team for football. He was on team three, the team we’d be versing today.

“ What are you talking about? It’s such a beautiful day outside! I can’t wait to cream Ahmed’s team.” I skipped joyously. For some reason, I was always extremely optimistic and ecstatic about football and rugby in gym class.

Tilly gave me an odd look before parting ways to get to her football field, giving me a thumbs up and yelling, “Good luck!” to me.

“Good luck to you too!” I yelled back, and scampered back to my team, which was already situated on field three and four, waiting patiently for the other teams members to arrive. I couldn’t wait to play against the Ahmed. I could already imagine me kicking his Albanian butt in football...

Once everyone arrived, Ahmed and I met each others eyes and I gave him a cocky grin. He returned my smile, grabbed the football, and amazed me as always as he kicked the ball in a perfect arc that landed in my teammate’s outstretched hands. He ran with the ball, and I ran a few feet away from him, avoiding all the other players on the opposite team who tried to catch up with me to block me, so he could pass the ball to me if he was about to get his flag pulled. He didn’t take the chance of throwing it to me and therefore, got his flag pulled midfield, which signaled the start of the first down.

The first four downs progressed quickly and inefficiently, our team getting no touchdowns yet. We started the fifth down as always, the hiker passing the ball backwards towards the quarterback.

The quarterback caught the easy catch, and, since I was open, finally decided to include me in the game and threw the football to me. I caught the football, and ran as fast as I could, but I thought I felt my flag getting caught, and slowed down to check if my suspicions were correct. I was not correct, it had been that someone from the opposing team had lost one of their own flags.

Since I had slowed down and didn’t have enough time to restart my speed to get to the goal. Someone already had caught up to me and deftly pulled my lemon yellow flag for real. I sadly tossed the ball to the player who had intercepted me, but all the guys on my team and the other team didn’t care that I’d been intercepted. Compliments sprang up all around me, like “Great job Pasqua!” or “It’s ok! Try again next time!” The boys were so genuinely kind to me since I was the only girl on the field and I was trying to help them win. It made me feel so good inside that they were trying to not put me down and focusing on my positive skills for once!

About ten minutes later, the game ended, 0-6 (touchdowns are worth 6 points) and we’d lost because Ahmed (who else?) Had made the touchdown. We started walking back into the gym, but I hung around in the field a bit, because I’d seen Ahmed walking by himself behind me. I took this as the perfect opportunity and was walking towards him when he suddenly started running towards the school and didn’t wait for me to catch up.

What? What was that about? I thought angrily and trudged angrily into school. Maybe he’d seen someone he’d wanted to talk to or he was avoiding me.

Avoiding me.

That thought angrily sprang off but I tried to shake it off. Why’d he want to avoid me...?

Then, I remembered yesterday’s football game.

(Flashback)



It’d been a chilly day and it was third down for Ahmed’s team. The hiker snapped the ball to the quarterback, and the quarterback threw it to the all star of the team. I’d chased after him and tried to get him flag, but apparently, I’d touched something else.

His front side.

Ahmed had given me a strange look and had sprinted away from me, probably thinking that I’d intentionally done it.

Not true!



(End of flashback)



If this was why Ahmed had just avoided me, then it was not good. I had to apologize to him about yesterday. It was just a matter of when, where, and if he’d accept it.

But if he was avoiding me, then why’d he smile back at me when we started the game?

This relationship between us was just confusing.

Our little football era in gym had ended, no more football or rugby for us. Now it was the dreaded sport, one of the sports I hated to play the most. You all know the sport, involving an orange ball with crisscrossing black line and it's basically a game of keepaway with the additional bonus of trying to score by shooting the ball through the basket way high up in the sky. You know what it is, right? It's terrible, the most violent and injury filled sport in gym...

It's BASKETBALL.

Da dum dum dummmm.

Ok, enough with that crappy suspense and tradegy filled sorrow of basketball, but it's true: I'm terrible at it. It's a sport that sucks monkey crap. I don't like to play it at all, and today we start our basketbll unit. How was I going to survive?

It was Monday morning, quickly raced to the locker room to have more time to talk to Kyleigh, but I changed slower than usual. Since Ahmed and I used to be the fastest changers in gym, we sometimes would awkwardly sit in the gym by ourselves for a few minutes. I think because of all the actions that have occured between us, he wants to also change as slowly as possible. Exactly what I want to do, too. I might as well take my time changing and primping myself up for gym.

I paitently waited for Kyleigh to enter the locker room, and when she did, she gave the activity board a look of discuss and headed towards me. She clearly had the same feeling about basketball as me.

"Ew, basketball," she protested as she opened her dark forest green gym locker and started changing into her gym uniform," Why can't we stay in football?"

"I know right?" I agreed istantly, knowing that that makes two of us who'd rather stay in the football unit," Why basketball? Because our next gym unit after health is square dancing!"

"We have to do square dancing this year?" Kyleigh exclaimed, shocked," No way! I hate dancing with guys, but I hope we get to pick our partners."

"Ya, hopefully," I muttered. I'd been planning on asking Ahmed to be my dance partner soon so I can reserve him all to myself. I definitely didn't want another girl to ask him first and have him to herself. Then again, no one will probably ask him since he's ery violent in sports and kicked all those girls. I think they'd rather dance with someone else.

I took my time changing and departed from the locker room with Kyleigh, chatting about what we thought we'd start basketball with. Probably some skill test or something, since that was what we started our other sport units with. I wonder what the skill test was though. Hopefully just shooting baskets.

As we kept discussing what the skill test would be, Ahmed walked in and gave us the usual strange glance before settling down in his spot in the front of squad three. Our gym teacher then exited the locker room, and then we all had to go to our corrext squads and do our usual eay daily warm ups.

"Ok class, 20 jumping jacks!" Squad one's exercise leader for this week yelled and we started screaming along with her as we counted the jumping jacks.

"One, two, three, four..," we all shouted in unison and all ended together on twenty. Then, we went onto squad two's leader for the next exercise.

"Ok class, right foot over left," instructed squad two's leader and we obediantly put our right foot over our left and waited for the leader to start counting.

"One, two, three..." he counted as we all stretched down to where it hurt and held it there. The leader counted up to ten, then we switched feet and we repeated the same process.

After that exercise was done, Ahmed commanded," Class, 15 situps!" We all got into sit up position, and once he noticed we were all ready, started the sit ups.

"One." We all did our first sit up.

"Two." We heaved up to our second situp.

This went on until we all did 15 situps, then we switched over to squad four's leader.

"Class, ten push ups." She quietly said and we got into the correct push up position, and once we all got into the stance, started counting.

"One." First pushup down, nine to go.

"Two." Two pushups down, eight to go.

We finally finished the most difficult exercise then switched over back to squad one's leader for the most fun exercise of the day.

"Class, seven burpies!" She proudly commanded and we finished up our warm ups for the day. Then, we assembled in the middle of the gym so our gym teacher could tell us today's plan.

"Today we are going to do our preparatoy skill test for basketball. They're fallouts..." I stopped paying attention after she said 'basketball' but I was happy that I'd guessed correctly that we'd be doing the skill test for basketball, but I also didn't listen because in all my prep. skill tests I'd failed deeply in them, so I'd fail in the basketball skill test too.

We got into our gym squads again, and the gym teacher split us off to do the skill test at one of the six different baskets in the gym. I'd wanted to go with the guys on my team, but no, I got stuck with the lame excuses of girls, the ones that whe they played volleyball and the ball got too close to them, they'd scream and run away so it wouldn't damage their oh so perfect hair or nails. How'd I get so lucky?

Since I hadn't bothered to listen to the gym teacher when she'd explained how to do the skill test, I had to check the white board to see how we were supposed to do it. I printed to the white board, quickly skimmed it, then ran back to my group. Gladly, I didn't go first for the skill test, so I had time to think of a strategy to get an A on the fallouts skill test. I had to get 12 in 30 seconds. That didn't sound too treachorous.

The first girl screamed as the buzzer went off and she started her skill test. By the end of the 30 seconds, she'd gotten zero- Ha ha! What a fail, even I could do better than that.

The next two girls did the skill test (they each got 5- a C for girls), and then it was my turn. I grabbed the basketball and took it in my hands. I waited paitently for the buzz of the timer, and hoped that I would do well on the test.

The buzzer started and I threw the basketball and crossed my fingers so that the ball would go in the basket. It hit the backboard at a seemingly perfect angle, and it missed. What? How'd it miss? I was so shocked that I didn't see the basketball bounce off the backboard and hit my head.

"Ow!" screeched and chased after the ball. I grabbed it and shot it again, but I missed, This kept going on simaltaneously, and I kept trying and trying. Finally, the stupid buzzer signaled that my time was up, and I happily threw it to the next girl in line. I went up to the gil who'd been keeping trac of my score to see what my score was, in case that in some miraculous way I didn't catch that I made a basket or something.

"What'd I get?" I asked her impatiently.

"Zero," she giggled, which made me even more pissed off than I should of been. I'd gotten zero. The goose's big, fat egg. A fail, a tradegy. I had known I was terrible at basketball, and this had proved it. No amount of confidence or happiness could change that.

We continued the skill test, but my heart wasn't in it anymore. I didn't try at all, and by the end of the gym period, I'd gotten a three. I wasn't even at a C! Just before we had to change, we all met in the middle of the gym again and the gym teacher asked us all our scores. AHmed had gotten 15, the second best in our class, and I, the second worst. I was such a fail, that everyone in my squad had at least a C except for me!

After gym, I went to my regular locker, grabbed my stuff, and headed up the stairs to orchestra. Along the way, I saw Ahmed. He stopped to turn to look at me with.. sympathy?

I couldn't tell because I briefly stared bac at him, aangry that he was such a perfect athlete, and sprinted up the stairs to get my viola out of the orchestra storage room.

I went to orchestra feeling down in the dumps, but since orchestra was another one of my favorite classes, ten minutes into it I was starting to feel better and enjoying practicing our Christmas concert music (Tchaiousky's greatest hits, Ukrainian bell carol, Rhythmic snapshots of christmas). I loved how playing my instrument reall brought up my self esteem.

I positioned my instrumed, ready to play Marche Slav from tchaiousky's greatest hits as my orchestra teacher postioned her hands and started conducting.

My fingers easily moved up and down the fingerboard and I moved to the entracing and haunting beat of the beginning of the song, but we didn't get to the happy 1812 overture- like ending of Marche Slav because then the phone rang.

The orchestra teacher went to get it. She answered the phone easily, paitently listening to the person on the other line, nodding occasionally and glancing around the orchestra room. Her face suddenly became surprised and said," Sure, I'll tell her right now." She hung up the phone, looked at me, and said," Pasqua, you need to go down to the office." I stared at her blankly, rose up from my seat, and walked over to the door. I shakily opened the door and tried to calm myself down as I walked to the office.

Once in the office, I walked up to one of the secretaries, and she kindly glanced up at me.

"You're Pasqau, right?" i nodded, still confused about why I was needed here." You need to go to room 115.

I nodded, and walked down the hall, trying to find where room 115 was. It didn't sound familiar because I'd never had any classes in there. I finally did find that room at the end of the science hallway, and knocked on the door. One of the school's guidance counselors (and my homeroom teacher) opened the door, and smiled at me.

"Hi Pasqua," he said," We're just waiting for you."

He led me into the classroom, and an uneasy feeling started to arise. We? He was the only social worker at school, who could he mean by we? And why was I here, anyways? I'd never set up a meeting with the social worker.

My thoughts/questions were answered when my gaze fell across the attractive European boy sitting at the round table.

Ahmed and I caught each others eyes and I gaped at him and the social worker.

“What.. what.. what are you doing here?” I sputtered. No, what’s Ahmed doing here? Why am I needed here? Please don’t tell me he has been telling the social worker about me. What if he likes me back and he’s been talking to the social worker about it (even though that’d be really strange)? I don’t wanna admit my feelings for him right now!

The social worker answered most of my questions as he started speaking again.

“Pasqua, your parents have called to invite Ahmed and Blear to the Christmas party you annually go to for the club they’re in, A.F. Europeans. The party is December third, and I called you down so you and Ahmed can talk about it, since Blear isn’t here today. I’ll leave you two to discuss it because I have some work to do.” He left us alone in the small room and I nervously looked at Ahmed, extremely embarrassed about my parents generosity. One night of Ahmed and I, dressed up and everything, like a date. I was going to yell at my parents about this when I got home, even though it could be a fun yet really awkward night...

I blushed a bit at the thought and started explaining everything about the Christmas party I was so accustomed to enjoy every year to Ahmed so he knew exactly what was in store for us on December third.

“All right, the A.F. Europeans christmas party is a gathering at a very nice restaurant usually about a half hour away from here. We’re required to dress up nice for the party and we talk, dance, etc. There’s only very very few teens there, usually only my friend Megan and I and my sisters. I always have a great time there, even though the music absolutely sucks. I think you’ll like it a lot too.”

Ahmed nodded, clearly understanding and breathed a sigh of relief.” It sounds like a really great time, it’s so nice of your parents to invite Blear and I to come. Anyways, how did your parents know us even though Blear and I have never met them...?” he inquired.

I shrugged a bit. “I think I’ve mentioned both of you once or twice and they took on that opportunity to invite both of you since you’re both european foreigns, I guess.” I answered him. The situation still was extremely awkward, but the tension loosened up as I attempted to make a conversation. After all, I was missing class, I might as well enjoy this strange moment. It didn’t have to be so awkward. I cleared my throat quietly and tried to start talking about something interesting.

“So, are you angry that we have to start health on Monday?” I asked him conversationally, starting on an impersonal subject so he wouldn’t seem too intimidated by me. Besides, Ahmed was probably angry at me because of that football incident a few weeks ago. I shuddered at the memory of that crisp day and focused back on the present, hoping I hadn’t missed anything Ahmed had just said, but thank goodness he had just started talking.

“ Yes, I want to stay in gym and play football again,” he gave a cute little sigh and looked a bit sad. I automatically started sympathizing with him.

“Me too, I hate health after something that’d happened last year [long story] and I want to be back in football too, playing with the guys. Speaking of football,” I took a huge breath to prepare myself for what I had to say next,” I’m really sorry about that one football a few weeks ago, where I touched somewhere I shouldn’t have on your pants. I’m so so so sorry, I didn’t mean to, it was an accident, I was aiming for your flag, I swear!” My voice was sounding a bit hysterical, because it was so embarrassing to have to apologize for something like that. I hope he’d accept my apologize.

Ahmed gave me a really strange look, a cross between a frustrated and confused glare. Then, his face loosened up and he started laughing. Laughing at what, I had no idea. I glared at him angrily, this wasn’t what I’d been expecting.

“What’s so funny?” I asked him, a little POed. What was his problem? This was something I’d been stressing over to tell him, what was so funny about it?

He successfully stopped laughing but the grin never left his face,

“Pasqua, what are you talking about? You must of touched the side of my pants, not the front or back. What made you think that?” He shook his head a little, and I looked at him shocked. Did he really mean I’d been stressing over absolutely NOTHING? That was a huge relief, but there was still something I was confused about. I asked him two final questions, two things that would definitely clear up my thoughts.

“Wait, then why did you run away from me and why do you never talk to me? I thought you hated me?”

Ahmed looked at me in surprise and answered, “Well, I don’t ever remember running away from you, and I’m extremely sorry I don’t talk to you, because I’m really shy around girls, like you. Also, about the hate thing,” he sucked in a deep breath and continued, “I don’t hate you at all. It’s actually the exact opposite.” He put a lot of emphasis on the word exact, and my jaw dropped to the basement or further.

No freaking way had he just said that, because the opposite of hate was...

LOVE.

“Excuse me?” I asked Ahmed, surprised at what he’d just said,” Did you just say you love me? How can you love me if you don’t know me?” I cocked my head to my side. He must have meant like me, as in a crush. Probably a big crush, you know, like I felt about him, but I had a secret to tell, that I haven’t mentioned yet, but I had to tell Ahmed so he wouldn’t get hurt.

Ahmed was going to answer my question but I stopped him.

“Wait, Ahmed, no, I have a confession to make. I always seemed like I really liked you, constantly talking really loud around Tilly, Kyleigh and Ryna, but that’s a huge lie. I don’t like you anymore, only as a friend, nothing more. I’m sorry, this also goes with my mom’s rule, no dating until I’m sixteen, I still have two years to go. Can we just be friends?” I blurted out my secret hurriedly, scared of what he’d say.

“Oh, it’s ok. I guess I can wait and just be friends,” Ahmed told me, crestfallen. I felt bad for him, so I went up to him and gave him a little hug, and gave him a tiny smile.

“Besides,”I pressed,” We could go sledding on this huge hill near my house tomorrow, I heard it was supposed to snow at least 12 inches tonight! It would be really fun, and I could introduce you to all my neighbors, I’ve told them all about you! It would be really fun!”

“Sure, how do you friends know about me...?”Ahmed inquired.

I blushed feverishly and replied,” I told them about you when I used to like you, back in those old October and November days. Don’t worry, most of them know I don’t like you, so it won’t be an extremely embarrassing event,” I assured him, and the warning bell rang for fifth period. I remembered I would still have to pack up my viola and orchestra music because I didn’t want it to just sit there in the band room where anyone could take it. I raced to the door and turned to wave at Ahmed.

“Call me tomorrow!” I told him and ran to the band room, smiling the entire way.



THE NEXT DAY......



“Ahhhhh!” I screamed, toppling down the hill on my old green sled. I fell at the bottom in a great big heap, and Gisele and Ahmed laughed and my friend Momo (you all know her as Iloverandomstuff) threw more snow on me.

“Hey!” I yelled at Momo and kicked more snow into her face. We all laughed and ran back up the hill, going to round whatever for sledding. It was time for my experiment.

“I’m gonna go sled boarding!” I screamed giddily and placed both my feet on the sled, and keeping myself standing up, grabbing the string attached to the sled and raced down hill, and landing in one piece at this bottom.

Ahmed was at the bottom, waiting for me.

“That was so awesome!” He complimented me, eyeing the sled with a huge interest,” Can I try it?”

“Knock yourself out Mr. I'm-so- super-athletic” I thrust the bright green sled at Ahmed and watched with curiosity and amusement as he climbed up the hill and got ready to go sled boarding. This was going to be interesting.

He mounted the sled and raced down the hill. Whooping with joy the whole way down. At one point, he flew through the air and did an awesome 360 in the air before landing without toppling over. A bright red orange leaf fluttered out of his pocket and I raced over to pick it up. It was so cute, it had all these tiny hearts crisscrossing all over it, the twin to my leaf.

“Hey, Ahmed!” I went up to him and handed him the leaf,” I have that same leaf. When did you find it?” I pulled out my copy of the leaf to prove we had the same leaf.

“The day I transferred to fourth period gym, right before I came to school, when’d you get yours?” He asked curiously. I opened my mouth and whispered,

“That same day.”