P.S. I Like You(12)

Ahead of Lucas, Isabel waved at me from across the rocks. She bounded over, her dark curls bouncing. By the time she was walking beside me, I’d forgotten all about Cade. And since I was still pretending he didn’t exist, I was not going to tell her what had just happened. I was proud of myself for holding my tongue.

“Hey,” she said, linking her arm through mine. Her plastic bracelets clinked together.

“Hey,” I responded.

“I’m surprised he didn’t feel you burning a hole in the back of his head.”

“What? Who?”

“Funny. Like you don’t know who you were just staring at.”

My cheeks went hot and my gaze went back to Lucas, who was now almost to the lockers across the commons.

I was about to avoid the subject by asking Isabel if she finished the History assignment. But then four sophomore girls met up in front of us with a loud squeal. They all exchanged the lidded Starbucks cups they were holding. I was confused until Isabel whispered, “They each buy a drink in the morning and then they switch.”

“Why?”

“Why not? It’s fun.” We walked around them. “We need a morning routine.”

I gestured back toward the girls. “That morning routine?”

“Not that one. But something we do or say every morning when we see each other to start the day right.”

“Um … ”

“A handshake?”

I raised my eyebrows at her. “ ‘Hey’ has been working pretty well for us for the last three years.”

“But they’re so cute,” Isabel said, nodding toward the giggling girls.

“We’re not cute enough for you?”

“No. We’re not.” She smiled.

“Just last night, before falling asleep, I thought to myself, I wish Isabel and I had a morning tradition. It would make our friendship so much cuter.”

“And last night before I fell asleep, I was wondering how you got so lucky to have a best friend like me when you’re such a brat.”

“So lucky.”

Isabel’s eyes widened. “That’s it! That’s our tradition.”

“To talk about how awesome you are and how lucky I am every morning?”

She shook her head. “No … Well, we can do that too. But how about the first thing we say to each other every morning is the last thing we thought of before we went to sleep the previous night?”

“That won’t work. You’ll just say ‘Gabriel’ every morning. You’ll say it so much that soon I’ll start to wonder if my name is Gabriel.”

“That’s not true.” She stuck out her lower lip. “Fine, I guess we don’t need a tradition. But, speaking of Gabriel, he wants to go out with us this weekend. You’ll come, right?”

I tugged on the straps of my backpack. “I thought we already decided no setups.”

“No, it wouldn’t be a setup. It will be a group of us. Some of his friends and us.”

I frowned, suspicious. “What will we be doing?”

“Go-karts.”

The indoor track wasn’t cheap. I calculated how much money I had saved in the jar in my closet. After I bought the guitar, the twins’ mom hired a full-time nanny, so I was out of my regular source of income. Occasionally, I worked for my mom at craft fairs, but it had been a while. I couldn’t remember if I’d spent all my money the last time we went to the movies with Gabriel and his friends.

“Okay, sure. I’ll talk to my mom about it. Sounds fun.”

“It sounds awesome.” The bell rang. “See you at lunch. If you don’t die in Chemistry, that is.”

“Every day poses that risk.”

“I believe in you.”

She was ten steps away when I called out. “Iz!”

She turned. “Yeah?”

“We don’t need any cutesy traditions. We’re solid you and me.”





I wasn’t going to die from boredom this time. It was going to be from shock.

In Chemistry, there was a hand drawn arrow underneath my final message from the day before. It pointed down, to the end of the desk. As if something was under there. My eyes went wide. Was there something under the desk? I looked on the floor but my high-topped red sneakers were the only things there.

What if …

While keeping an eye on Mr. Ortega, I ran my hand along the bottom of the desk, disgusted when it met a lump of what I assumed was chewed up-gum. Gross.

Still, I let my pencil roll off my desk and land on the ground. I used my sneaker to slide the pencil back toward me then ducked down to retrieve it. While leaning down, I craned my neck around. Sure enough, wedged under the strip of metal that ran between the desk legs was a piece of paper folded into fourths. I quickly grabbed my pencil and the paper then sat back up, the blood rushing back down my face.