Lovesessed by Pamela Diane King

I said,
holding it up to the light.
    “ Hmm, it looks pretty
real,” Liz said examining it. “Are you thinking what I’m
thinking?”
    “ No, it can’t be,” I said
in disbelief. I felt a hard knot in my stomach. I got my books and
headed to History. When I got in the classroom, there was a single
red rose on my desk. I saw Ben sitting at the desk next to mine and
I playfully punched him.
    “ Hey what was that for?”
he asked, rubbing his arm.
    “ Ha-ha very funny. You can
drop the act now secret admirer.”
    “ Who’s the rose from?” he
asked, ignoring me.
    “ You mean…it’s not from
you…and the stuff in my locker…” I stuttered.
    “ Phoebe what are you
talking about?” he asked confused.
    “ Nothing, it’s just girl
stuff.”
    “ Hey, that’s not fair,” he
pouted. It hit me like a ton of bricks. Ben wasn’t my “secret
admirer.” That meant it must have been Amber playing a cruel joke
on me. It had to be a simple explanation like that, it couldn’t
possibly all be from Chase. Could it?
    #
    When I walked into the cafeteria at
lunch, something seemed odd. It was just a feeling, but something
was off. I made my way to our usual table. Liz and Ben were already
sitting there. Liz looked very amused, while Ben looked
confused/stunned/upset.
    On the table, there was a massive
bouquet of red roses. There must have been about two dozen. The
card was predictably signed, “Love your secret admirer.” My mouth
actually dropped open again. I needed to stop doing that, or else
I’d catch flies as my mom said.
    “ Now do you believe me?”
Liz asked satisfied. Liz was very scientific as you may have
noticed, so she took great delight in compiling evidence to support
her case that the love potion did, in fact, work.
    I just shrugged. I honestly didn’t
think that the roses were from Chase. But, I had racked my brains
trying to think of a possible explanation, and I still couldn’t
come up with one.
    “ Believe you about what?”
Ben asked. The poor guy was completely confused about everything
that had happened.
    “ Nothing, don’t worry,”
Liz said. “It’s just girl stuff.” That’s the excuse we always used
when we didn’t want to tell Ben something, and he couldn’t argue.
We would never tell Ben about the love potion, because guys just
wouldn’t understand.
    I sat down on the bench on the other
side of the table. I could hardly see them over the huge bouquet.
It couldn’t possibly be that Chase had actually eaten the love
potion laced chocolates, and that it had actually
worked.
    Suddenly Liz stopped chewing, and sat
straight up. “Phoebe, don’t freak out. Chase has just walked into
the cafeteria.”
     
     
    *****
     
     
    7. Love Struck
     
    Excitement exploded all around me,
but I was frozen. I grabbed the edge of the table so hard that my
knuckles turned white. Uncontrollably I sucked in my breath until I
realized that I was about to faint. My heart was racing so fast
that I thought it was going to jump out of my chest. Was it
possible for a teenager to have a heart attack? My brain
seemed to have stopped working because it couldn’t tell dreams from
reality. But I knew one thing for sure - dreams did come true. It
was the moment I had waited for all my life.
    Chase glided into the cafeteria like he
was walking onto a concert stage. Immediately all the girls started
screaming and going hysterical, but their high pitched screams were
on mute. It was his concert all over again. They ran over to him
like a herd of stampeding buffalo. Elvis had entered the building.
He grabbed the microphone that the teachers used for
announcements and said, “Phoebe Parker. I need Phoebe
Parker.”
    I was sure that I was
dreaming. It was one of those dreams, when you know that you’re
dreaming. “Liz, I need you to pinch me. This must be one of my
fantasy dreams about Chase, because this cannot be happening.” She was too
stunned to move and her eyes were wide with shock.
    Ben almost