Only Girls Allowed by Debra Moffitt Page A

stage here was breathless shock. I would have gotten up to leave the room, but I was paralyzed in place. Everyone looked at me, some of them still laughing. I could not bring myself to turn around and look at Forrest. My worst fear had come true.
    The second stage for me was an incredible desire to just do something—anything. Running away wasn’t my first choice, once I had a moment to think. What I wanted todo most was lift Taylor—desk and all—and fling her like a whirlybird out the classroom’s second-floor window.
    The third stage was trying to make sense of it all. Of course (my brain finally reasoned), Tia had the camera rolling that day in the hallway when I caught Taylor and Clem fighting. And what it captured was not just the cat-fight between them but my odd reentry into the hallway. I was now officially the weirdest girl in school, worse than Bet eating alone or Clem smiling at herself in the bathroom. I was someone who spent time inside her locker with the door closed.
    Thankfully, Taylor’s segment soon ended, and Mr. Ford grumbled something about moving along because the buses were already lining up. I started to gather myself but I felt like I was moving in slow motion, having to think about each step I took:
Pick up backpack, step with the right foot, now with the left.
Kate and Piper ran up to me after class, but I couldn’t even talk.
    â€œWhat a beast, she is—like that Jerry Springsteen on TV,” Piper said.
    â€œIt’s Jerry Springer. Springsteen is the singer,” Kate corrected. “Are you okay?” she asked me.
    â€œNo,” I said meekly. I walked with great effort to my bus, like I was walking through deep, deep snow.
    To my surprise, someone was standing at the bus’s door, waiting for me. It was Forrest.

 

    If I told you that Forrest not only waited for me but that he
sat with me
on the bus, would you believe it? How is it that the very worst thing and the very best thing could happen to me within the same twenty-minute stretch of time?
    â€œI was trying to tell you before class,” Forrest said from the window seat.
    Taylor had showed him the tape, he told me, and he knew how embarrassed I would be, how embarrassed everyone in it would be.
    â€œShe’s trying to prove she deserves to be the anchor this year,” he said, as if making excuses for her.
    â€œWell, whatever it takes, I guess.”
    â€œI know. It’s mean. I told her it was mean, but she said ‘that’s journalism’.”
    And then he looked off to the side and smiled a little bit, not a cruel smile, but the flash of a smile that told me how much he liked her. He smiled just thinking about her.
    I tried to talk more, but I was afraid I might cry—cry because I was so embarrassed and cry because I was sitting so close to Forrest and I wanted him to stay there forever. I stared ahead at the green vinyl seat and bit my lip. He was quiet for a long while, and then he said, “Can I ask you something?”
    I turned to him and watched a lock of beachy brown hair fall over his eyebrow.
    If I touched it, what would he do? Slap my hand? Let me?
    â€œYes, you can ask me something,” I said.
    â€œWhy were you in your locker?”
    How embarrassing. Of course, I knew I shouldn’t tell him. At this point, my bent knee was either touching his or the electricity between us was just making it feel that way.
    â€œI can’t tell you,” I said, leaning in, “but someday soon I will
show
you.”
    Forrest looked at me quizzically. It was a little like the look Taylor shot at me in her
Gotcha!
tape, but it was so much kinder. Not to overanalyze the look on his face, but I wanted to believe that it said “We’re friends, maybe with potential for more.”

 

    All weekend, I thought of Forrest and how sweet he was to me and hoped that it was more than him just being a good guy. I wanted to know if he had tried to