What We Saw by Aaron Hartzler Page B

laughing because what else can you do when your friends torment you, and they’re right? My phone buzzes in my purse. I fish it out and see a text.
    Can u talk? Sr. stairs.
    Lindsey sees the name before I can shield the screen. “It’s from Ben!”
    The volume from Christy only goes one way in these situations: up. As quickly as I can, I drop my phone into my purse and pick up my tray. Rachel squeezes my arm and raises her eyebrows in excitement as I slip away from the table. The catcalls from Christy follow me, and are met with a general waveof noise from the rest of the cafeteria—as the corn syrup of every Coke and cookie ingested hits the collective bloodstream of Coral Sands High. The strange hush is over. The tipping point toward bedlam has been achieved.
    The tone will pulse to end lunch in exactly four minutes. It will take me one minute to drop off my tray and walk to the senior stairwell. There will be three minutes of relative quiet before the wave crests and tears through the halls.
    I walk as quickly as I can. I see him as I pass beneath the stairwell and pause in the shadow. He is leaning against my locker, staring at his phone. Is he swiping through the same hashtags Lindsey is patrolling? Or is he waiting for a text from me?
    The straps of his backpack frame his chest in a way that makes my knees weak. Better keep walking or you might fall down.
    He glances up as I approach and slips into an easy smile that warms me from the inside out. Once more, I’m reminded why all the guys on the team look up to him—even the seniors.
    â€œThere you are.”
    Was there ever a more perfect greeting? Not a grunted “hey” or a “where’ve you been?” but There you are.
    As if he couldn’t go on until I arrived.
    As if he’d have waited forever, but is so happy he won’t have to.
    â€œIn the flesh.” I smile back, and what possesses me I cannot say, but right there, four feet away from him and closing in, Ispin on the toe of my flats. Just once.
    I am not a girl for cutesy. I am not a girl for foundation on school days or mascara on weekends or fingernails that hamper typing. But here, in the hallway, this guy who leans on my locker like he owns that space—like he belongs in my world—has inspired me to whimsy.
    He laughs at my twirl, his head thrown back slightly, a strand of his bangs falling down into his eyes. I reach up before my brain can stop my arm and tuck it back into the pile.
    â€œYou needed to see me?”
    He nods, and exhales like he’s got something important to say—something he’s worried about. “Wanted to ask you a question,” he says, then bites his lip.
    â€œShoot.”
    He glances over my head with a little boy’s shy smile and a squirm I remember seeing a long time ago.
    â€œI don’t wanna mess anything up,” he says softly.
    When I hear those words, I know for certain that things have been different since September. It wasn’t a figment of my imagination. My fingers tremble just a little as I rest my hand on his chest. “You can’t mess up what’s already changed.”
    His whole body relaxes and he wraps his hand around mine, holding it there over his heart. I recognize this feeling. It’s the same one from the other night, when he leaned his forehead against mine. The air is ripe with possibility.
    Finally, he breaks the silence. “Will you go to Spring Fling with me?”
    â€œAs . . . friends?”
    He shakes his head. “As more than friends.”
    I squeeze his hand harder—partially from excitement, partially to stay upright.
    â€œWanted to ask you at Dooney’s party,” he says, “but I chickened out.”
    I nod without taking my eyes from his. I didn’t just imagine that moment. He felt it, too. “Probably better this way, ’cause, you know, now I’m not . . . wasted.”
    He laughs, that easy, quiet huff