Chasing Crazy - Kelly Siskind Page 0,103

and tap Becca’s arm. “I’m not hungry. I’ll meet you at our table.”

She swings to face me, frowning. “But it’s Burrito Thursday.”

My saliva gathers, scents of melted cheese and cumin teasing me. Then I picture our auditorium filled with a sea of white, gray, and blue uniforms. Hundreds of eyes trained on yours truly. The mouth-watering smells sour, the pungency suddenly nauseating. I smile weakly. “Maybe I’m coming down with something.”

As she heads to the line, I tighten my ponytail and dodge a basketball rolling along the floor. A boy brushes past me, his massive shoulder nearly knocking me on the floor. I offer a quiet, “Sorry.” He doesn’t even glance my way, but the girl he sits beside, Natasha I think, curls her lip in a snarl.

Although I’ve attended Strachan Prep since junior kindergarten, being in grade ten means my lunch is now spent with the high school kids—the guys more man than boy, the girls hiking their skirts higher. The cafeteria has become a minefield. One wrong step and I could get dirty-looked to pieces.

I slide into my seat and slip my recently purchased copy of Mockingjay from my bag, desperate to escape to another world. One where I don’t have to speak to an assembly of my peers. Alone. On stage. With everyone staring at me. How did I let this happen? I try to read, but the letters blur, the same grouping of words drifting in and out of focus. My stomach twists. My head throbs. The room spins. I drop the book and press my fingers to my temples.

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

When the dizziness subsides, I glance up…and quickly look back down. Shoot. I shake my head, sure what I saw was a hunger-induced mirage.

Because there’s no chance the eyes trained on me just now, the ones I’ve daydreamed about so often my science teacher thinks I have ADD, can be focused my way. Not today. Not when I haven’t eaten a thing since yesterday morning. Not when I’ll soon get on a stage and no doubt embarrass myself.

Convinced my panic attack must have progressed to full-on hallucinations, I glance up again. But, no. No, no, no. A mirage this is not.

It’s Drew frickin’ Masters.

Looking my way.

Double shoot.

His swoony self—definitely more man than boy—is staring right at me. Dark eyes. Darker hair. Olive skin. Instinctively, I pull my arms to my sides and curl forward, doing my best tortoise impression, minus the shell. But, God, I still feel his eyes on me.

Mom picked me up from school a few weeks ago and caught me drooling over the man himself. Drew may only be a year older than I am, but he’s ten castes higher. Firmly entrenched in cooler-than-thou territory. And something happened to him over the summer. His chest broadened, his jaw sharpened. His reedy limbs filled out. It’s like he left a boy and came back Captain America. There’s a chance my tongue actually hit the ground.

Mom spent the whole car ride home listing my virtues and convincing me that guys like girls to take the initiative. She said I should ask him out. She said I should smile at him.

I can’t even look up.

A tray plops down on the table, and Becca squeezes into a chair across from me. It gives me the perfect opportunity to peek again. Her wide frame is my own personal barricade, guarding me from enemy territory. I lean to the left to see past her, and holy heck, he smiles.

At me.

I snap back to my place of cover and whisper, “Oh, my God.”

Becca raises her eyebrows. “Oh, my God, what?”

I say a lame, “Oh, my God,” again.

Then we have a verbal tango.

Becca: “What?”

Me: “God, God, God.”

Becca: “WHAT?”

Me: “Oh. My. God.”

She rolls her eyes. “Pininfarina, if you don’t tell me what’s shrunk your vocabulary to three words, I’m switching tables.”

That, however, implies she has somewhere else she could sit, and we both know neither of us would survive two minutes in the trenches. She shovels a forkful of burrito into her mouth and I’m salivating again, the smell of melted cheese too close. Too good. Its savory deliciousness battles against the churning in my belly. Attempting to ignore the perfection that is the Thursday Burrito, I keep my eyes on the pimple by her nose. “Okay…just don’t look behind you.”

She, of course, looks behind her, then spins back and shrugs. “I don’t get it.”

“Drew Masters”—I drop my voice so low she leans forward—“he just smiled…at me.”

Her blue eyes pop wide.

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