this morning. I started every morning doing weights, and since she said it was fine to keep them in her room, I’d thought she’d be cool with it. How was I supposed to know she’d freak out?
I wanted to fix things, and Seth’s idea of doing something nice for her had been at the forefront of my mind. I’d been trying my hardest to think of something appropriate all morning, but nothing seemed good enough. My frozen pizza last night had been an epic fail, and I was stumped for another idea. Seth had made it sound so easy, but it was much harder than I’d imagined.
Even my offer to help her mail the cards today wasn’t really helping things. I’d been planning on doing it anyway, but when she mentioned it this morning, it had seemed like fate and the perfect opportunity to spend some time together. Clary couldn’t have felt more differently though. It was a prime example of how she wasn’t interested in anything to do with me—even if it was a nice gesture. I was beginning to wonder if Seth’s advice wasn’t all that great.
Clary glanced at me. The cool morning air made her cheeks slightly flushed, and she was wearing barely any makeup. You could hardly tell because her skin was flawless. The other girls at school must have hated her.
“Sure, this is fun.” Her answer was so unconvincing I almost wished she’d just continued her muttering. She turned, allowing her long dark hair to form a curtain between us. My hands itched to reach out and tuck the closest strands behind her ear so I could see her blue eyes again.
“Do you think anyone will actually use these?” I asked her, waving my cards in the air. We’d started by putting cards in the mailboxes on my street. I knew most of my neighbors pretty well, and there were quite a few elderly people who lived nearby. I hoped that at least some of them would take us up on our offer to help. I really didn’t want them to have to risk getting sick.
Clary looked at the cards in my hand and shrugged. “I hope so,” she said before focusing on the sidewalk ahead of us.
It was hard to strike up a conversation with someone who didn’t want to talk to you. I normally had no trouble talking to girls, but Clary was different. She was impossible to impress, and half the time I was around her, I felt like an idiot.
It didn’t help that she was unnervingly beautiful. My tongue had a tendency to twist whenever I looked at her, and today was no exception. I was hardly a nervous person, but I had to wonder how any guy could manage to keep their thoughts straight when talking with her. It seemed impossible, but she’d had a boyfriend a while back, which proved it could be done.
Daniel. He’d been a dweeby teen when I last saw him, but even then, I’d been jealous of the guy. He was a serious brain and was probably going to go on to build spaceships or develop the cure for cancer when he left school. But his brains weren’t what really impressed me. No, it was the fact he’d always seemed totally chill around Clary. How had he convinced her to date him? The kid must have superpowers or something. Either that or Clary only dated smart guys, in which case I was screwed.
I might have done better in school if I’d ever really applied myself. I should have had some smart genes with two doctors for parents, but I was guessing intelligence was one of those things that skipped a generation. At least, in my case, it was. I tended to coast through school—not particularly nailing it or failing it. No, I had to believe that book smarts weren’t the only way into Clary’s heart.
Clary slowed as we heard shouting from across the road. I turned to the noise and chuckled. Rosalind and Herb were at it again. My two neighbors were in their eighties, and they were a cute couple until they started bickering. Herb seemed to be trying to leave their property, but Rosalind kept calling after him.
“I told you not to leave the house,” she yelled.
“And I told you I need fresh air.”
“There’s fresh air in the backyard.”
“I like the fresh air on the street better.”
Rosalind folded her arms across her chest as she scowled at him. “Well, you forgot your mask,