Eight years ago

“Something more interesting than class, Miss DeLuca?”

Whoops.

I lifted my head to smile sweetly at my grumpy lit teacher. Part of me wanted to say, You see, Mr. Bradski, the boy I’m in love with has decided to be just friends with me and now I get to text him whenever which is great, but he never texts the things I want him to like ‘Lissa I’ve made a terrible mistake and I can’t live without you’, so now I’ve got all these dumb feelings and I’m dumb and everything is dumb dumb dumbity dumb. 

But Mr. Bradski did not strike me as a romantic. I went with my old fallback: stupid questions.

“Was Victor Hugo named after the dude from Bob’s Burgers?” 

Obviously, I was sans phone when the bell rang and we were released to lunch. I really wanted to know if Jamie had texted me again, and for that reason I thought this might have been good for me. I needed to work on some distance.

In the week since the night on the bridge, he’d texted me every day and we’d eaten lunch together twice. This was alarming. I’d assumed he was, at least to some point, just being nice when he’d offered to be friends. I hadn’t taken the idea seriously. If I had, I’d like to think that I would have logically considered the dangers of this situation and made a level-headed decision. Alas, that ship had sailed.  

“Lissa!”

My heart skipped at the sight of Reyna waving at me from the other side of the cafeteria—at his table. She’d started eating with Jamie and his friends since she ditched Leon for Danny Reagan, who had moved past his girl bullying days and was one of Jamie’s teammates. It was the perfect excuse. I mean, she was inviting me and everything.

No Lissa. Bad Lissa. Find other friends to eat lunch with!

But he was smiling, and he was wearing a blue t-shirt today, and he looked unfairly good in blue. My feet carried me towards his table like they had a mind of their own.  

The only person there aside from Reyna and a handful of the baseball team was Jamie’s ex-girlfriend Naomi. They were doing that ‘exes but still good friends’ thing that always seemed weird to me, but to each their own. I just wished he could have found a slightly less intimidating ex to be friends with.

“Where’s your phone?” Reyna asked as soon as I was in earshot.

I sighed. “In Bradski’s vault.”

“Ha!” Jamie held his hand out. “Pay up.”

My mouth dropped open. “You bet on me?”

Jamie shrugged like, what? “Bradski’s a tyrant. It was a sure thing.”

“Could you be any more selfish?” I pressed a hand to my heart. “I’m suffering.”

“I’m the one who’s ten dollars poorer,” Reyna grumbled, passing the cash over to Jamie. Danny whispered something to her, and her disappointment morphed into a blush.

I slid into the seat next to Jamie, and he said, with a mouthful of burger, “By the way, you text like a 12-year-old.”

Charming. “Well, you eat like a 3-year-old. And you text like an old man.”

Jamie winked at me. “That’s because I am an old man.”

“You’re 17,” I said flatly.

“You’ll understand when you’re older.”

“You’re one year older than me!” I protested.

He threw an arm around me and squished me against him. “Ah, to be sixteen again.”

“You know what, James…” I trailed off as a thought occurred to me. “You need a for long name.”

“A what?” Jamie let me go so he could look at me. Over our short friendship, I’d become very familiar with that look. It said, ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I can’t wait to hear you explain it, because I know it’s going to be very amusing.’ I hadn’t decided yet if I should resent this look or not.

“I’m Lissa for short,” I explained. “Alessandra for long. So that when people are annoyed with me, they have four syllables to really squeeze all that annoyance in.”

“I see.”

“James only has one syllable. It’s very inconvenient.”

“Jamie has two syllables,” he offered.

“Not enough.” I shook my head. “Has to be at least three.”

He considered that. “So what’s our solution?”

I sighed with the weariness of a high school teacher way past retirement. “I’m going to have to make up a for long name for you.” 

His eyebrow lifted. “Such as?”

Jimothy. Jamothy? Jamadiah.

“It’ll come to me,” I decided. 

He started to say something, but Naomi’s voice cut him off as effectively as a bucket of ice water. “If you two are done flirting, Cory asked a question.”

I tried not to take it personally that Naomi didn’t like me. She didn’t seem to have a lot of girlfriends, and most of our conversations involved her ranting about the stupidity of the shallow things girls cared about. Still, I wanted to win her over. She was good friends with Jamie, and almost any time I hung out with his friends she was there. She was also scarily pretty without trying, tall and thin and blessed with high cheekbones and a sharp jaw. The kind of striking beauty that made you want to shrink back in your chair and shut up.

Jamie didn’t seem affected, only throwing a french fry at her and retorting, “You just can’t tell the difference between flirting and insulting.” He leaned down and said, in a stage whisper that brushed against my ear, “She’s emotionally stunted.”

“Why’d you ever let me go?” Naomi snarked, throwing the fry back at him.

“I ask myself that question every night.”

Something in my chest tightened painfully. I turned my attention to Cory. “Sorry, what was your question?”

“I asked if you were all coming to see me at the dunk tank tonight.” The baseball team captain seemed less bothered than Naomi that we hadn’t heard. “It’s the first night of the fair, and I could use as many bad throwers in line as possible.”

“Cory, are you insulting my girl?” Reyna demanded.

“No way, I was talking about Keller.”

The boys all did that ohhhhh thing that guys do when they think they’ve landed a particularly good burn. Jamie decided to prove them wrong by launching the rest of his fries at them, full-speed. 

As Danny bobbed around trying to catch the missiles in his mouth, Reyna rolled her eyes at me. “Troglodytes. The whole species.”

I pretended I knew what troglodytes were and agreed. Whatever they were, I assumed they were also highly immature and enjoyed the opportunity to make noise and messes whenever possible. 

Cory proved my point by throwing a handful of lettuce at Jamie, only for it to hit me squarely in the face.

They froze, Cory with his hand over his mouth, Danny very obviously trying not to laugh. I heard Danny whisper, “Bro, it’s in her hair.” Reyna smacked her boyfriend.

“Uh-oh, here it comes,” Naomi muttered. “The holy hair’s been messed with.”

The comment made me self-conscious. I shook my head hard to dislodge some of the salad, trying to act like it didn’t totally gross me out, even though it was completely in my rights to be grossed out because there was food in my hair.

“Did I get it?” I asked Jamie, running my fingers over my scalp.

Biting his lip in an effort to hide his smile, he carefully pulled a large lettuce leaf out of my curls and presented it to me like it was a flower. 

“What do you say?” His eyes sparkled mischievously. “Want to get your revenge at the dunk tank?”

I caught my breath. Nope, no, bad idea. I was supposed to be spending less time with him. Distance was key. I needed to turn him down. A simple, Sorry, can’t make it. I already have plans, should do the trick. Go on, Lissa. Say it. 

“I wouldn’t miss it.”