Part 17 - I'm Not Afraid. Panicky, Though.

Oh shit, did I really just think that? I mean, I used to like Amanda, didn’t everyone? I even asked her out one time, back in the day in a really awkward way. Letters are never a good idea, especially when your writing is illegible to practically anyone else. I’d gotten over that years ago. Hadn’t I? Maybe this is how I feel just being alone with a girl, any girl. Like back in year nine when I was flag boy, and got ten minutes off the end of every other day to spend with Helen, to take down the flags, and fold them, and occasionally our hands would brush, and my heart would race.

Amanda was talking, but I’d lost focus. I did that a lot, still do. Think on something so hard that the room disappears, and it’s just me and the problem. Zoned out. Somehow we’d managed to walk to the group’s hangout next to the library, and those chairs, and I was just staring over the quad. Trying to figure out whether I was still crushing on the girl next to me. The one with the boyfriend. A boyfriend she’d spend an hour pashing this morning. If I spent much more time thinking about her, and Anna, the other unattainable girl I saw every day, It’d just be a funk I didn’t need to settle on.

‘Keegan? Have you heard a word I’ve said?’

‘What were we talking about?’

‘getting Jase and Erin together, making them live happily ever after.’

‘I’m not sure they’re right for each other.’ I really wasn't. not that I knew her.

‘What are you on? Cos it sounds like it’s turning your brain into mush.’

‘I know what I’m saying.’

‘He likes her, I think she likes him, what’s so wrong about that?’

‘I don’t think he like likes her. I think he just spilled the first name in his head to get me to shut up.’

‘that was just confirming my suspicions. He does like her. They’d be happy together. What’s wrong with you? Are you jealous or something?’

This was more than I’d signed up for. ‘god, jealous? Of what?’

‘You don’t want Jase to have a girlfriend, do you?’

‘It’s not like he’d disappear all the time like you do, now you’re with nick.’

‘I’m here now, aren’t I? I’m meant to be in class, but no, I let you drag me out so we could talk about Jase.’

‘I can’t think.’ I was freezing up. I didn’t know why I didn’t want to meddle in Jase’s affairs of the heart, it just didn’t feel right.

‘Are you going to Nikki’s party on Friday?’

‘of course.’

‘Me and Jase are.’ I didn’t have to throw Amanda this idea, but I couldn’t handle the third degree anymore. I’d never been with a girl long enough to have a fight, and I didn’t have a clue what was happening. This wasn’t the normal banter between friends, the gentle mocking of the situation. I just wanted out. ‘Do you know if Erin’s going?’

‘Of course! That’d be perfect! You get him smashed and point him in her direction.’

‘so she’s going then?’

‘she will be.’ Suddenly I thought of Yoda, rubbing his hands together. ‘She will be.’