Chapter 3


Hey.

That was what Danny’s text said when I looked at my phone before going to bed.

Hey. I texted back and changed into a tank top and a pair of Sofee’s. It was the middle of February and I already couldn’t wear sweat pants to bed anymore; Arizona just sucked sometimes.

We need to talk. No, really? I rolled my eyes and ignored his message. I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth and saw that I had a missed call from him when I came back to my room. I pressed dismiss, set my alarm and climbed into bed. My phone started ringing and I groaned and reluctantly answered it.

“We can talk at school! Now I’m going to bed!”

“Yeah, you definitely shouldn’t skip your coffee in the morning,” Selina said into the phone.

“Oh, sorry Selina. And if you make one more comment about my frikin coffee I’m gonna have to find a new best friend because my current one will have disappeared mysteriously.”

“Ouch, that was harsh,” she said in a sarcastic tone and I smiled.
“I thought you were Danny.”
“Oh boy, what happened now?”
“I’ll tell you at school, but now I would really like to go to bed,” I said with a yawn.
“Oh stop being a baby, it’s only ten o’clock!”
“Yeah, and that’s what time normal people go to sleep. Oh yeah I forgot that you don’t fall under that category.”
“Oh you’re so funny! To a five year old.”
“Dido, Lina.” That was the nickname that I always used to call her. Now I only really used it when I was either tired, annoyed, or both.
“Fine, fine I’ll let the grouch get some beauty sleep. Call me in the morning. Night!” She said and hung up. What exactly was the point of her call? I asked myself and shook my head as I set my phone down a final time.

When I walked downstairs to the kitchen in the morning, I stood and looked at the coffee maker for about five minutes having a silent war in my head about whether or not I should have a cup. I wanted to prove to everyone that I didn’t need it, but then I was really tired this morning because I was tossing and turning all night thanks to two specific people: James and Danny.
“Addie did you start the coffee?” My mom called down the stairs. She had to go into work early so she was getting ready early. I sighed as I turned on the maker.
“Do you think I’m addicted to coffee?” I asked her when I walked into her bathroom while she was doing her eye makeup.
“Not necessarily. I don’t really want to talk to you when you didn’t have any since you tend to be pretty grumpy, but it doesn’t mean you can’t live without it. Why?” She finished putting on her mascara and looked at me.
“Friends yesterday said I couldn’t go a week without it.” I sat down on the side of the tub and watched her curl her hair.
“Well prove them wrong then. But, if you want to do it to prove them wrong then drink lots of soda in secret to make up the caffeine. But, if you want to do it for yourself then be strong and don’t drink any. Now shouldn’t you be going off to school by now? It’s late.” She said as she checked her watch.
“Yeah, probably. Thanks mom!” I kissed her cheek and ran down the stairs before Selina began to wonder about me.
“Why so smiley today? Did you finally drink your coffee today?” Selina asked excitedly as she got into my truck.
“Nope!” I said with a smile and couldn’t help but laugh as I saw her smile slowly fade from her face.
“Why?”
“I’m going to prove to everyone that I’m not dependent on coffee thanks to all of your remarks yesterday,” I smiled with a beaming smile as I pulled onto the main street leading to school.
“Oh jeez, here we go. Ok, how long do I have to wait before I can talk to you again?” she said jokingly and I punched her in the arm.
“A week.”
“Oh dear, kill me now! Friendless for a whole week!”
“Shut up or I won’t tell you about Danny.” I pulled into our parking spot, and we started walking into school.
“Oh do spill!” So I told her everything that had happened and a big grin spread over her face.
Ding!
“Oh gosh, just don’t tell me what you’re thinking because I’m not agreeing. It would never work; I mean he’s like my best friend and it would be so awkward!”
“He is kind of cute,” she said and moved her eyebrows up and down in her devising grin.
“I’m going to Spanish, goodbye!” I said and pushed her down the hallway.
I groaned when the bell rang at the end of second period signaling the end of the period. I was the last one to leave the class and I don’t think I had ever managed to walk as slow as I did in the hallway. People gave me dirty looks as they walked around me, but I tried to stall as much as possible before I had to go to my next class. I sighed when the warning bell rang and ran to my history class and sat down behind Danny. He didn’t turn around until Mrs. Colus started with another one of her lectures.
“Thanks for replying to my text,” he said. I looked up and couldn’t read his expression.
“I fell asleep,” I said and started to pretend like I was looking for something in my backpack.
“You could’ve texted me back in the morning.”
“And said what?” I snapped back a little too loud and Mrs. Colus gave us a glare, but kept talking.
“Anything. It’s better than being ignored.”
“Can we do this after class? I actually have to pay attention so I can get my grade up.” He slowly turned back around and I dropped my head into my hands. Why couldn’t somebody else like me besides him? I swear, it was as if I didn’t already have enough things to handle in my life.
I bolted out of the class and down the hallway before he could say anything and stopped right in front of the door to the cafeteria when I saw his text: Yeah cus running away frm everything is the perfect solution. I spun around on my heel and saw him outside the doors of the hallway I just came from. I stomped over to him in a rage and tried to push him into the wall even though he barely budged.
“Just shut up, ok? You don’t know a thing about how I ‘solve’ things. In fact you don’t know a thing about me! Because all you’re ever concerned with is yourself and that is why nobody dates you because you don’t care!” I shoved him again but this time he grabbed my wrists and pulled me inside of the hallway. “Let go of me!” I yelled and ripped my wrists out of his grasp.
I was about to let out a stream of swear words at him when he surprised me by crushing his mouth to mine. I tried to push him away at first until he softened the kiss and gently pushed me against the wall. His tongue played with my lips for a little bit before I gave in to him, and he deepened the kiss until my knees felt wobbly. He pulled back after a little bit and I looked down the hall and was surprised to see that we were alone in the hall. He smiled down at me expecting me to smile back, but I pushed him back against the wall and succeeded in moving him since he wasn’t expecting it.
“I hate you,” I said and started to walk out of the hall.
“What? You totally kissed me back!” I wouldn’t deny it, but his kiss had both surprised me and shaken me up. He wasn’t supposed to have that much power over me. One little kiss shouldn’t have made me want to do whatever he wanted. Many warning signs immediately flashed in my mind the second he ended the kiss.
“There you are!” Selina said as I approached the table. Her eyes searched my face in worry. “Adam told Brad that he saw you and Danny arguing.”
“Who’s Adam?” I asked and she waved her hand dismissively in the air.
“One of Brad’s friends. So what happened? Why is your face so pink?”
“How does he know who I am?” I asked referring to Adam since I had never heard of the kid before.
“He always sees you and me hanging out together and probably asked Chad or something, I don’t know. But that’s beside the point.”
“Ugh. Can I have it?” I asked referring to our inside joke and laid my head down on the lunch table.
“Not until you tell me what happened,” she replied and I almost laughed but I was too confused and angry to do so at the moment.
“We didn’t talk in History and then when I didn’t wait for him after class he said something about how I always run away from things. Here you can see the message he sent me,” I said and handed her my phone.
“What a jerk!” She shrieked and sat down next to me since she had still been standing up.
“He was standing in front of the three hundred hall so I walked up to him and let him have it because I’m so sick of boys. And he had no right to say that! He doesn’t know anything about me and what I’ve been through! All he cares about is himself!”
“What’d he do?”
“He dragged me into the three hundred hall.”
“And…?”
“He kissed me.”
“What?” she screamed and had a couple of heads turning our way.
“I said he kissed me!” I said at the level of a whisper so the whole school wouldn’t hear.
“I heard what you said! So what happened then?”
“I pushed him and told him that I hated him,” I stated calmly and turned around to look out the window of the cafeteria.
“What! Whoa, whoa he kissed you? Was it a good kiss? Did you kiss him back?” I put my head back on the table and moaned.
“Yes, and it was so amazing that I felt it in my knees. But, I panicked. He made me so powerless; I wasn’t the one in charge. And I was in the middle of yelling at him! If that’s his way of solving things-”
“You felt it in your knees?” she asked, her voice now as low as a whisper. “That’s what Brad’s kisses feel like! Now you can’t just walk away; you don’t feel it in your knees with every boy, trust me.”
“So what! I’m still extremely pissed that he took advantage of me like that. And what are the chances that the hall would be totally empty? I mean you’d think someone would’ve seen how he just dragged me into the hallway!”
“Adalyn!” she yelled grabbing me by the shoulders and roughly shaking me back and forth. “Would you put your head on straight? You know you felt something for him.”
“It doesn’t matter how it felt; I’ve already decided that he’s bad news.”
“And James wasn’t?” She said letting go of me.
“Hey Babe,” Brad said as he kissed her cheek and sat down next to her. She smiled and held up her hand with her index finger sticking to tell me to hold on for a minute. She turned to him and kissed him on the lips. I watched for a second before looking away to give them privacy. He made her happier than anybody else could, and it made me happy to see how well they fit each other. And he was so patient of me. He never seemed to care that she spent so much time with me which would make just about every other guy super jealous. I stood up and she immediately turned her attention to me.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Getting my lunch and then going to sit outside. You guys deserve a lunch by yourselves,” I said with a smile.
“Addie you don’t have to leave. We’ll stop now so you’re not uncomfortable,” Chad said with an easy smile.
“I need some fresh air. I’ll be fine, I promise. I just need to be alone for a little while,” I said with a smile and walked outside. I walked around a little bit just thinking about everything that had happened in the past few days and finally settled down on one of the concrete benches that circled around the trees in the courtyard in the middle of the school.
Danny really wasn’t that bad, but now that someone liked me I didn’t want a boyfriend. I had enough people to deal with at the moment; I didn’t need a relationship to complicate things even more. Especially if they could make me feel so weak with a single little kiss.
Oh God, please help me. Have Dad send me some kind of sign that says he’s still watching me. Anything to let me know that I’m not all alone, please. Because Selina is the only one who understands me, but if she spends all of her time with me she’s going to lose someone close to her too and I don’t want her to be in any pain because of me. Why’d you take Dad? I need him down here!
I pulled my knees up to my chest and rested my head on top of them and quickly wiped away the tear that slipped from my guard. I hated crying. I’ve done it enough times to last me a lifetime by now, and no boy was going make my guard slip that easily. He was not going to kiss me again unless I wanted him to which was probably going to be never.
“So now you hate me?” Danny said from behind me and I shot straight up to my feet to face him. Stars clouded my vision for a second because I stood up too fast. I didn’t know how long he had been standing there or if he had seen the tear, but I was even angrier at myself for letting him sneak up on me.
“Sort of.”
“What does that mean?” he said and took a step toward me as I took a step back.
“Just leave me alone, please,” I said and turned to walk away.
“Just going to walk away again? Is that your master solution?”
“Oh, and kissing girls just to get them to shut up is better?” I said and turned around to look at him. His evil grin only made the heat rise in my cheeks.
“When the girl in question is irresistible, then yes.” I turned back around and walked away from him. He was just an arrogant SOB who only wanted to get into my pants and I really didn’t want to put up with him at the moment. The bell rang when I was on my way back to the cafeteria so I just went to my fourth hour dance class and tried to keep him from my mind.


I sat on the other side of the room for the next week in history and he smiled at me the whole period, but he never said anything and I was always the first one to leave class so he could never catch up to me. I never told Selina about his sneaking up on me that day, and I could tell Brad was happier that I was giving Selina more time to spend with him. It was pretty pathetic, but I had already started to miss her being with me the whole time.
Adam, Brad’s friend, started to sit with us at lunch and I was happy I wasn’t the third wheel anymore, but I had a feeling this arrangement was an attempt to make a double-date-type thing happen. He was a really nice guy, but I really didn’t want any boy at the moment. And I was even successfully ignoring James, too. He had even texted me once and I didn’t even take a second glance at the reply button on my cell phone.
So, the rest of the week was perfect and Amy even invited me to stay at her dorm for the weekend giving me and excuse to get away from everything going on at school. Even though her school wasn’t even a half hour away from where my mom and I lived it still felt like a nice get away.
She picked me up at my house late on Friday night and we went to eat at Fudrucker’s before going to her dorm. Fuddrucker’s was this little burger restaurant that almost like a diner, but not quite.
“So, how are the college boys looking?” I asked when we sat down after ordering our food.
“Very fine,” she said and we both laughed. She was the biggest flirt I’d ever met so I knew she was just having the time of her life with tons of new boys to play with.
“Are you still talking to Creighton?” Creighton was her boyfriend all through high school and they had just recently fallen out of touch since he went to the University of Arizona. I knew a long distance (If you could call two hours long distance) relationship would never work out between the two of them. It really wasn’t worth it for two freshmen in college to restrict themselves from other people.
“Yeah, every now and then, but we both know that it’s never really going to work out between us.”
“Alright, what’s his name?” I said, not falling for Amy’s mind tricks.
“Burke, and oh man is he gorgeous! And sweet and romantic! And he only looks at me! Out of all of the pretty girls in the school, he only looks at me. Even when he doesn’t know I’m watching! He is so amazing!” she said with a dreamy look in her eyes that reminded me of the look that mom had had the other night when she started talking about dad.
“Spying much?” I asked with a grin. She smiled her goofy smile and stuck her tongue out at me which made me laugh.
“It’s hard not to. I swear this man is way too good to be true.”
“In love within the first year of college! I thought you would make it to your junior year at least!” I said with a laugh and she just smiled.
“So what did James do now?” she asked and I gave her a confused look.
“What says that he did something else?”
“There’s a sadness in your eyes,” she said in a serious tone and I couldn’t help but laugh because it sounded so ridiculous, yet I wondered if it was so obvious to everyone else as it was to her.
“I think you’re crazy. I haven’t even talked to him after I called you. And thanks for calling me back by the way! I guess your roommate is more important than me now!”
“I knew you’d just call Selina if you needed someone or she’d call you since you two can’t seem to get enough of each other! I swear you two are like two peas in a pod, I just hope you stay this close for the rest of high school.” Our buzzer started to vibrate so we got up and put all of our toppings on our hamburgers and French fries and sat back down to eat, but her comment stayed fresh in my mind. I hoped we stayed close too. I don’t know what I would do without Selina; she was always there and I always wanted her to be.

“Hey, are you busy?” I asked when Selina answered her phone. Amy and I were at her dorm and she had just left to do an ice cream run.
“Nope, just watching The Wedding Singer; what’s up?”
“We haven’t really talked all week, so I just thought I’d call and say hi.” I plopped onto Amy’s bed and relaxed a little bit.
“I noticed that you kind of backed off of talking to me this week, is something wrong?” her voice sounded a little worried. It doesn’t really make sense, but it kind of made me happy because it meant she had missed me too.
“I wanted to give you and Brad some more space because I always hog you from him and I know he doesn’t act like he minds but it’s got to annoy the crap out of him in the inside.”
“Oh, Addie, I love you. If he had a problem with my spending too much time with you, then I don’t think things would work out between us because no boy will ever be more important than you are to me.” A tear slid down my face and I just smiled.
“Lina, you are the best friend anyone could ever wish for.”
“Dido, Addie,” she said and I laughed. I heard my sister come in the door and Selina and I quickly said our goodbyes.
“Alright I got moose tracks and mint chocolate chip.” She said as she set the grocery bag on the small counter space that she had in the dorm room.
“You didn’t forget cones right?” I asked as I got up off of her bed.
“Damn!”
“Amy! That’s like the best part of an ice cream cone!” I said with a laugh and starting pulling out the cartons of ice cream and gave her a look when I pulled out the box of cones and chocolate syrup.
“How dumb do you think I am? It’s hard to go to the store to get stuff to make ice cream cones and not even get the cones or the chocolate syrup!” I just laughed and we started opening the ice cream cartons to get started.