Something New

by Amanda Abram

  “Cassie,” he said, “I have an important question to ask you.”

  “What?” I asked numbly.

  Suddenly, I was aware of how silent the cafeteria had become. I tore my gaze away from Elijah’s to glance around. Every single person—student, teacher, lunch lady—in the room had their eyes glued to us with curious expressions on their faces.

  “Guys?” Elijah said, stepping aside so that I could see his friend Nick, who’d been standing behind him.

  Nick was wearing a white t-shirt with the words “WILL YOU” written in black marker across the front. He moved to the side and got down on one knee.

  Behind him was Elijah’s friend Oliver, who was wearing a white t-shirt with the words “GO TO” written in black marker across the front. He moved to the side as well, joining Nick on the floor on one knee.

  Up next was Jason, another friend, who was wearing a white t-shirt like the rest, only his read, “WINTER FORMAL”. He got down on one knee next to Oliver.

  Elijah stopped strumming the guitar and removed it from his shoulder, setting it down gently on the floor. Unzipping his hoodie, he took it off and discarded it on top of the guitar.

  Like his other friends, he was also wearing a white shirt. His read, “WITH ME?”

  He stood next to Jason and I was able to read the whole message in sequence.

  It was an invitation. To Winter Formal. With Elijah.

  But the song and message weren’t the only surprises. As soon as Elijah knelt in front of me, all four boys simultaneously brought a hand from behind their backs and presented a sunflower to me.

  “Cassie,” Elijah said, staring up at me with hope-filled eyes. “Will you go to Winter Formal with me?”

  I was speechless. This was the most embarrassing, yet sweetest thing anyone had ever done for me, and I didn’t know how to react.

  When I took too long to answer, he placed his hand over mine on my lap.

  “I know you have no reason to say yes,” he continued, “but I would love it if you’d go with me. We can go as just friends if you’d like. As long as we go together, I don’t care.”

  I wanted to turn around and see Lauren’s face. I wanted to know what she thought of all this; what she thought I should do.

  I also suddenly wished I could have Dylan’s opinion, and that was when I realized Dylan hadn’t been a part of this. Why not? Where was he, anyway? I hadn’t seen him at all since this morning. We were supposed to have a talk about Saturday night. About what almost happened in my driveway.

  Elijah gave my hand a light squeeze. “Cassie?”

  I had zoned out when I was supposed to be giving him an answer. The entire cafeteria was now gawking at me, waiting with bated breath for me to respond.

  I closed my eyes tightly and began searching my soul for an answer. There were only two to choose from—three, if you included “maybe”, but I felt I owed him a definitive answer. After all, he did seem to have put a lot of thought into this romantic gesture.

  “Yes,” I finally blurted out, reopening my eyes. I didn’t even know that was my answer before I said it, and the simple word felt sour on my tongue as it rolled off.

  “As friends,” I made sure to quickly add.

  His face broke out into a grin. “As friends. I’ll take it.” He stood and turned to face his helpers. One by one, he took each flower the boys were holding and handed them all to me as a mini bouquet.

  That was when the entire cafeteria erupted in applause.

  I blushed furiously as Elijah leaned down and pulled me into a tight embrace.

  “Thank you,” he whispered into my ear.

  I wasn’t sure what he was thanking me for, exactly. Was he just thanking me for not turning him down and humiliating him in front of all his friends?

  “I’ll let you get back to your lunch.” He motioned to my tray. “Talk to you later?”

  “Yeah, sure,” I said with a nod.

  He turned to go, and all his friends gave him victorious pats on the back as they made their way over to their own lunch table.

  Finally turning to Lauren, I could see she looked as shell-shocked as I felt.

  “What was that?” she asked.

  I set my flowers down on the table. “I have no idea.”

  “I hate to admit it, but that was kind of amazing.”

  I blinked at her in surprise. “You think so?”

  “Elijah just serenaded you in front of all these people to ask you to go to Winter Formal with him. He played the guitar. And quite poorly, I might add. That was so romantic. Like right out of a movie.”

  She was right. It was romantic. It was like a scene from a movie. I should have had butterflies in my stomach. My heart should have been fluttering inside my chest.

  Like it was the other night. With Dylan.

  I gasped in horror at that thought as my hand shot up to cover my mouth—like I’d spoken the words out loud or something.

  Lauren narrowed her eyes at me. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” I lied. “I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure? You look a little sick.”

  I shook my head. “I’m good,” I said, even though I did suddenly feel a little queasy.

  Lauren’s face softened and her lips morphed into a smile. “I just realized something.”

  “Oh yeah?” I pushed through the nausea and took another bite of my celery stick.

  “Yup,” she said brightly. “You’re officially going to Winter Formal now!”

  Groaning inwardly, I dropped the celery back onto my tray.

  I wished I could have been as happy about that as she was.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  I stared at Dylan from across the classroom and frowned.

  Our Life Economics class was the first time I had seen him since he brushed me off this morning. He never made an appearance in the cafeteria at lunch time. I never ran into him in the hallway between classes like I normally did. And now he seemed to be making an effort not to look in my direction.

  He was avoiding me. There was no way to spin it. He had no real intention of finding me later to talk, like he’d claimed he would earlier. I was kind of hoping Mrs. Andrews would have us pair up during class so he’d be forced to talk to me, but unfortunately that didn’t happen.

  When the bell rang, I gathered up my books and stood from my desk, watching as Dylan quickly left the room without even saying a word to Elijah. I turned to Lauren to comment about how that was kind of weird, but I was interrupted by Mrs. Andrews.

  “Cassie, can you hang back for a minute, please?”

  “Uh, yeah.” Confused, I said goodbye to Lauren and made my way over to Mrs. Andrews’ desk.

  Once the last kid was out of the room, Mrs. Andrews motioned to a desk in the front row. “Have a seat.”

  I did as I was told as she made her way to the front of her desk.

  “Am I in trouble?” I asked.

  She gave a hearty laugh. “You? In trouble? No, I wanted to talk to you about your project with Dylan.”

  Now I was even more confused. If she wanted to talk to me about my project with Dylan, why hadn’t she asked Dylan to hang back with me?

  “What about it?”

  She studied me a moment before continuing. “I’m not sure if you’re aware of this or not, but Dylan came and spoke to me earlier today. He asked if I would allow him to continue with the project on his own.”

  My jaw dropped in surprise.

  “I take it from your expression that you didn’t know?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  Mrs. Andrews pursed her lips and nodded. “I thought that might be the case. I told Dylan that I would be fine with letting him finish the project on his own, but that I would have to discuss it with you first to make sure you were okay with it before approving his request.” She gave me a questioning look. “How do you feel about this?”

  How did I feel about it? Hurt. Confused. Irritated. I knew things might be awkward after wh
at happened on Saturday, but earlier, he didn’t even want to talk to me, and now he didn’t want to finish this project with me? And he didn’t have the guts to tell me that himself?

  Without waiting for me to answer, Mrs. Andrews continued. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on between you two, and it’s none of my business, but I’m going to tell you what I told Dylan: If this is what you both want, I’ll let you finish this project separately—with no negative consequences to your grades—but I highly encourage you to try to work things out first.” She pushed off her desk. “Let me know your decision by the end of class tomorrow, okay?”

  I nodded as I stood, hugging my books to my chest. “Yes. Okay. Thanks, Mrs. Andrews.”

  She smiled. “No problem. Enjoy the rest of your afternoon.”

  I returned her smile before exiting the classroom, where my smile vanished.

  I couldn’t help but feel like this was some sort of a test that Mrs. Andrews was giving me and Dylan. Like if we made the wrong decision (to finish our project separately), we would fail the class. On the other hand, if we were able to work out a way to stay partners and finish the project together, maybe we’d get extra credit or something.

  Or maybe she meant what she said. She’d let us part ways with no consequences if that’s what we wanted.

  But it wasn’t what I wanted.

  What I did want was to talk to Dylan. About Saturday. About why he wouldn’t just talk to me.

  About why he suddenly wanted nothing to do with me.

  ◆◆◆

  I spotted him walking down the hallway as soon as I exited my last class of the day.

  Hey, I quickly texted Lauren, do you mind waiting for me at my locker? Need to talk to Dylan about something.

  No prob, she texted back.

  I stuffed my phone into my back pocket and proceeded to follow Dylan all the way to his locker. As he put in the combination, I stopped a safe distance away and turned toward the wall so he wouldn’t notice me. But as soon as he opened the door and I was hidden from view, I walked right up next to him and waited for him to shut it.

  When he did, and he saw me standing there, he jumped slightly and cursed under his breath. “Cass, you scared me.”

  “You want to divorce me?” I greeted him through clenched teeth.

  At first, he looked confused. But then the realization of what I was referring to must have set in because his shoulders sagged as he closed his eyes briefly and sighed.

  “Cass, I—”

  “Hey guys!” interrupted a cheerful voice from behind me. I glanced over my shoulder to see Elijah walking toward us.

  His timing couldn’t have been any worse, but I’m sure his sudden appearance was a relief to Dylan because it delayed our conversation.

  Elijah threw me a lopsided grin as he stepped between me and Dylan and threw an arm around each of us. “What are you two talking about?”

  “Nothing,” Dylan mumbled. “Just our project.” He removed Elijah’s arm from his shoulder.

  I moved to do the same, but Elijah pulled me closer against him and tightened his hold on me.

  Dylan, suddenly looking uncomfortable, took a deep breath and turned to Elijah. “What’s up?”

  “I was just wondering if you wanted to hang out this afternoon.”

  Dylan nodded. “Yeah, sure. I’ve got nothing better to do.”

  “Cool.” Elijah glanced down at me. “You wanna join us?”

  “Can’t,” I said with a shake of my head. “I’m working.”

  “Bummer.” He paused for a second. “Are you working tomorrow?”

  Against my better judgement, I told the truth. “No, I’m not.”

  “Well, great.” Elijah’s eyes lit up. “Why don’t we get the study group together and hang out at my house after school tomorrow? It’ll be just like old times.”

  Study group at Elijah’s house had been a weekly tradition for me, Lauren, Dylan and Elijah. We started it soon after Elijah and I got together, and we had done it religiously every week up until two weeks ago, after Elijah and I broke up. We never did a whole lot of studying during those sessions; we’d usually just end up popping a couple bags of popcorn and watching a movie.

  “Yeah, sure,” Dylan said unenthusiastically.

  Elijah turned to me. “Cassie?”

  “I’ll talk to Lauren and see if she’s up for it.” If she wasn’t, I wasn’t.

  “Sweet,” Elijah said with another grin. He turned to Dylan. “Just drop by my house whenever you want.” He finally slid his arm off my shoulder. “Bye, Cassie.”

  “Bye,” I said, giving him a weak wave.

  Dylan watched him go and looked like he wanted to follow him. I was surprised he didn’t attempt to.

  When Elijah was well out of earshot, I narrowed my eyes at Dylan. “Well?”

  He avoided my gaze, averting it to the ceiling. “It’s nothing personal, Cass.”

  “Oh, really? Because it feels personal.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Did I do something wrong?”

  “No,” he said, finally looking at me, “you didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Are you mad at me for some reason?”

  “No, I’m not mad at you.”

  “Okay, so then why don’t you want to finish the project with me?”

  He sighed again as he leaned his back against his locker and stared down at the floor, his jaw set. “I just don’t think this is working out.” He motioned between us as he said it, and I wasn’t sure if he was referring to our partnership or our friendship.

  Or both.

  “I thought things were going okay. I thought we were working well together.” I paused and bit my lip, working up the courage to ask him my next question. “Is this because of what happened the other night?”

  His wide-eyed gaze shot to mine. I guess he wasn’t expecting me to bring it up. “What are you talking about?”

  I studied his face to see if he was being serious or not, but his expression was blank.

  A cold chill ran down my spine as it crossed my mind that maybe he didn’t know what I was talking about. Because maybe I’d read too much into it. Maybe I’d imagined it. Or maybe my memory of that night was just exaggerated. That could be why Caitlyn hadn’t pestered me about it for the rest of the weekend.

  Suddenly, I felt like the biggest idiot in the world.

  “I—I thought—” I began to stammer. I thought what? That we were going to kiss the other night?

  Why would I have thought that?

  “Look,” Dylan said, pushing off his locker and turning to face me. “I just don’t want to work with you anymore, okay?”

  He said it so bluntly, with no sign of remorse in his voice, that I didn’t know what to say. I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out.

  Fine. If that’s what he wanted, that’s what I would give him.

  “Okay,” I said in a controlled voice, trying so hard to keep my cool. “I’ll let Mrs. Andrews know first thing in the morning that we’ll continue with our project separately.”

  Dylan stuffed his hands into his pockets as he stared down at the floor again, nodding.

  “Jerk,” I muttered under my breath, turning on my heel and walking away.

  I was furious. Dylan didn’t want to work with me? He didn’t want to work with me? He’d had no problem with it just last week. In fact, he was the one who had been pushing us to work on it all the time. To go above and beyond for it by car shopping and grocery shopping. And now suddenly he had a problem with it all?

  I was so distracted by my frustration that I managed to walk past my own locker without even noticing.

  “Hey, where are you going?” Lauren called out after me.

  I stopped dead in my tracks and turned to see her staring at me with a quizzical look on her face. “To my locker,” I grunted, brushing past her and angrily putting in my combination.

  “Whoa, what’s going on? You seem upset.”

  “You’re damn right I’m upset
,” I snapped. “What the hell is his problem, anyway?”

  “I don’t know. Who are we talking about?”

  “Dylan.” I snatched the bundle of sunflowers from inside my locker and slammed the door shut. “He’s an ass.”

  Lauren snorted. “You’re not telling me anything I didn’t already know. But what did he do to make you so upset?”

  “He doesn’t want to finish our Life Economics project with me. He went behind my back and asked Mrs. Andrews to separate us.”

  “Oh. That’s weird.” Lauren paused as a small smile tugged at her lips. “Wait, does this mean you’re going to be a single mom like me? Trust me, it’s not as bad as you think it is. If you need any help, I can—”

  “I don’t need help with the project,” I interrupted her. “I need a reasonable explanation from Dylan as to why he suddenly has such a problem with me.”

  “You’ll probably never get one,” she said. “But who cares? It’s not like you and Dylan have ever been that close anyway.”

  I realized then how much I’d been keeping from her recently. She didn’t know I’d chosen to spend Friday night at Dylan’s house watching movies with him instead of going to a party with her. She had no idea I’d invited him to my family’s game night on Saturday. She didn’t know that we’d almost kissed.

  Or, at least, that I thought we’d almost kissed.

  Swallowing hard, I nodded. “You’re right. Why do I care?”

  “That’s the spirit.” She linked her arm through mine and began leading me down the hallway. “You don’t need Dylan anyway. You’re going to slay this project on your own.”

  She was right. I didn’t need Dylan. And if he wanted nothing to do with me, then the feeling was mutual.

  ◆◆◆

  “So. What is today’s drama?” Jade asked me as I started wiping down tables.

  I blinked at her in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

  “You’ve been in a weird mood all shift,” she replied. “But I can’t tell if you’re mad or sad. Or maybe both.”

  “It’s nothing,” I claimed, moving to the next table. “Just school stuff.”