“Wouldn’t it be crazy if Jay asked me out, as in crazy good” I tell my best friend Jasmine in geometry as we’re ‘supposed’ to be working on our new homework assignment. Jasmine laughs and says, “You and your hypothetical situations, if you like the guy, which I know you do than go talk to him Sage.” I reply, “It’s not that simple, see if all I had to do was talk to him about anything then it’d be cool, but I have to keep his attention while talking to him and not look like some psycho groupie." I wait for Jasmine to contradict me, but just as she was squirming and looking for an excuse, any excuse she was … saved by the bell. We walked out of class, but not until I gave a backward glance at Jay, Jay Larson I sighed my secret crush since of last week when I told Jasmine. I’ve made sure she’s the only one that knows, because hello, I’m not stupid news travels fast in high school especially Carver High School. I say “bye” to Jasmine, as her newest boyfriend of exactly one week Matt Rosten caught up with us, but instead of walking ahead of them I slowed down, so I could ‘accidentally’ walk alongside Jay without it looking like I had planned the whole thing. Now, this takes skills ladies I’m telling you it isn’t easy. I look out of the corner of my eye and see him 2 steps behind me, 1 step behind me bingo its show time. I put a grin on my face, fall in step with him and act surprised to see him I say, “hey Jay how’s it goin?” He looks over at me, gives me this heartwarming smile, but I notice not quite reaching his eyes, “hey” he replies. I ask “you going to the pool party at Sasha Ryan’s house I mean, correction mansion?” he glances at me again, pauses and says “yeah”, he continues “whenever I go over there I’m always like, dude am I at the right place.” I laugh and we continue to friendly bash Sasha, and how rich she is. Until I realize no one else is in the hallways, we both look around, and finally I notice how quiet the school has gotten except the occasional noise from the oddball classroom. We both grin at each other. He gives a salute, and says,” see yah around Sage” he starts to walk away, when I grab his backpack, and say teasingly “you’re acting like we’ll never see each other again.” Even though there’s some truth behind my words. He stops, shrugs his shoulders embarrassingly and quickly changes faces he replies with a smirk on his face, “it’s a big school, but that isn’t what I meant”; I laugh and say, “just trying to give you a hard time Jay lo”. I wait for a ‘see you around’ or maybe even a ‘bye’ when I notice what I had said, I bite my lower lip; I can feel my face heating up already, when I realized my slip. Jay’s shuffling his feet looking at the ground, when I meekly reply, “Jay that was a slip up” he mumbles quickly “no probs” gives me a nod, not looking at me, and strolls away. I watch him walk away, willing him to glance back at me even for a second, but I know it’s hopeless. My shoulders hunch over, and I walk to the nearest bathroom...