My friend Gabrielle and I are really close, mainly ‘cause we have a lot in common. For example, we’re on the varsity soccer team together and we sit next to each other in third period Spanish, where we share our exciting stories from the night before along with whatever happened so far that day. We both love chocolate and watching scary movies and absolutely hate apple juice and reading. We even like the same guy. His name is Phil and he’s the captain of the boy’s varsity soccer team.

“Hey Taylor, wait up! I gotta tell you something!” shouted Gabrielle as she walked onto the track. Practice was starting soon and I was halfway done with the daily warm-up lap around the track with the rest of the team. I slowed down just a bit so she could catch up if she ran fast enough. “Hey,” she caught up, “so as I was saying, I saw Phil in the hallway today. He looked so cute, more than he usually does. But the best part is that he actually waved to me today!”

“Really? That’s awesome,” I said with a fake sense of excitement. I hated that. I hated how he waved to her, too. Phil isn’t my boyfriend or anything, but I still get so jealous and angry when she gets attention from him.

“I know! He was in my lunch today too, so when I go home I can use that as an excuse to talk to him online.” I laughed half-heartedly, I really didn’t care. Coach called us all over and we started practice.

When the brutal shooting and passing drills finally came to an end, it was 5 o’clock. Time to go home and do hours of homework. Great. After I got out of the shower, I signed online. Surprise, surprise, Gabrielle and Phil were on, too. The first message I get is from Gabrielle, “Hey! Guess who I’m talking to!” Annoyed, I told her I had too much homework to do and I would see her tomorrow in Spanish.



“Hola clase,” said Sra. Martinez as she walks into the classroom. I took my seat and didn’t even bother looking at Gabrielle. We learned some new verbs and how to conjugate them. I guess it was a productive class. We were working by ourselves the whole time so I didn’t have to sit there and listen to Gabrielle brag about her and Phil’s conversation from last night.

Lunch time came, finally. We were having nachos, my favorite. I glanced to my right and Phil was sitting at the lunch table across from mine. Some of his friends got up to get their lunch so I grabbed mine and nervously walked over to his table. “Is this seat taken?” I said as I went to sit down, hoping he wouldn’t say yes. He looked at me and smiled. That was a good sign.

“How are the nachos, good?”

“Y-yep,” I was still in shock that I had actually sat down next to him and he was talking to me.

“That’s pretty cool.” Not knowing anything to say, I decided I’d find out if there was anything going on with Gabrielle.

“So you and Gabrielle talk a lot I guess, huh?”

“Gabrielle? Gabrielle who?”

“You know, Gabrielle, she plays soccer, too. She’s on the same team as me.”

“Right. That Gabrielle. Well, I don’t know. I mean I guess if you count saying hi back to her before practice.”

“Back?”

“Yeah. That girl always says hi to me before I get into the locker room,” The bell rang. “I guess I’ll talk to you later tonight then, Taylor. Online?”

“Sure” I replied, trying not to sound too excited.

When I was walking back to class I played our conversation over and over again in my head. ‘That girl’. ‘hi back to her’. I was getting the feeling that Gabrielle had been lying about all of her talks with Phil and how he always waves to her when passing in the halls. I loved this feeling.

***

“Hey Phil!”

“Hi Tay,” Phil replied just before he leaned in to give me a quick kiss. “Happy anniversary, babe. Six months today” he says with a smile on his face. “How’s your day going so far?”

“Okay, just glad third period is over and it’s lunch time” I said as Gabrielle and I exchanged dirty glances passing each other. “Nachos today, love them” I went on, with nothing but a feeling of regret in the back of my mind.