Page 17 of Behind the Bars

“You know what?” he whispered, his mouth close to my ear as he held metight.

“What?”

“You never have to ask me for a hug,okay?”

I sighed and fell a little more into him. “Okay.”

“Jasmine?” he whispered one moretime.

“Yes,Elliott?”

“Does this mean we’refriends?”

I laughed and nodded against his shoulder. “This means we’refriends.”

Chapter Five

Elliott

Every Saturday night,Jasmine showed up to listen to my performance. Knowing she was there made me want to be better, to put on the best show I could, and every time I finished, she’d tell me it was the best show I’d everhad.

She didn’t know how much that meant tome.

Afterward, she always hurried off and she never really said where she was heading, which was fine. I already knew, since every Monday morning I’d overhear the popular kids talking about the party at Todd’shouse.

I didn’t care, though, because at least she showed up to hearme.

“Hey, Jasmine,” I called out at the end of my performance one night. My adrenaline was still racing through my body from my best show to date, and I felt more confident than I ever had in my entire life. If I was ever going to ask her the question I’d wanted to ask for weeks, this was the time. It was now ornever.

She turned around with a big smile on her face. “Yes,Elliott?”

“Do you…” I cleared my throat. “I mean, maybe next week, be-before my show…do you want to like, meet at my house and come down here together?” I asked, one hundred percent prepared for rejection. “We can getfood?”

She kept smiling. “Is that aquestion?”

I snickered. “Maybe?”

She walked over to me and held her hand out. “Give me your cellphone.”

I complied, and she typed in her phone number then handed it back to me. “I’ve always wanted to go to DatDog.”

“Okay. Cool. So, it’s a date.” I panicked at my own words. “I mean, like, a friends date—like, friends. Just two friends eating wieners.”Nope. Just stop talking.“Okay, well…bye.”

She laughed. “I’ll see you at school,Elliott.”

And she did see me at school. She didn’t only see me, she talked to me in the hallways, almost as if she wasn’t embarrassed to be seen with me. She laughed with me too, which was nice, because laughing alone at things kind of took away the fun. The closer the weekend got, the more the nerves built up in my gut, and I was regretting asking her to hang out with me before my show. What would we talk about? How would I control my sweating? Was I supposed to buy her friendshipflowers?

Were friendship flowers athing?

“You’re telling me you have a girlfriend?” my friend Jason said into his headset as we played video games on Saturday afternoon. We’d been best friends since elementary school, and I missed him pretty much every day. His mom had moved to Nebraska after Jason’s dad cheated on her and he’d gone with her because he always chose his mom over his dad. He hated his dad more than words could say—we had that in common. Jason and I always played games over the weekend, since Mom didn’t let me play too many games during the school week, and it was a good way to catchup.

“No, a girl friend. She’s a girl who’s afriend.”

“Oh God,” he groaned. “I left you alone for a minute and you went and became cooler thanme.”

“Notquite.”

“Is shehot?”

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