Page 13 of With a Little Luck

I’m so distracted by Maya’s sudden appearance that Pru and Quint could be doing headstands on the bench right now and I wouldn’t notice. All my energy is divided between following Maya’s movements as she greets her friends, her smile like a beacon in the courtyard—while also trying to appear utterly nonchalant.

Don’t stare for too long.

Don’t make eye contact.

Don’t respond to that teasing smirk I can feel Pru sending in my direction.

“Shut up,” I mutter under my breath.32

“Dude,” says Quint, leaning toward me, “we’ve been in the same classes together for forever. Just go talk to her.”

Great. Even my sister’s boyfriend can tell how pathetic I am.

I don’t justify his suggestion with a response. Because if it was that easy, I obviously would havejust gone and talked to hera long time ago.

_______________

So, okay. Let’s take a pause here.

You and I have been getting along pretty well these last thirty or so pages, right? Getting to know each other. Enjoying some good tunes at open mic night. Marveling over the couture fashion choices of the world’s five-year-olds. I hope it isn’t too forward of me to say that I feel like we’ve kind of hit it off.

But there’s one thing I haven’t told you yet. One thing you should probably know about me before we go any further.

I am hopelessly in love with Maya Livingstone.

It’s not, like, a secret or anything. In fact, I’m fairly certain thateveryoneknows … including Maya herself. I guess I just felt like the whole unrequited-love conversation isn’t one that should come up in the first chapter. I wasn’t trying to withhold anything from you, it’s just not the sort of thing you lead with, especially when the case is as hopeless as mine.

Here’s the thing about being hopelessly in love with a girl who is unequivocally out of your league: It’s pointless. The chances of me ever being brave enough to ask her out are exactly zero. The chances of her sayingyesare even less, which is both a mathematical impossibility and yet also somehow accurate. It’s not that Maya is some teen movie cheerleader stereotype who only dates jocks or anything like that. Nope, Maya is smart and gorgeous and nice to everyone, and I’m not exactly special for having an unrequited crush on her. In fact, I’m amazed on a daily33basis that she’s single, and has been since she broke up with Leo Fuentes over winter break of our sophomore year.

So Quint’s breezy suggestion that Ijust go talk to her?

Please. I would rather be buried alive under a pile of tribbles.

Here’s the full story, since I guess it’s relevant.

I have been in love with Maya since the fifth grade, from the day that Pru was out sick with chicken pox (I’d recovered from mine a month before) and missed out on the field trip to the aquarium, leaving me to fend for myself on the bus. Or so I thought, until Maya dropped down into the seat next to me and spent the hour-long ride talking about seals and jellyfish and how she was convinced that mermaids were totally real, because her grandma had told her lots of fairy tales from all over the world that had half-human, half-fish creatures in them, and what were the chances of that unless there was some truth to it?

I didn’t have to say much during that ride. I just listened and smiled, absolutely in awe at how this girl was sitting next to me, talking tome. If I’m shy and awkward now, I was ten times worse in elementary school, but it was like Maya hadn’t even noticed.

She was the nicest, prettiest, most interesting girl that had ever spoken to me, and … well, she still is.

She’s been living rent free in my head ever since.

Not that we’ve talked much in the years since that fateful field trip. Maya sometimes smiles at me in the halls, just like she smiles at everyone. She stops by the record store on occasion and even tries to make small talk, but I usually clam up, and if I can think of anything to say to her at all, it’s usually something weird or random or … I don’t know.Me.

And yeah, I get a little jealous when I see Maya trading some goofy handshake with Quint or laughing at whatever inane thing Ezra said. It’s so easy for people like them. They’re comfortable in their own skin, and don’t seem to worry about whether or not people like them.

How great would it be to just … be yourself, and know that society or the universe or the Force or whatever has deemed you worthy?34

And yeah, I know how I sound. But I can’t help it. I can’t stop feeling this way. I can’t take Maya down from that pedestal she so rightly belongs on.

The bell rings, and the crowded courtyard starts to clear out as everyone heads toward their classrooms. Pru, Quint, and I take off toward the science hall.

I linger a few steps behind my sister and her boyfriend, hands in my pockets as we’re jostled down the halls, my new dice brushing against my knuckles. I share three classes with Maya this semester. First-period astronomy, second-period English lit, and sixth-period political science. I do not sit next to her in any of them, but in our first two classes I sit a few rows behind her, which is its own torture. The sort of torture where Icouldfocus on her for fifty straight minutes, but I know better not to. The sort of torture where I could sketch out the curve of her neck, the curls of her hair, the slope of her nose and fullness of her lips, all in perfect, statuesque profile—but to attempt to draw her in the middle of class would risk someone noticing, and that could be disastrous in myriad ways.

It’s the sort of torture that feeds into fantasies of Maya needing to borrow a pencil, to compare notes, to ask about an assignment, and me being right there with the answers. Maya, seekingmeout, rather than any of our other twenty-six classmates. Maya, making up an excuse to talk tome. Maya, just … noticing me, really.

Noticing would be good. Noticing would be a start.

---