Page 27 of Finding Her
But she’d also ruined my plan because if doing that hadn’t made her want to get rid of me altogether, I wasn’t sure what would.
CHAPTER 18
poppy
I was pretty suremy body was shutting down. My lungs were so on fire that I didn’t think they would ever go back to normal again, my legs were shaking with every step I took, and if I didn’t find some water to chug in the next two minutes, I was going to faint.
I just had to make it back to the locker room and then I found my water bottle. I would chug water for a few seconds, and then sit there gasping for breath as I tried to recuperate, and back and forth. It took almost five minutes for my legs to feel okay enough for me to get back to my feet and I stumbled toward the showers at the back of the room. I didn’t even have the energy to turn the handle all the way to make it warm water so I ended up sitting under the freezing cold stream of water, willing myself not to pass out.
Bear was out of his mind. Who ran a mile that fast?
I rocked up to my next class more than ten minutes late, once the redness in my face had receded slightly and my breathing was under control again, but luckily, my teacher was out of the room, so I didn’t get a tardy. Small mercies.
When I plopped down next to Saylor, she looked at me and said, “You look like crap.”
I just groaned in response. When I finally had enough energy to be able to open my mouth and form words again, I just said, “I hate Lilah.”
Because that’s what it all came back to, wasn’t it? Lilah was the one who had told me to impress Bear in gym class. Lilah was the one who said an athlete would fall for another athlete, conveniently forgetting that I was the least athletic person in the world. If I hadn’t had her voice in my mind the whole time, reminding me that if I fell behind, I might as well give up any hope I had of making Bear fall for me, then I wouldn’t have pushed so hard to keep up.
Though, if I was being honest, I wasn’t sure if that was all it was. It wasn’t just about wanting Bear to ask me out. It was also that I wanted him to see that he couldn’t intimidate me. That I wasn’t just going to back down from a challenge. I wanted him to know that I was more than capable of dealing with whatever challenges he could throw my way and if he wanted to get rid of me, he was going to have to work harder than that.
My legs only hurt more by the end of class, somehow. I was dragging my feet so much as I headed to my locker that I figured Bear would already be gone and on his way to the cafeteria by the time I got there. But there he was, crouched at the bottom locker, like his legs didn’t hurt at all. I scowled. How was it fair that he was completely fine, and I wasn’t? Sure, he probably worked out every day, while my favorite pastime was laying in my bed and eating chips. So I guess we had different fitness levels, but still—something about seeing him be fine made me want to shove him over.
But I wasn’t a mean person, so I pushed down that instinct, walked up with a smile on my face, and said, “Hi, Bear.”
He glanced at me, grunted, and went back to his stuff. Honestly, I thought that was progress. I unlocked my locker,making sure not to stand right next to Bear’s face, and started pulling things out.
“Did you have a good class?” I asked. He grunted again. I took that as a yes. “I did too. My best friend’s in my second class, so after I’m done dealing with you all morning, I get to actually see someone who actually likes me.”
His eyes slid up to mine, and he stared for a long moment before he went back to putting his books back in his locker, not saying anything. I wasn’t sure if that was confirmation that he didn’t like me or surprise that I was calling it out. He started zipping up his backpack, and then grabbed something from his locker. My eyes lit up when I caught the red wrapping.
“Oh, IloveKit Kats,” I said, staring at the mini chocolate in his hand. “Is it your favorite chocolate, too?”
He looked at me, and at the Kit Kat in his hand, and then back up at me, and said, “No.”
“Oh.” I closed my own locker as well. “That’s too bad. They’re really good, but I guess everybody has their favorites, right?”
He continued to stare at me again, then inexplicably held out his hand. I stared at it, and the chocolate sitting on his palm, for a long moment.
“I don’t like them,” he replied. I frowned, not following. Why would he grab a chocolate he didn’t like? “Somebody gave me an assorted pack of chocolates and I’m just trying to eat through the Kit Kats, because I don’t want to throw them out. So, if they’re your favorite…” He lifted one shoulder in a shrug.
Bear was giving me a gift. No, that didn’t make any sense. It could not compute my brain. Why would he give me something? I had nothing to offer him in exchange, and I didn’t see why he would be doing this just out of the goodness of his heart. Nobody disliked a chocolate enough to just hand them out to random girls, right? But maybe he was viewing this as a gift, a way tomend a bridge between us, and if I said no, I would be undoing any progress we were making.
I hesitantly reached for the chocolate, almost expecting him to just snatch his hand away at the last second and laugh at me for thinking that he was being serious. But Bear didn’t seem like the kind of person to do that. Other popular kids, maybe, but not him. He may have been cold and refused to speak, but he wasn’t cruel or a bully. So, when I managed to pluck the chocolate from his hand, he just continued to stare at me impassively.
“Thanks,” I said. I tucked it in the front pocket of my blazer, deciding that I would eat it once I was done with my lunch. “I’ll see you later, okay?”
His head jerked in a tiny nod, and I smiled at him and skipped off. Maybe I actually was making some progress with Levi Barrett. Lilah would be thrilled.
CHAPTER 19
bear
KitKat’s aremy favourite chocolate.
I stared at my empty hand for a while after she’s gone, wondering what I just did. I wasn’t sure why I gave it to her. She had just been staring at me with those big doe eyes, and when she said, “I love KitKats,” my brain had short-circuited. I didn’t think of anything other than the fact that the chocolate in my hand was her favorite, and what else was I supposed to do with it? Never mind the fact that it was my favorite, too.
I sighed and grabbed the box of chocolates I had in my locker again, but when I glanced through it, I realized there weren’t any KitKats left. I hadn’t been lying about the assorted box of chocolates. Crossy had given this to me as a back-to-school present, because apparently that was something we were supposed to do, and in the couple of weeks we’d been back, somehow I’d already eaten through my favorites.
