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I really hated it when I heard people giggle.

The moment that I told Marcy on the phone about Mr. Griffin and everything that had happened, she started giggling like crazy. It made it worse that Kayti was over there was well, and they had me on speakerphone so it was double the giggles.

I didn’t even know what it was about giggling that annoyed me, especially since I had a tendency to giggle whenever I got nervous or just thought something was mildly amusing, and not completely.

But it was just this weird, silly high-pitched, shortened laugh used for some sort of ill-concealed amusement or embarrassment but if anyone should have been giggling in this situation, it would be me because even after I thought that it was pretty ballsy to try and do what I was doing, it was embarrassing.

But Marcy and Kayti were giggling like they weren't ever planning on stopping.

I sighed and lied back on my bed, running a hand through my hair. “This better be worth it, Marcy,” I said. “If you’re just getting me to do it as a joke, I’ll kick your ass.”

She giggled again, and I rolled my eyes. This conversation had been going on for about a half an hour now, and for the giggles, it was about the millionth time. Most of the talking was done by me. All they had said was “hey” or “hello”, and then after that, it was all “hahahaha”.

“I have a concern about this,” a male voice said from the other line, and my eyes widened.

“Get out, Jared!” Marcy wailed, which was quickly followed by Kayti’s screeching voice of no-reason, and what sounded to be something breaking. Jared was unfazed though, because I heard him laughing and it was a relief to not hear a giggle.

Then there was a sounded that appeared to be another line being picked up, and Jared’s voice again filled my ears.

“What are you going to do if this teacher man actually thinks you want a relationship?”

“Then he’ll get fired,” I said, but I honestly didn’t know what would happen so this statement came out sounding more like a question.

“Well even if he did, he could become like . . . obsessed with you,” Jared pointed out. “Have you ever seen Prom Night? That is some scary shit, you know.”

“He’s not going to slaughter her family, Jared,” Marcy scoffed. “And get off the phone!”

“You don’t know that. People are hard to read. Especially teachers.”

“Get off the phone!”

“Whatever it is you’re doing, Chris, you might want to just get it done, and then straighten him out so that he knows you’re not hitting on him, because some teachers actually do have relationships with their students.”

“Get off the damn phone!”

“Marcy! Shut up!” Jared yelled back.

“Jared!”

“Marcy!”

“Jared!”

“Marcy!”

I held the phone away from my ear, put it on my bed and went downstairs to get something to eat.

Aiden sat at the kitchen table, playing Jenga with Karlee while the two of them argued about staying to their own sides. Aiden paused when I came into the room and looked up, raising his eyebrows. “What’s that noise?” he asked.

I picked up the phone from the kitchen and turned it on, holding it beside my head. “Sound like this?” I asked. He nodded, and I put the phone down again.

“Oh,” he said simply, not bothering to ask what it was before looking back down at the blocks piled fairly high. I grabbed a water bottle and a chocolate bar from the fridge; then I turned and headed back upstairs to my bedroom to see where the conversation was so far. The moment before I closed my bedroom door, I heard Aiden wail “no!” and Karlee laugh, yelling back to him, “you loser! You suck at this game!”

I picked up the phone again and held it to my ear.

“He’s not going to rape her!” Marcy yelled.

“You don’t know that!”

The doorbell rang before I had a chance to cut them both off, and I sighed, rolling my eyes. “Guys, I’ve got to go,” I said loudly so they got the point.

“Rape!” Jared howled just to tease. I laughed, and then stopped when I heard Aiden yell “I’LL GET IT!” from downstairs, and I was a little nervous that he’d scare off whoever was at the door, even if it wasn’t for me—which it probably wasn’t but I doubt anyone would want to have the door open to Aiden.

“Don’t open it!” Marcy cried, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “It’s probably Mr. Griffin with a sledgehammer!”

“A sledgehammer?” Jared questioned. “Why a sledgehammer? I was thinking more of like a butcher knife.”

“Goodbye guys,” I said obviously, hanging up and rushing down the stairs where Aiden was just about to open the door but I nearly jumped onto his back if it weren’t for the distance between the third stair from the bottom and the fact that the door was way too far away for me to leap that far. I landed right by his ankles, and pushed him out of the way. He scowled, rubbing his head and walked off, muttering something like “stupid pubescent girls”.

I opened the door and Blade stood there, facing away from me. When he heard the door open, he turned to me and smiled.

“I’m guessing I’ve missed a lot since we haven’t talked for two weeks,” he said, stuffing his hands in his jean pockets and lifting his shoulders. “We need to catch up.”

I nodded and slipped my running shoes on, before following him outside. I took a couple steps until I spotted something and right when I was about to step on it, I looked down and noticed it was a frog. I shrieked and took a quick step back, covering my mouth with my hands. Blade jumped and turned to me with raised eyebrows and an amused smirk on his face.

“It’s a frog. It’s not a dragon,” he said with a laugh.

“No, but I almost stepped on it,” I explained, squirming uncomfortably.

“Ooh,” Blade said slowly, nodding. “You were afraid you’d kill it and make all the stuff inside get on the bottom of your shoe and them squish it and—"

“Blade! Shut up!” I yelled, causing him to laugh harder. I bent down and picked up the frog.

“Maybe you should kiss it,” he joked, winking at me. “Just give him a big fat one. Right on the lips.” He puckered out his, leaning forward. I glared at him and put the frog in the garden, away from my feet. I shoved Blade to the side and walked around him.

“Life’s not a fairytale, Blade,” I said with a shake of my head.

“You never know,” he said, following behind me and increasing the speed of his pace to keep up. “Why don’t you give him a kiss and find out?”



“Are you going to Trix’s party on Friday?” Blade asked me when I sat down on one of the swings at the park. He sat beside me, a little ways down because instead of being mature and using one of the “big kid” swings, he sat on the baby ones with the feet holes and everything. Blade was squirming around in it for about two minutes, trying to get comfortable but in the end, he just got stuck with his legs sticking up in the air. He huffed and shook some hair out of his eyes, grabbing onto the chains.

I laughed. “No, I wasn’t invited,” I said.

His eyebrows rose. “It’s a school wide event,” he said. “Everyone can go.”

“And how did you hear about this?”

“Trix told me,” Blade replied. “She said ‘yo, Blade. Come to my party on Friday. Spread the word’, and walked off.” He shrugged his shoulders.

“Oh. Well, I might, if more people I know are going. I’m not a big party girl.”

“Bring Marcy and Kayti,” he suggested. “You three are like The Three Musketeers. You could sure wreck havoc at a party if you tried.”

“One of the reasons why I’m not bringing them,” I pointed out with a laugh and a shake of my head. “They’d probably end up starting a fight or setting something on fire.”

“No, that would be Andrew,” Blade said. “You haven’t seen that kid at parties or drunk. It’s crazy.”

“Does he actually talk?”

“Are you kidding? He doesn’t shut up! He’s like one of those kiddy rides in the mall. You give him something to get him started up and he just goes.”

I smiled, and then shrugged. “Well, I don’t know. I might go.”

“You could probably come wasted and she wouldn’t care.”

I shook my head. “No, that’s not the problem. I just don’t want to go all that much.”

“Trix only has one requirement. You come in costume.”

I raised my eyebrows. “What the hell? Why? It’s not Halloween. It’s almost the beginning of February.”

Blade shrugged. “That’s just the way Trix is. I’ve known her since we were pouring water in sand and attempting to make mud pies out of it. She can’t have a party without a theme. Last year, it was bikinis and swim trunks. The year before that, it was vampires. The year before that, it was cowboy themed. This time, it’s pretty much anything. It’s like a Halloween theme, only well . . . four months post-Halloween.”

He looked over at me and smiled. “Hey, maybe you should go as Cinderella. You’d be totally pimping the whole big-fat-bluish-white dress, that weird mask thing, the whole shoe-falling-off-your-foot when you’re running.”

I shook my head. “Pimping? You can’t really ‘pimp’ a fairytale character’s outfit. And I don’t believe in fairytales.”

Blade scoffed. “Your dad has you brainwashed. You must think that there are no good guys in the world.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Oh really? Name one guy you think is good.”

You.

I didn’t want to say that, so I remained silent. After about fifteen seconds of me not saying anything, Blade chuckled and shook his head.

“I thought you said you wanted your knight in shining armour.”

“That’s not true. I said most girls want their knight in shining armour. [ii]Most. Girls.”

“And you’re not most girls,” he stated, raising his eyebrows questionably.

“No,” I lied.

“Wow.”

“What?”

“You just don’t seem like the type of girl who doesn’t want to find that guy who would do anything for her. You give off the impression you’re the exact girl who wants to get swept off her feet some day,” he explained, and I knew where he was coming from; I just didn’t want to admit to him that he was right because even though Blade and I haven’t known each other for very long, he did have an advantage over me where he could twist and turn my words around any which way to make me blurt out the truth.

He was like a living, talking, breathing lie-detector test; and he was really good at seeing past anyone’s cold exterior and getting them to tell him exactly what they thought, or what was on their mind.

I didn’t want to talk to him about all of this anymore, so I tried to change the topic but Blade got to that point before I could.

“So how goes the relationship with internet boy?”

“Who? Nathaniel?” Blade nodded. “Well, things are fine, I guess. It’s not like much can happen anyways. He could live miles away; he doesn’t know what I look like. I don’t know what he looks like. We could have past each other on the street for all I know and we wouldn’t have recognized each other. It’s not like things can get very far anyway.”

Blade shrugged and grunted, while he tried to push himself out of the swing. After quite a bit of persistence, he was freed and he hopped off, dusting off his jeans even though there wasn’t anything on them.

“Just arrange meeting up with him,” he said. “Judging by how many conversations you’ve had, and how they’ve gone, and how much you talk about him when you do, you could obviously be crazy for him sometime down the road. Do you really want to pass up an opportunity? He could be your special someone.”

The only problem was, as much as I took an interest in Nathaniel, he wasn’t the guy who was on my mind.