I Won't Say I'm in Love

“Hey there, sexy,” I heard a familiar voice murmur next to my ear as a pair of brown, warm arms wrapped around my waist. I smirked and closed my locker. Turning around, I wrapped my arms around Seth’s neck as he let his interlocked hands settle at the base of my back.

“Seth, shouldn’t you be hitting on girls your own age?” I asked him, tapping him lightly on the nose.

“I’m not hitting on you!” he exclaimed, blushing ever so slightly. I laughed and placed an arm around his waist and he did the same as we began walking down the hall. “But I look older than you anyways. So…” He began to slowly slide his hand toward my bottom.

“Seth, stop,” I giggled, taking his hand of my back and just holding his hand instead. He chuckled as we turned a corner.

“So did you see the new girl?” he asked.

“Um, no. I didn’t know there was a new girl,” I admitted.

“Her name’s Konstantina Katsaros and she’s the niece of Lenny Katsaros,” he informed me.

“The one who owns the retro diner on the water?” I clarified. He nodded.

“The same.”

“She hot?” I questioned.

“So I hear,” he confessed. And sure enough, when we rounded the corner, I saw a beautiful, unfamiliar face beaming up at…

Jacob?

I felt my heart plunge into my stomach as the tan girl tossed her silky, chocolate curls over her slender shoulder, smiling up at Jacob under her long, brown eyelashes.

“Hey. Hey! Calypso! Calypsoooo!” Seth shouted, waving his hand in front of my face as I stared at the scene before me, seething with jealousy.

“What, Seth?” I said, whinier than I expected, grabbing his hand out of my face.

“Just go over there. He’ll immediately start talking to you, I promise,” Seth vowed. I began shaking my head and sticking out my bottom lip as he nudged me toward Jacob and the girl. “YEEHAW!” he exclaimed, smacking me on my bottom...hard.

“OUCH!” I growled, rubbing my bottom. I reluctantly walked toward the two smiling people while glaring at Seth over my shoulder.

“Hey, you!” Jacob greeted, walking over to me. He pulled me into a hug, which I didn’t bother to return.

“Um. Hi,” I replied unenthusiastically. He pulled away and he wrapped his arms around my waist while I kept my tense arms down at my sides as the girl watched us with her large, grey doe eyes. “Weren’t you, ah, going to talk to Mr. Burns about your math homework?” I inquired, trying to keep the jealousy out of my voice.

“I did. He said I got everything wrong.” I couldn’t help but laugh and put my arms around his neck.

“Well that’s a surprise. You’re not that stupid,” I joked.

“I can’t study with you in the room! I got distracted,” he murmured into my hair as I laughed into his broad chest. “C’mon. There’s someone I want you to meet,” he said, taking my hand and dragging me toward the model-esque girl leaning against one of the green lockers. “Konstantina, this is Calypso Kinnear. Calypso, this is Konstantina Katsaros,” he introduced, gesturing to each one of us.

“Hi,” we greeted in unison. My eagerness was phony, but she didn’t know it.

“So you’re new here?” I asked her, trying to sound honestly interested.

“Yeah. My older brother and I just moved here to live with our uncle,” she confided, smiling.

“Cool! So you have siblings?” I asked, still uninterested, but pretending to be.

“Yeah. But I like to announce the fact that we are not related. He’s adopted. And an ass. I love him! But he’s an ass,” she joked, making me laugh. And surprisingly, it was genuine!

“Got it. Not related to your adopted brother. And just for the record, I’m not related to this thing either,” I told her, kicking Jacob in the ass after crossing my arms. He hip checked me and I giggled. “Stupid,” I muttered under our laughter as I playfully swatted at him and returned to where I was standing before he nearly knocked me over.

“Well, I would hope not considering you two are together and everything,” she said. Jacob and I looked at each other and then back at her.

“Erm, Jake and I aren’t—we aren’t like that—”

“We’re just friends,” he assured her, shooting me a wary look before returning his full attention to Konstantina who was blushing under her sandy colored skin.

“Oh. I just thought…’cause you two are so close…and the way you guys interact…” she was obviously embarrassed. I shook my head.

“Nah, Jake’s like my brother. He annoys the shit—” I stopped momentarily to kick Jacob in the shin for abruptly shoving me off to the side. “Out of me,” I continued as if Jake wasn’t wincing in pain at his bruised shin. “But I’d die for him,” I confessed breathlessly, looking at Jacob in his twinkling brown eyes. And as I gazed at him, I realized this might have been the most impromptu-genuine-heartfelt comment I had ever given. I would give my life to save Jake’s. I would jump in front of a bullet or sell my soul to save him. And as he pierced right through me with those eyes of his, I realized that he was thinking the exact same thing, leaving me feeling as if I had just been shocked with four hundred volts of electricity.

“Sweet,” she cooed, calling our attention back to her chocolate brown eyes, which were framed by long, thick brown eyelashes and complimented by the scatter of dark brown freckles across her nose and cheeks. During the awkward silence, I let my eyes wander when they noticed her beige shoulder bag which was covered in buttons that surrounded a green dog…

“Omigod, is that Gir?” I asked excitedly, pointing to her bag where a green “dog” with a pink tongue sticking out and cuddling a rubber pink piggy was depicted. She glanced down at her bag and looked back up at me, beaming.

“Yeah! I love the little guy! He’s adorable,” she confessed,

“I’M NEKKED!” we both shouted in unison with our Gir voices, making the other laugh.

“I didn’t know anyone else here would watch Invader Zim,” she admitted, adjusting her bag.

“Oh, I only watch it for Gir. I saw the first episode and I wasn’t sure about the show until Gir sung ‘The Doom Song.’ Then I was hooked,” I disclosed. “The Doom Song” was the song Gir sang during he and Zim’s six-month trip to earth. In this song, Gir basically sang the word “doom” in a happy tune over and over again, bobbing his head and wiggling his body in his seat the whole time.

“I totally agree. Gir is like, the heart of that show. Well, I mean, he and Dib,” Konstantina concurred. I pouted, shook my head and stuck out my tongue in disgust. Both Jacob and Konstantina laughed at my expression.

“Dib? God, I hate Dib. He’s so…so…” I searched my mind, trying to locate the right word for this cartoon character when Konstantina provided one.

“Annoyingly persistent?” she contributed, shrugging and shooting me an award-winning smile. I looked at the ceiling for a moment and shrugged; as if I was contemplating whether those were the words I was looking for.

“Meh. I was thinking more along the lines of ‘a pathetic failure’…but points for adorkablity!” I compromised, all of us laughing. “Hey, what’s your first class?” I asked her, beginning to greatly enjoy her company. I started coming to terms with the fact that maybe this girl wasn’t that bad, which I was happy about. I needed to find a good girlfriend in this school. I mean, don’t get me wrong—I love my boys—but I needed a girl to hang with or I was afraid the guys’ testosterone would rub off on me.

She rummaged in her bag for her schedule, which she soon produced and handed over to me. With each second that I looked at the paper, my smile grew wider and wider. “NO WAY!” I exclaimed, thoroughly pumped at this point.

“What?” she asked me, amused at my enthusiasm.

“You have every single one of my classes,” I informed her. Her face broke out into a huge grin as she looked at the schedule with me.

“No way! Seriously?” she asked, not able to believe she was hitting it off so well on her first day. I nodded my head vigorously, way too happy to be sharing every single second of every day for the rest of the school year with this girl. We both shrieked and jumped up and down while holding hands, which I hadn’t done in a while.

Actually…

Come to think of it, I had never done that. I never really had the urge to do it. When my mom still lived with us back in Brooklyn and she and I were excited, she’d just tickle me breathless. I never really had any good friends back there either, after my mom had had her “accident.” So I guess this happy jumping fest was a first of hopefully many to come. My heart swelled as I realized that I might have been making my first true “BFF.”

Jacob cleared his throat and both of us stopped and looked at him. “Well. If I’m no longer needed here, then I’ll just be going,” he announced, pretending to be offended.

“Jake, don’t be silly,” I commanded, grabbing his hand before he could walk away before slinging it over my shoulder. “Walk us to our first class,” I demanded putting my arm around his waist.

“Gladly,” he conceded. With a kiss on my forehead that tickled my tummy, we were off.



“What’s your favorite song from Hair?” I asked Konstantina, pointing to the red, green and yellow button on her bag. We were all sitting at our usual table in the lunchroom—“we” including all my guys, Konstantina and I eating our weird tasting tomato soup.

“Hmmm,” she hummed, tapping her chin and looking up at the ceiling with her dark eyebrows furrowed. “I Believe in Love,” she confessed. I pouted, shook my head and stuck out my tongue.

“Is that like, your signature ‘no’ look?” Jacob asked from across the table. I shrugged and returned my face to its normal expression: attentive and buoyant.

“You really don’t like that song? Why not?” she asked me. I shrugged and tried to keep my face blank as I pushed my carrots around on my white paper tray.

“It’s just that…it’s the complete opposite of what I go by,” I explained briefly and dryly.

“What do you mean? You like, don’t believe in love?” Jared chuckled from across the table. I picked my eyes up from my vegetables to look him in the eye with a hopefully nonchalant expression.

“Yeah, I guess you could say that,” I mumbled. Everyone looked around at the table as if this were the most shocking news they had ever heard.

“Wait…what do you mean you ‘don’t believe in love’?” Paul asked with air quotes.

“I dunno. I mean…” I sighed grasping for what I was trying to say while attempting to ignore the strange look Jacob was giving me. “Love has never really done anything for me. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced it either. Not romantically at least,” I clarified so that they didn’t think that I was just a heartless monster.

“So are you trying to tell us you’re like, asexual or something?” Quil asked, his mouth full of food. I shook my head quickly, my brown eyes wide.

“Oh god, no! No, I get crushes on people; I think about people. I just…I’ve never met anyone who I think I’ll ever fall in love with,” I explained vaguely. Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw Jacob’s face fall as if he had just watched his puppy get run over by a truck.

“So you think you’re doomed to an eternity of crushing on a guy, but never falling in love? You don’t think you’ll fall in love even a little bit?” Embry asked, leaning forward with his chin in his hands.

I blew a huff of air from my bottom lip making a lazy strand of hair on my forehead flutter up on top of my head. “Well I mean, I don’t believe in falling in love ‘a little bit.’ There aren’t stages of love. You’re either in love or you aren’t. It’s all or nothing for me,” I concluded, sitting back in my chair and pulling my soft hair back into a loose ponytail that sat at the nape of my neck.

“Uh-huh, I see. And what is your definition of love, Calypso?” Seth asked. I sighed yet again. I was sure that by the end of this conversation, I would have used up my “sigh supply” and never be able to sigh again in my whole entire life.

And that would suck.

“Are we really talking about this in a high school cafeteria at lunchtime?” I asked, hoping to draw attention to the absurdity of this conversation. Everyone was staring at me with enrapt expressions. Again, I sighed. “If I were to fall in love…I would get butterflies when he looked at me. I would feel electrified when he did something as simple as brushing a piece of hair off my forehead. Whenever he said my name, I would get lightheaded…” I realized that what I was saying sounded extremely familiar to me. As if I had said it before. Jared was smirking beside me.

“That’s funny. That’s exactly what you said yesterday when we were talking about your crush,” he teased. I tensed up and my eyes got as wide as dinner plates. All of a sudden, I remembered. I had explained to Jared why I had a major crush on Jacob while we were watching our movie. These were the feelings I had explained to Jared concerning Jacob.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said through my teeth as I turned to look at him.

“Well you remember, don’t you?” he asked enthusiastically, grinning wide now. “Yeah, you were talking about your unhealthy crush on—”

Before he could even start saying the name, I plopped his bowl of tomato soup on his head upside down. The warm, red liquid was streaming down his face and in his eyes and ears while the white bowl sat atop his head like a hat. Everyone at our table and soon the lunchroom began laughing their butts off while I just stared at him with my hands folded, a smug smile on my face.

“You’ve, uh, got a little summin’-summin’ right here,” I joked, rubbing at the corner of my mouth with my middle finger. He just glared at me past the drops of soup dribbling off his eyelashes. I winked at him, grabbed Konstantina’s hand and skipped out of the lunchroom with her.

“Hey, um, I have a request,” she started as we turned the corner to the library.

“Hmmm?” I hummed, urging her to continue.

“My uncle told me that if I wanted to bring a friend over after school, it’d be cool and I was wondering, since we seem to be getting along so well, maybe you would like to come over and—” I smiled at her as she rambled on.

“I would love to come over,” I assured her, squeezing her hand gently. She grinned.

“Oh! Great! Well, my pervy older brother will be driving us to the house and he’ll drive you home too,” she informed me. I laughed.

“Cool,” I agreed.

“And be aware that he will flirt. He won’t bite, but—well,” she trailed off, looking at the sky as if for the answer. “Depends on how much he’s flirting with you. But I wouldn’t count on it.” I laughed as we proceeded into the library.



It was finally the end of school and Konstatina and I were walking outside. “So Nate’s car is the inconspicuous, totally not flashy car,” she said, her voice drowning in sarcasm. So I then looked for the most conspicuous, flashy car in the lot, which wasn’t hard to find considering that half the student body was crowded around it.

“Ah. That one,” I said, looking at the gleaming cherry red Porsche convertible which was being heavily scrutinized by a bunch of guys and a few girls. The rest of the females were crowded around not the car, but it’s owner: a guy in a leather jacket and gray skinny jeans. Konstantina looked at me and rolled her eyes before we started walking to the car. Of course, the girl closest to the guy was none other than Jennifer Keelan.

I felt a surge of anger rush through me and heat my core as I remembered the day when she stole Jake away from me like the succubus she is. With just a flip of her long, platinum blond hair, she got Jacob to pry his warm, desired fingers from mine so that he could go rub them all over her toned, tan back.

“…and I can put both my legs behind my head easily,” she bragged seductively, pressing herself against the boy—no, man. Not boy.

“Oh really? I’ll have to see that someday, love,” he flirted in a heavy British accent.

“You absolutely will,” she flirted back, pushing her long, slender fingers through his long, brown hair and shooting him a bright smile.

“Don’t press too hard against the poor boy now. Your boobs might pop,” I warned snappishly from the other side of the car, the heat of my anger towards her still lingering. Jennifer glared at me over the guy’s leather clad shoulder and the quote, “If looks could kill” came to mind. However, the guy untangled himself from Jennifer’s arms to beam at me.

“And now just who would you be, spunk?” he asked me in the same accent, a lazy smile decorating his rugged features. Jennifer smirked smugly at me over his shoulder, assuming that he was insulting me and standing up for her.

“Excuse me?” I pardoned, not entirely sure whether Jennifer was right or not.

“He thinks you’re hot,” Konstantina said, staring at her brother with a disgusted look on her face. He smirked and winked at her. Rolling her eyes, she took in a deep breath and bellowed at the top of her lungs, “All right, kiddos, CLEAR OUT!” This was effective considering that all of the students walked away from the car and back to their own. Jennifer lingered for a moment to give the guy her phone number before winking at him and walking to her car.

Konstantina introduced us as the boy walked around the car, eyeing me all the while like his prey. “Nate, this is Calypso. Calypso, this is—”

“Nate Katsaros,” he said himself, interrupting her and grabbing my hand. I stared at him with a challenging face as he lifted my hand up to his lips and gently kissed it, all the while staring at me with his deep brown eyes.

“Did you not get the message, sweetie? Chivalry is dead,” I informed him harshly. His crooked smirk stayed on his face anyhow as he scanned me up and down with his eyes. They were so powerful, I could almost feel my shirt beginning to slide over my head. Konstantina chuckled, rolled her eyes and climbed into the front seat.

“She probably told you I wouldn’t bite,” he muttered after staring at me with his piercing eyes trying to get me to soften up. I didn’t answer, but kept my face a blank slate, as I looked him in the eye. He slowly lifted my hand up to his mouth and softly bit down on the knuckle. An uninvited and much unappreciated shudder went through my body and gave me goosebumps.

He smirked at me, obviously noticing my small intake of breath, although my face stayed the same for the most part. Satisfied, he brought my hand down from his warm, soft mouth and stroked it with his thumb as he leaned forward to put his lips next to my ear. “She lied,” he whispered, his warm breath on my skin making me involuntarily shudder ever so slightly. He then let go of my hand, walked to the driver’s seat, and slid in. I huffed and got into the car, not sure if I was annoyed with his blatant and inappropriate flirting or with the fact that his blatant and inappropriate flirting made me want him, and want him bad.