This Girl: A Novel

it.
    “Layken.”
    She pauses when she gets to the door, but doesn’t turn around to face me.
    “Your mom works Thursday nights,” I say. “I always get a sitter for Thursdays since I go to the slams. Just send Kel over before you leave. You know, before your date.”
    She doesn’t turn around. She doesn’t yell. She doesn’t throw anything at me. She simply walks out the door, leaving me feeling as though I’m every single one of those names she just yelled in my classroom.
    After fourth period, I sit at my desk and stare at nothing at all, wondering what the hell has gotten into me. I usually go to the teachers’ lounge for lunch, but I know I can’t eat right now. My stomach is in knots thinking about the last two hours. Actually, the last twenty-four hours.
    Why would I say that to her? I know her poem stirred something in me unlike anything I’ve ever felt. It was a mixture of embarrassment, anger, hurt, and heartache. But that wasn’t enough for her—she had to go and add jealousy on top of all that. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about today, it’s that I don’t handle jealousy well. At all.
    I know I thought the best way to help her get over me was to make sure she hated me, but I just can’t do it. If I want to keep my own sanity, I can’t let her hate me. I can’t let her love me, though, either. Shit! This is so screwed up. How the hell am I going to make this right?
    •••
    WHEN I REACH their table in the lunchroom, she’s not even joined in on the conversation taking place around her. She’s staring down at her tray, oblivious to the world. Oblivious to me. Eddie and I both try to get her attention. When she finally snaps out of her trance and looks up at me, the color runs from her face. She slowly rises from the table and follows me to the classroom. When we’re safely inside I close the door and walk past her to my desk.
    “We need to talk,” I say. My head is spinning and I have no idea what I even want to say to her. I know I want to apologize for the way I reacted earlier in class, but the words aren’t coming. I’m a grown man acting like a blubbering fourteen-year-old boy.
    “Then talk,” she snaps. She’s standing across the room glaring at me. Her current attitude coupled with the fact that she just agreed to go out on a date with another guy right in front of me infuriates me. I know everything about our situation is my fault, but she’s not doing anything to help it.
    “Dammit, Lake!” I spin away from her, frustrated. I run my hands through my hair and take a deep breath, then turn back to face her. “I’m not your enemy. Stop hating me.”
    I swear she chuckles under her breath right before her eyes fill with fury. “Stop hating you?” she says, rushing toward me. “Make up your freaking mind, Will! Last night, you told me to stop loving you, now you’re telling me to stop hating you? You tell me you don’t want me to wait on you, yet you act like an immature little boy when I agree to go out with Nick! You want me to act like I don’t know you, but then you pull me out of the lunchroom in front of everyone! We’ve got this whole façade between us, like we’re different people all the time, and it’s exhausting! I never know when you’re Will or Mr. Cooper and I really don’t know when I’m supposed to be Layken or Lake.”
    She throws herself into a chair and folds her arms across her chest, letting out a rush of frustrated breath. She’s eyeing me sharply, waiting for me to say or do something. There isn’t anything to say. I can’t refute a single word she just said, because it’s the truth. The fact that I haven’t been able to keep my own feelings in check have done more damage to her than I ever imagined.
    I slowly walk around her desk and sit in the seat behind her. I’m exhausted. Emotionally, physically, mentally. I never imagined it would turn into this. If I had the slightest clue that the decision to keep my job over her would have this kind of effect on me, I would have picked her, despite whatever is going on with Julia. I should have picked her. I still should pick her.
    I lean forward until I’m close to her ear. “I didn’t think it would be this hard,” I whisper. And that’s the truth. Never in a million years did I think something as trivial as a first date could turn into something so incredibly complicated. “I’m sorry I said that to you earlier, about Thursday,” I say. “I was being