You Look Different in Real Life

her, the straight, clean lines of it, wishing everything in the universe could be so neat. There’s cheering coming from inside the pool area and I really, really just want to hang out here by myself, but eventually I’ll be missed. When I think of people calling me a diva, it hurts, and my absence from the pool will just reinforce that.
    I go back and sit down just in time to catch another starting horn and there’s Nate, diving off the block and into the water, disappearing for a second before popping up, and wow, he’s fast. I look over at Felix, who is watching him too.
    There’s one of the cameras. On me.
    “Go Nate!” I find myself yelling.
    Before I can think of why I bothered, the race is over and Nate has won.
    Three days later, it’s Felix’s Follow Day and he’s invited/cajoled/begged me to hang out with him after school. We take the bus to his house, the crew riding along in theway-back row of seats, then we all walk a few blocks to the used music and video store on Main Street.
    It’s weird to be in town with the camera in tow. At school, people have gotten used to it. But here, it’s still exciting. Some people, film students and older locals mostly, look at us knowingly. Others have no idea what’s going on and take a moment to watch. I put on mental blinders and pay no attention.
    We’re at the record store for five minutes, Felix and I browsing through the 99-cent DVD bin, when I glance up to see Ian moving toward the opposite corner of the store. He’s examining, with great interest, the New Mint in Box Never Opened! wall of comic book action figures. This strikes me as off, because I know he doesn’t like action figures and, in fact, considers them a stupid waste of money.
    After a few moments, he turns and sees me looking at him. And seems surprised.
    “Justine!”
    “Hey.”
    “What are you guys doing here?” he says, coming over. Felix shoots me a sideways glance and moves to another aisle, but the crew stays with me.
    “I’m doing my weekly check for movie bargains.” Then I point with my thumb at the crew. “Plus there’s this .”
    He looks at the crew and acts surprised again.
    But it’s suddenly so obvious.
    He is totally not surprised. He has totally followed us in here.
    It feels like my stomach drops about a hundred feet. Equilibrium vanishes so quickly, I could tip over.
    Ian raises his hand in a wave. “Hi, folks,” he says.
    Leslie, Lance, and Kenny all murmur hello. Leslie surveys Ian with an alert curiosity. Yes, this is someone you haven’t shot me speaking to yet. A guy. Move along because there’s nothing to see here.
    “Find anything good?” Ian asks, leaning in to look over my shoulder. I can smell his hair and despite everything else I’m feeling, there’s that unpushawayable Oh God can I please just put my face in it and breathe for a few minutes?
    I pull out the DVD I was just handling. It’s Love Actually , which was one of my favorite Christmas movies until I realized that both main female characters end up miserable and two of the male characters fall in love with their maids.
    I hold it up to him because I don’t seem to be able to speak. My mind is busy with some other questions, not the least of which is, Do I do this now?
    I look at his face in profile and think about the first time he kissed me. Felix and I had run into him and his buddy Milo at a pizza place one afternoon, which led to us all sitting together and then deciding to drive to a swimming hole up the mountain. Felix and Milo went wadingin the water, but Ian and I took a walk, then found a tree that had fallen across a stream. We sat on it and talked for a while, our legs dangling over the rushing water, and he asked if he could put his arm around me because he was worried I might fall.
    “Yes,” I said. “But you look less sturdy than I do.”
    Then he put his arm around me and his lips on mine, in the same motion. Like the kiss was an extra bonus he threw in for free at the last second. It was so random but the second it happened, it felt like something I’d been waiting for.
    “Sorry,” he’d said. “I just realized how interesting and cool you are, and I couldn’t not kiss you.”
    “That is so cheesy, I might puke,” I’d said. “You really will have to keep me from falling.”
    “Velveeta all the way, baby, and proud of it.” Then his face got serious. “Would you want to come back here with me next weekend? We could go for a walk to the