Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Dear Diary,
This week I met the boy I’m going to fall in love with.
This week is also when I got my first diary.
I’ve always wondered why people have diaries. Why they feel they have to write down stuff they did. Things they ate. How they feel.
After meeting Trevor Jordan Criss—oh my gosh, I just got goosebumps writing his name—I finally get it. People have diaries because their feelings are just so big they have to have someplace to put them.
Well, my feelings are gigantic. I haven’t gone an hour, a minute, even a second without thinking about him. So, Diary, here I am telling you all the stuff swirling around in my head because I just know I’ll burst if I don’t get it all out.
It isn’t as if I didn’t know who he was. At Calloway Creek Middle School, everyone at least knows about everyone, even if they aren’t friends. I knew stuff. Like how his parents own a coffee shop on McQuaid Circle. And that he runs track and swims. And that he’s friends with Jaxon Calloway.
We’d pass in the hallway and sometimes even make brief eye contact, but that was the extent of it.
Until Monday. Until we ended up in the same geometry class. I’m sure we’ve been in classes together before. I think he was even in Mrs. Milam’s second grade class with me for an entire year.
But, Diary, here’s what I didn’t know about him until this week. I didn’t know how blue his eyes were until after class, when he picked up the contents of my spilled backpack, put everything inside it, handed it to me, and said, “You’re really smart, Ava.”
You’re really smart, Ava.
Four words. The first words he’s ever spoken to me. And it’s like they burned into my soul along with those blue eyes of his.
I’d never been called smart by a boy before.
Teachers have called me smart. My mom, of course.
But never a boy. And here’s the thing, Diary, it wasn’t even the actual words that seemed to send some kind of arrow right into my heart—an arrow with his name on it—it was the way he said them.
Like they were meant to be the best compliment in the entire world.
“Thanks,” I said shyly, because I was sure he could tell that in that moment, I decided every crush I’d ever had on any other boy was child’s play compared to what was going on inside my body and my brain.
“I’m not nearly as good at math,” he said.
I shrugged, trying to look way more calm and collected than I was feeling, and said, “It’s only the first day. And a lot of people find geometry to be easier than algebra. I’m sure you’ll do fine.”
“Maybe.” He motioned to the door, inviting me to walk out into the hall with him.
And just when I thought, this is it, the conversation is done and I’m never going to get this feeling again, and I was so so sad about it even though it hadn’t even happened yet, that’s when he stopped, turned and stared at me for a moment with those dreamy eyes and said, “I think we should study together.”
I’d seen it on TV. Read about it in books.
But, Diary, that was the first time I’d ever had the sensation of all my insides melting.
And I swear I could feel his stare as he awaited my reply.
I could feel it in every cell in my body.
In my heart. In my stomach. My brain. I could feel it all the way to my toes.
I’m positive I flubbed the words. Because this tall, gorgeous boy with the incredible blue eyes was staring at me in a way no boy has ever stared at me.
I know I said yes, because somehow, even though my brain was going a million miles an hour like a dog with zoomies, I got that he was asking me to meet him after school at his parents’ coffee shop.
It was that moment, Diary, that I knew this boy wasn’t just asking me to help him with his geometry homework.
This boy was asking me out. Like on a date.
Only he wasn’t calling it a date. But it was the first day of school, and everyone knows they don’t give homework on the first day, so there would be nothing to ‘study.’
To this day, five whole days later, I can still feel the tingles that shot through my body when this boy—who I hadn’t ever given a second thought to when we passed in the hallway.
Who I’d never spoken a single word to even though we went through the whole second grade together.
Who five minutes before that conversation even happened wasn’t a part of my world—had suddenly become my whole world.
“You like coffee, right?” he asked with a slight tilt of his head that had him looking even dreamier.
“Yes,” I lied, hoping I was convincing.
Mom drinks coffee every morning. I tried it once and gagged.
But I lied to him, because in that moment I really really wanted to like coffee.
I mean, his parents own a coffee shop, and not liking coffee might have been a red flag.
And I didn’t want to give this amazing boy with the striking blue eyes any reason not to like me.
Something else I didn’t know about him is how kind he is.
He’s thirteen, and aren’t all thirteen-year-old boys supposed to act all tough and cocky and like they don’t have feelings?
But not Trevor. Because three hours later, when I thought we were going to meet a half mile away at the coffee shop, I left school to see him perched against the half wall right out front.
He was leaning right up against the CR in Creek, talking with Jaxon.
I wasn’t sure what to do. My plan was to walk past him and walk to the coffee shop, because maybe he didn’t want Jaxon to know about me and our maybe-date. And because I didn’t know what to do, I pretended not to see him.
But he called out my name. And my heart pounded furiously in my chest when he said, “Ava, wait up.”
He walked me to the shop, and he didn’t say one single thing about himself the entire way. He asked me about my favorite shows. What I liked to do. How I liked my other classes.
And then… Then he opened the door for me.
He led me to a booth near the front window and motioned for me to sit. It’s since become my very favorite booth in my very favorite place.
When he asked me what kind of coffee I wanted, I told him to pick for me. And, Diary, the grin he gave me made me even more melty than I’d been in the geometry classroom.
Today is Friday. We’ve already met two more times for coffee.
I love coffee now.
Or maybe I just love the boy serving it to me.