In grade school, before I realized I wouldn’t get a car at sixteen, I dreamed about what car I wanted. No matter what it was, it always had keyless entry. Something about holding that remote in my hand while the keys dangled from it seemed so cool. Then sixteen came and went, and so did seventeen. I went ahead and got my license, just to have an ID, but there was no point. Owning a car seemed so impossible. So I would just do one impossible thing at a time, starting with somehow getting myself to OSU’s campus. But even if I had to start walking in July, I would get there. Maybe, if he wasn’t already at Dallas or Duke, Weston could drop me off.

That thought warmed me as I walked down the long hallway lined with lockers, across the commons area to a set that sat alone in the middle of the floor next to the library. I specifically requested a locker here because, even though it wasn’t with the rest of the seniors, the library was surrounded by a wall of glass, and the librarian, Mrs. Boesch, always kept a watchful eye between classes.

I pulled books out of my backpack and hung it up on a hook. The morning sun streaming in through the front windows of the school was suddenly blocked, and I looked to my right to see Weston leaning against the locker next to mine.

“What are you doing after work tonight?”

I shrugged.

“Let’s eat at Los Potros.”

I looked around, and then nodded.

Weston beamed and walked away, not trying the slightest bit to conceal our conversation. I shut my locker, and Sara Glenn stared at me with her big, dark eyes.

“Are you screwing Weston Gates?” she asked.

I narrowed my eyes at her, disgust weighing down my face. What was it with small-town people automatically assuming that because two people of the opposite sex were speaking, they must be having sex? “No.”

“What was that, then? He just asked you to dinner. Why is he asking you out?”

“He didn’t ask me to dinner. You heard him wrong,” I said. Technically, it was the truth. He didn’t ask.

“I heard him,” Sara snapped. “I’m telling Alder.”

“Go ahead. She won’t believe you. She’ll assume you’re trying to get them to break up so you can take a stab at him.”

Sara thought about that for a moment, and then walked away, her confidence gone.

I took a deep breath and continued to class, my hands shaking and my heart trying to beat its way out of my chest. That sudden burst of courage came from deep inside; a place I didn’t know existed. The thought of Sara ruining my little bit of happiness made me desperate enough to offer a threat that I myself found frightening.

Everyone was too excited about South Padre to bother giving me grief. By the time I’d made it to seventh period, as weird as it was to say, I’d actually had a pretty good day. Weston had pulled his stool over to my desk, and a combination of nausea and exhilaration swirled in my stomach.