For the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel so alone either.

THE FRAGILE ORDINARYSAMANTHA YOUNG

10

Hope,

They say it dies last.

There’s a cruelty in its stubbornness.

Hope,

I hope it dies fast.

Or it could be the end of us.

—CC

I was filled with apprehension the next morning as I made my way to school. Last night had felt like a dream, like a scene from a book. Talking with Tobias had been surprisingly easy in a way conversation hadn’t been since I’d been about twelve.

When we were kids, Vicki, Steph and I had chatted with the same ease that we breathed in and out. Something had changed over the last few years, and talking with them had become more of a struggle. I was afraid of disappointing them the way I disappointed my parents.

For the first time in years, I’d talked without worrying about what the person listening might think. That the person I’d been talking to was Tobias King had been surreal. At first. Until he’d opened up to me and become just...Tobias.

More than anything I did not want to walk into school only to discover Tobias was going to ignore me.

I didn’t see him before form class or on my way to biology, and I was stupidly disappointed he hadn’t searched me out before classes started. Dread filled me as I sat in the library during my free second period. Tobias and I had three classes together next. The possibility of being ignored by him hurt. A lot. Too much.

Feeling like my ankles had been weighted, I walked with such a slow trudge toward Spanish class.

“Didn’t get much sleep last night?”

I startled as Tobias suddenly appeared beside me, grinning down at me quizzically.

All the tension melted out of me and I suddenly felt like a balloon let loose from its weight. I gave him a confused smile. “Excuse me?”

“You’re walking like a zombie.”

“Oh.” I blushed and shook my head. “Just daydreaming.”

“You’re embarrassed.” His smile widened, his eyes sparkling with mischief. “What the hell were you daydreaming about?”

To my chagrin my cheeks grew even hotter. “Nothing. School. Spanish.”

“A likely story.” He nudged me with his elbow. “But I’ll give you a free pass.”

“Magnanimous of you.” I rolled my eyes, pretending not to be mortified that Tobias obviously thought I was daydreaming about him.

I mean, I was, but I didn’t want him to know that. It would crush me if the thought of me fancying him made him uncomfortable. I needed him to know—even if it was only a half-truth—that I wanted to be his friend above all else.

He chuckled as we walked into class together. “Anyway... Yo conozco todos tus secretos.”

I already know all your secrets. I made a face. “That’s what you think.”

This time he laughed outright, winked at me and strolled to his chair. Ignoring the curious looks from some of my classmates, I slid into my seat, feeling like butter about to slide off hot toast. Somehow, I stopped myself from melting into a puddle under my desk.

But my heart was beating outrageously fast.

Laughter and a wink from him, and I was as giddy as a five-year-old at Disney World.

It was difficult to concentrate in class. And if it was hard to stay focused in Spanish, it was even more so in maths, because Tobias walked to class with me. That wasn’t the part that threw me—although we were getting some curious stares from people in our year who were clearly wondering why we were strolling along like friends.

No, the part that threw me was when Tobias stopped us just outside of maths class.

“Any plans for tonight?”

My heart rate sped up. “Not really.”

He nodded and then looked around the corridor casually. “I’m going to take a walk down the beach again.” He turned back to me. “Around seven.”

My belly was now fluttering all over the place. “Good to know.”

We shared a last, secret look before walking into class to take seats on opposite sides of the room.

* * *

“So what exactly does a quarterback do?”

We sat, Tobias and me, shoulder to shoulder on a bench facing the water. The sun was still out, although low in the sky, and every now and then someone would appear walking down the esplanade, often with a dog or two. Other than that, it was peaceful, quiet, and we’d had no distractions from each other for the last hour.

“Uh...well the QB is like the leader of the offensive team. He’s the guy that usually calls the plays in the huddle. A lot of responsibility falls on him, because he’s the one guy who has his hand on the ball for almost every offensive play.”

I still had no idea what a quarterback was. I laughed. “Maybe one day you should explain American football to me first before we start talking players.”

“We’ll watch a game. It’s easier to explain that way.”

“Do you miss it?”

He was quiet for a moment, suddenly seeming sullen as he stared at the water, and I regretted my question. Until this point we’d talked easily about everything and nothing at all.

“Yeah,” he finally said. “I miss being part of a team.”

Hating the despondency in his voice, I found I wanted to fix it. “Have you ever considered rugby? There’s a regional team in Porty.”

“I dunno.” He shrugged.

“Think about it.”

Tobias looked at me as if searching my face for something. “Okay. I’ll think about it.”

I smiled, and his gaze dropped to my mouth before traveling lower. I flushed at his perusal and even more so when he grinned and looked back out at the water. “I like the way you dress.”

Tonight I was wearing a short flared navy skirt with white polka dots. The contrasting waistband featured three mismatched buttons down the front and was a pink-and-blue tartan. To keep warm I was wearing thick navy tights with magenta patent leather Doc Martens. I wore a plain navy jumper, and over it a navy fitted jacket with an old-fashioned tailcoat detail in the hem. The coat had pink-and-blue tartan elbow patches, epaulettes and large buttons.

“Some people would say it’s weird.”

Tobias shook his head. “Just different. It makes you stand out from the crowd.” He tilted his head, studying me intently again.

I squirmed. “What?”

“I just... Well for someone who is apparently shy, you don’t dress like you don’t want to be seen.”

“Being shy doesn’t mean not wanting to be seen,” I responded, vehemently even. His eyebrows rose at my tone and I hurried to explain. “Sometimes I find it difficult to talk with people I don’t know very well because... I don’t know. I guess I’m worried what they’ll think of me. That I’m boring or silly. I don’t want to think like that, Tobias. It isn’t a choice to worry what other people think of me. I wish I was like Steph and Vicki, who can talk to anyone, talk to boys like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Talk to teachers like they’re people and not authority figures to be feared.

“I had this teacher once.” I shivered just remembering her. “In primary six. I was ten,” I explained. “For some reason she took a dislike to me, and I always found it confusing since I barely said a word in class. Every morning she’d walk in with this pinched look on her face, thunder in her eyes and make us recite the Lord’s Prayer. If we so much as stumbled over the words, she made us repeat it on our own. She started to pick on me a few months into the year. She was like my very own Professor Umbridge from Harry Potter. If I got a solution wrong she’d make me get up in front of the whole class to answer it correctly at the board. That only made me more nervous, made me blank, and she would stand there huffing and sighing and bullying me to get to the right answer. I was usually in tears by the end of it.

“She even accused me of cheating once, even though the girl I apparently cheated from did poorly in all subjects compared to me. But, no, I was the culprit. I was terrified of her.

“Worse, though, was when she mocked a poem I wrote for class. She made me read it aloud in front of everyone, even though I didn’t want to. She sneered at me the entire time. And then later, when we got our work back from marking, mine was covered in notes that basically told me to start again. She did that to me with every writing challenge.