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class, but this is how my day is starting. It’s almost eight
o’clock in the morning! My first class is in 45 minutes, which means I have
less than 25 minutes at best to get ready and get there on time.
    I hate running late like this. What happened? I don’t
even feel rested from it; in fact, I feel worse than I did when I laid down. I
grab a granola bar as I’m running out the door and already feel drained without
having my morning caffeine fix.
    This day is going to suck!
    By the time two o’clock rolls around, I’m a total
grump. No caffeine and only a granola bar as the fuel for the first half of my
day does not a happy Jess make. I feel afraid for Rachel.
    I spot her immediately at a corner table and am
relieved to see a second cup of coffee on the table; she’s a saint for already
having ordered mine. As I’m stepping closer, my relief washes away. That cup
isn’t for me.
    I must look like a deer caught in headlights as I
stare at Rachel and, who else, but Kyle. There’s still time to turn around. I
can just text Rachel that I got held up in class and couldn’t make it, but I
can’t seem to get my feet to cooperate with my brain, so I watch as Kyle smiles
and Rachel laughs, touches his arm, flips her hair, and giggles. Oh, my God she
actually giggled. I may have to reconsider this friendship after all. How can I
be friends with a girl who does the whole hair flip, touchy feely, giggling
thing?
    I have to turn. I have to leave. I have to get away. I
have to pull myself together; that’s what I have to do. I’m acting like a
complete fruitcake, and I must look like one, too, if the looks I’m getting
right now are any indication. I don’t know why people are looking at me like
this. Haven’t they ever seen a perfectly sane girl freak out over seeing a guy
and a girl sitting at a table talking and drinking coffee before?
    Okay, I’m going to pretend I never came, pretend I
never saw the guy I like talking with the girl I’m friends with, but would
throw over a cliff if it meant a chance to be the one talking to the guy I like
that she likes and liked first, but who may like me and not her, or who thinks
I’m as crazy as everyone else right now who’s walking so far around me I feel
like I have the plague. Is there a plague that causes stupidity, or at least
one that makes the brain string a long run-on sentence together?
    As soon as my feet finally decide to cooperate and
move toward the exit, wouldn’t you know that would be when Kyle would look up
from his cup and directly at me who’s staring directly at him for no apparent
reason.
    So much for leaving.
    I put a smile on and strut toward their table, and
yes, I did say strut. I’m walking like I’m on a runway, or like I have a stick
up my ass. It’s pathetic either way and not being pulled off very well,
considering I’m in skinny jeans, an old concert tee, and converse sneakers.
    Of course Rachel would look like she actually did just
walk off a runway; she has on dark blue flare jeans, a pink, glittery,
spaghetti strapped tank top, and purple heels? Who wears stuff like that to
school? She looks like she should be going out to a club, not a college class.
    The only thing I have going for me right now is that I
didn’t wear yoga pants like I was going to do. That might make up for the fact
I haven’t showered, I have no makeup on, and my hair looks like a rat may have
burrowed in and died before it could find a way out. Great.
    “Hey, guys, how’s it going?” I say as nonchalantly as
I can in hope that my actions, or lack thereof, a few moments ago won’t be
discovered.
    “Not much; where the hell have you been? It feels like
I’ve been waiting forever, but at least I had someone to keep me company.”
    Ugh! Did she really have to go making those googly
eyes at Kyle when she said that? This is going to suck just as bad as I was
afraid it would.
    “Yeah, sorry; I got caught up, then I didn’t see you
right away.” That probably