Read Online Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaira - Free Book Online Page B

out my original question. “Do you have an extra pencil?” He took the one off his desk and put it in my hand. After that, I caught him looking at me more than once.
    Why was he asking me? I am nothing like his ex-girlfriend, Britt, who is blond with cherry-kissed lips and bubbly like cream soda. I wondered if it was just because I looked at his crotch that time or what.
    Secretly I had been hoping that Sky would ask me. I’ve been looking for him since we went on our drive, one week and a day ago. But he hasn’t been at lunch. I saw him only once, walking in the hall with some other junior guys and a girl who had dyed-black hair that matched her tall black boots. She was laughing and touching his arm. Sky looked up as he passed by and saw my eyes on him. He held them for just a moment before tilting his head up in greeting. I must have pretty much seemed like a freak, just staring.
    At lunch today, Kristen and Tristan came to sit with me and Natalie and Hannah at our table, and I told them about Evan’s invitation.
    Hannah exclaimed, “Mr. Popular is totally trying to get in your pants.”
    “Well, I know he gets in his own pants,” I said.
    This made everyone laugh, because I never say things like that. Hannah almost spit out her Capri Sun.
    “Are you going to say yes?” Natalie asked.
    “I don’t know,” I said. Then I asked Tristan and Kristen, “Are you guys going?”
    “We’re over school dances, right, babe?” Tristan answered.
    Kristen nodded.
    “Do you think Sky’s over school dances, too?” I asked.
    “Unfortunately, I’d have to answer that in the affirmative,” Tristan said.
    Hannah said, “My analysis is that it appears that he’d like to spend as little time at school as possible, since he’s been ditching lunch. And although he has license to stand with the cool kids, he still doesn’t fully belong anywhere and hasn’t relinquished his title of Mr. Mystery. Hence the throng of girls who are always leaning in and touching his arm. But of course, my money’s on you.”
    Kristen added, “Mine, too, but I know his type, Laurel. He’s not a girlfriend kind of guy. He’s the type that just, like, has girls sometimes.”
    “Is Tristan the girlfriend kind of guy?” I asked, because I was trying to figure out what this meant.
    Kristen laughed. “He wasn’t before I met him,” she admitted.
    “But she converted me!” Tristan said. “I’m living proof it’s possible.”
    “Maybe you’ll convert Sky,” Kristen offered.
    “We haven’t even talked since last week. I don’t know if he actually likes me.”
    “I hypothesize that Sky does like you,” Tristan said. “He asked you to ride in his Chevy lovemobile after all—and the fact that he hasn’t spoken to you since is evidence that you make him nervous. Which is evidence that he likes you. Guys get shy, too, you know.”
    It’s hard for me to imagine that I make Sky nervous, but I hope Tristan is right.
    When lunch was finished, I still wasn’t sure what to do about Evan. In Algebra, I sat on the other side of the room from him and tried not to look over. After class, I took a long time placing my notepaper in my binder and snapping and resnapping the rings, hoping he’d leave. But when I looked up, he was there.
    “Did you get my note?”
    I looked at him blankly for a moment. “Yeah.”
    “Does that mean yeah you’ll go with me or yeah you got it?”
    After what Hannah and Kristen said, I figured my chances of Sky asking were pretty much none, especially since there’s only a week and a half left before the dance. And it seemed hard to say no to Evan and his paper heart. So I said, “Oh. Uh. Yeah, I’ll go.” Then I added, “But I kind of have plans beforehand. So, can we meet there?”
    I’ve seen plenty of versions of homecoming dates on TV—the girls in their satin dresses cutting tiny pieces off of rib eyes they won’t finish at somewhere like Outback Steakhouse, drinking Shirley Temples and virgin