𝓂𝒾𝒹𝓃𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉 𝓁𝑜𝓋𝑒 (𝒶 𝓀𝑜𝓉𝓁𝒸 𝑜𝓃𝑒𝓈𝒽𝑜𝓉𝓈 𝒷𝑜𝑜𝓀)

~A Pessimist (Sokeefe)~

Marella's lips curled into a smirk identical to Dex's. "Wow, that's...an interesting note for Valentines' Day." Dex snorted.

"Yeah, no kidding," he half coughed. I elbowed him in the ribs, making him moan in pain and glare at me reproachfully.

"Ow," he said. I ignored him.

"So," Marella chimed, looking at me patiently with big blue eyes while tilting her head to the side slightly. "What are you gonna do? About the note, I mean."

I snorted. "What do you mean?"

Marella blinked. "I mean, are you going to go to the art room?"

"Of course not!" I yelped. "I don't even know this secret admirer, whoever they are. All I know is that they are stupidly sappy and have a sick sense of humor."

"Yeah," Dex agreed. "But they could be..,you know who." He wiggles his strawberry blonde eyebrows suggestively. I glared at him murderously.

"As if that would ever happen," I scoffed. My hope of ending up dating Keefe Sencen was obsolete, to say the least. I made sure to stomp most of it to pieces last year. But his smirk, and his laugh...

"It might," Dex interjected. "That's the thing about you, Soph, you're so pessimistic. Keefe might actually like you. You guys do sit next to each other in three different classes, and he did ask you to sit with him on Monday..."

I shot Dex another scary glare. "Stop getting my hopes up."

Dex threw his hands into the air defensively, looking back at me with faked innocence. "Geez, okay. But I'm just saying that-"

"DEX, NO." I rudely snatched the small pink note from Marella's hands.

"Okay, fine! Wow, who pissed in your cereal this morning? Never mind, I know. You forgot to make coffee today, is that it?"

I gave Dex yet another glare, although this one a fraction softer than the others. "Yes."

"Let's leave the Fos Boss alone for now, Dexy," Marella advised. Dex nodded and Marella and him  walked into the crowd of people forming in the halls. I sighed, as Dex's words resurfaced in my head like bubbles emerging from the depths. Very, very annoying bubbles.

Keefe might actually like you.

I scoffed at myself, pushing the bubbles back underground. Who was I kidding? He was totally out of my league. I needed to get over this silly little crush on him. Maybe Dex was right, maybe Fitz was hotter.

Although Dex would probably kill me in my sleep if I told him I was going to start having a crush on Fitz Vacker instead. That was his thing, whether he liked to pretend it wasn't or not.

Wait. My eyes landed on the note in my hand. Maybe this was my exit ticket out of having-a-crush-on-Keefe-Sencen land. Whoever wrote this note, however loony they were, really liked me. Of course, I didn't like them, but maybe I could go on a date with them and see how it goes. If I didn't like them after all, that's too bad. No harm done, though. But if I did like them...

I grinned at myself, shutting my locker door and heading to my history class. This was going to work. Nothing could go wrong.

***

The art room was quiet. The kind of quiet that you could feel closing in on your lungs, stealing the air away from you and making your head reel with anxiety. I didn't know why I felt nervous. I really didn't want to admit it, but part of it might've been because of these fractured but golden pieces of hope, glowing brightly inside my head.  No matter how many times I tried to shove them out of the way for my rational side to take over, it just...

Sat there. Poking me every few seconds, reminding me of Keefe's fluffy, tousled blonde hair that smelled like lemon and vanilla and sunflowers, even from three feet away. Keefe's bright, sunshine-filled grin. His jokes and his laugh and every little thing about him that I gathered bit by bit over the years.

I froze.

Footsteps.

Whipping around towards the door, my heart practically stopped in fear as the doorknob turned. And then my jaw dropped straight to the floor at him.

The boy with the fluffy, tousled blonde hair and the sunshine-filled grin and the jokes and the laugh and everything. Was here.

"Keefe?!" I yelped indignantly, blushing like a madman. He blinked, his ice blue eyes dulling with sorrow like a stab of guilt to the heart.

"Um, yeah," he said nervously. "Is this okay?"

I gawked at him more, before running forward and wrapping my arms around him and pulling him into an embrace.

"Of course it's okay," I mumbled into his shoulder, still wondering why he came. Why he would he ever-

He pulled me away slightly, not enough to pull my hands off of him, but enough to stare into my wide eyes. "Sophie, I like you. Like, I really do. Will you-"

I pressed my lips against his, gripping his cheeks so tightly I started to wonder in the back of my head if he might be in pain. But if he was, he didn't show it. He just ran his hands through my hair, playing with the silky blonde strands and knotting them together into little braids.

I was the first to pull away, looking into his ice blue eyed that despite their color, looked rather warm. "Whatever the question was, the answer is yes."

Keefe grinned at me, and I grinned back. And we didn't stop until our cheeks hurt so much part of me wanted to cry. The other part wanted to keep smiling. And so that's exactly what I did.

Dex was right. I am totally a pessimist, I thought to myself before kissing Keefe again.