Smile

Chapter 6: Winter Ball

"You are so oblivious," I told Noah angrily as I walked by, not even pausing to hear his reply.

Kelsey and I only caught up with Amanda when she stopped at her locker.

"Hey," Kelsey breathed. "Listen, Noah's an idiot. I mean, seriously, you're beautiful, you're smart, you're talented... He just hasn't paid enough attention yet."

"It's not because he hasn't paid enough attention, and you know that as well as I do," Amanda murmured, keeping her eyes fixed on the inside of her locker. "It's because I'm one of his best friends. It's all he's ever seen me as. I bet he thinks of me as his little sister or something."

"So?" I spoke up, going for another tactic. "Personally, I think it's time you move on. I mean, what's the point of you wasting your time and feelings on him? Go for someone more... open to have feelings for you."

Amanda scoffed. "Like who? Plus, it's not like you can talk, Chloe."

I frowned. "What do you mean?"

"You and Logan McCloud," she said and my eyes widened. "You've been obsessed with the guys for what? Five years?" Four, my mind immediately corrected.

"What? I wasn't obsessed! And how do you even know about that?"

"You were staring at him, like, all the time," Amanda said. "We were bound to notice at some point."

"We?" I repeated, starting to panick.

"Kelsey and I. As far as I know, the guys never noticed." I was slightly relieved to hear that.

"Anyway, Amanda, if you end up without a date, I could just cancel mine and go with you," Kelsey, who'd been asked to the ball by some guy in her science-for-geniuses class this morning, offered.

"No, no! Don't do that! I wouldn't want to ruin your night," Amanda objected. Kelsey assured her that Amanda wouldn't be ruining anything, but she wouldn't hear it.

"Then I'll go with you," I told Amanda. "I don't have a date either."

"But you will," Amanda pointed out, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "You and Logan McCloud have been getting pretty close. I bet he's going to ask you to go with him."

"I agree," Kelsey said, nodding confidently.

"Well, you guys will be disappointed. Logan and I talked for the first time, like, a week ago."

"That doesn't mean anything. Look at Noah and Savannah," Amanda said bitterly.

"Still," I insisted, though I couldn't help hoping that I was wrong. "Logan would never ask me out."

"I think you're wrong on this one, Chlo," Kelsey told me and Amanda agreed. "You just wait and see."

-/-\-

It was Wednesday. The ball was in two days. Logan still hadn't asked me to go with him. I was losing hope.

It didn't help that Amanda and Kelsey kept asking me if Logan had made his move, even when I'd promised to notify them if he did.

Worse than all, the only time Logan and I talked was between seven and seven thirty so that I made sure he ate dinner. Other than that, we exchanged awkward smiles at school when we made eye contact. That was it.

"So, do you think he'll ask you tonight?" Amanda, who now had a date (some guy in her dance team had asked her yesterday), asked me as we made our way to our cars after school.

"Amanda, could you please drop the subject?" I pleaded, sick of having her remind me that the guy I liked didn't like me back. "He's obviously not interrested. Otherwise, he would've had asked me by now."