You and Kira ate alone at lunch, sitting in the hallway. Most of your friends ate in the cafeteria, but it made you much too nervous. Not because of all of the people. There was only one person who made you nervous. It was Liam.
"I think Hayden is going to ask him to the Sadie Hawkins dance," you told Kira sadly.
She didn't need to ask who you were talking about. "Ask him first."
"There's no time," you said, looking down at both sides of the hall. Kira looked too. Liam was standing on one side, going through his bag. Hayden was walking in his direction, still at the opposite end of the hallway.
"Stop her!" Kira exclaimed.
"What do you want me to do? Tackle her?"
"Just talk to her. Tell her how you feel about Liam."
"Yeah, I'm sure that'll work."
"If you're not going to talk to her," Kira stood up. "Then I will, and it will be ten times more awkward that anything you could do."
"Kira, wait!"
It was too late. Kira ran up to Hayden and started talking. Liam was now speaking with Mason, out of ear shot. You stood up, and walked over to Kira and Hayden.
"Hey," you said.
"Hey," Hayden answered.
"Tell her," Kira whispered in your ear.
"I heard you're thinking of asking Liam to the dance," you got out.
"Yeah, I'm on my way to do that right now."
Normally, you would sit in the hallway and watch Hayden walk by. You would watch her ask Liam out, and you wouldn't be happy, but you would never say anything. But now that you were already talking to her, there was no way to back out.
"I was going to ask him," you blurted out, expecting Hayden to reply with something submissive, but apparently she was having a similar train of thought.
"Sucks," she said.
"What?"
"I said that sucks. I'm going to ask him."
"Hayden, I asked nicely for you to back off, and you should know that I only do that once."
It wasn't entirely a lie. You did only ask people for things once, but usually if they said no, that was it.
You considered punching her in the face, and running down the hallway to ask Liam first, but you figured that wouldn't leave a good impression on the boy in question.
"Oh my god, Kira!" You said flatly. "Are you having a fainting spell?"
"Huh?" Kira asked. You responded with a nonchalant elbow bump. "Oh."
Kira fell dramatically to the ground in front of Hayden. Hayden bent down to check her pulse. "Is she okay?" She asked.
"I don't know," you said quickly, and took off sprinting down the hall to Liam. He didn't look up until you reached him.
"Hey," you panted.
"Hey," he replied.
"I'll go," Mason said with a mysterious glint in his eyes.
"Is she okay?" Liam looked past you. You turned around around to see Kira still on the ground. Hayden was glaring at you.
"Yeah, yeah. She's fine. Listen, I was wondering if anyone had asked you to the dance."
"No, they haven't."
You blinked. He blinked back. There was silence between the two of you.
"Was that supposed to be a question?" He asked.
"Would that have been your answer?"
"Are you trying to ask me to the dance?"
"Trying, and awkwardly failing."
"Let me get this straight. Kira just pretended to faint over there so you could beat Hayden over here, and now you're asking me to go to the dance with you?"
"Was it that obvious?"
"Kira is terrible at fake falling."
"Is that a no to the dance?"
"It's a yes."
"What?"
"I said it's a yes. We can work out the details over text."
A smile came across your face, and one across Liam's as well as he turned away to go tell Mason. You looked back at Kira, who was still on the ground, giving you two thumbs up.
