Right In Front of Me

Chapter 7

Tanner hasn't spoken to me all week. We don't even acknowledge each other. We walk by each other in the hallway, not even glancing in each other's directions. We don't look at each other in class. And you know what? I haven't really even thought about him since I saw him at Clark's on Sunday and it feels good.

As I'm walking into the cafeteria with Kayla on Friday, I'm stopped by Lydia Johnson with her friend and sidekick, Ana Morales. "Just the person I was looking for," she said in such a matter-of-fact voice. I really don't like this girl, especially after what she did to Mason. Dumping him like that and dating after a senior just days later. It still pisses me off to this day.

"What do you want, Lydia?" I ask, not hiding my annoyance whatsoever.

Lydia flips her hair over her shoulder and then looks at Kayla, batting her eyelashes. "Do you mind?" she asks, almost talking down to her like she's a peasant.

"I do," I cut in before Kayla can say anything. I know she wouldn't leave, but still. Lydia talking down to her is making me more annoyed. "Whatever you got to say, just say it to both of us." I give her my best fake grin I can.

She sighs in irritation. "Okay then. I just didn't want to embarrass you any further. Since like you know, since Chase's party and all. I mean that was like totally humiliating." I swear if someone wants a valley girl, Lydia would be it. She fits the description perfectly. Take her, please. "Anyway, I just wanted to let you know Tanner and I are kind of, you know," she pauses. "hooking up," she says that statement quietly because as she says, it was like totally humiliating. "We're going to homecoming together tomorrow night, too," she says excitedly, almost to see if she can get under my skin.

It works. She's under my skin. My fake grin instantly washes away. Tanner's already moving on? It's only been three weeks. Not even a week ago, I swore he was maybe saying sorry to try to get back together. And now he's hooking up with Lydia Johnson of all people? He knew how much I disliked her. Now they're hooking up and going to homecoming together?

I bite my bottom lip, forcing myself to not tremble. It's suddenly like all my feelings for Tanner are coming back. All the good times I had with Tanner. How much I liked him. The memories filled in my head so quickly just like everything had just happened.

I remember our first date like it was yesterday. We went to an arcade and had an absolute blast. I was surprised he wanted to go to an arcade, but I went with it. We played each other in a lot of games. Some games, I could tell he was going easy on me, but I was kind of digging it that he was letting me win. He spent a good fifteen to twenty bucks on a claw machine just to get me a stuffed bear I saw as we walked by and said looked cute. I told him he didn't have to play and get the bear, but he wasn't going to back down. He wanted to get it for me. After multiple attempts, Tanner finally got ahold of the bear and he handed it to me, with a big, genuine smile.

When he kissed me goodnight that night, I could feel the sparks flying between us.

Tanner asked me to spring fling. I knew it would be cheesy. It was always cheesier than homecoming. I didn't go my freshmen year just because I heard it sucked a lot more. But I still said yes and I don't regret it. We did go to spring fling, but left very early. Maybe 20 minutes after we arrived. It was completely cheesy. We decided to go out for ice cream instead. Tanner was dressed up in his fancy button up shirt and khakis. I was wearing this really nice pastel pink dress and wedges. We were the most dressed up people in the ice cream parlor, but didn't care. We sat there, eating and feeding each other ice cream, talking, and stealing kisses from each other. Afterwards, we went to a playground and played like we were little kids. All dressed up. Going down slides, doing monkey bars (okay well I was doing monkey bars, he was too tall), and swinging. We even played tag, which was probably pretty comical. It was one of the best nights of my life.