Taryn-gal: So...who's the crush you've been talking about?
DannyDevil: Oh, um...no one. It's just a rumour.
Taryn-gal: And you expect me to believe that? C'mon, Dan, we've been friends for so
long. I know you. So??? Who's the lucky girl?
DannyDevil: Isn’t a person entitled to their privacy?
Taryn-gal: Please, Dan? I’ll be your best friend forever!
DannyDevil: You already are…
Taryn-gal: Oh, right! In that case… you don’t have a reason to hide the secret from me any longer, have you?
DannyDevil: Tar! You really don’t wanna know…
Taryn-gal: Why not? I won’t spread the gossip, I swear.
DannyDevil: Promise me you won’t freak out when I tell?
Taryn-gal: ‘Course not! So? Spill! Why would I freak out?
Taryn-gal: Danny???? You there? Why aren’t you answering?
DannyDevil: I’m here, I’m here…
Taryn-gal: Gr8! So? Can you tell now?
DannyDevil: It’s not that easy to tell someone a secret, I thought you would have figured that out for yourself, after the incident with, well, him.
Taryn-gal: Yeah, it was hard for me to tell Isaac how I felt about him, but he understood, I think.
DannyDevil: Yeah, but after you told him you had a crush on him, your feelings were hurt.
Taryn-gal: I guess, but I’m starting to get over him now, so everything’s fine, right?
DannyDevil: I don’t want you to get hurt.
Taryn-gal: Why would I? I mean, I’ve already learnt how to recover from heartbreak, and isn’t that one of the hardest to overcome?
DannyDevil: I guess so…
Taryn-gal: Well? Can I know now?
DannyDevil: Damn, this is really not easy, but…
Taryn-gal: I won’t freak out, PROMISE.
DannyDevil: You.
Taryn-gal: What?
DannyDevil: I like you, Taryn.
* * *
I groaned as I saw my friend Chloe come over to me. I quickly looked over my shoulder at the school bus that I had just come down from, hoping to find someone I could engage in a conversation before having to face Chloe about what had happened yesterday night. Unfortunately, the only group of kids nearby were some eight graders giggling about some oh-so-funny show they had watched last night.
“Taryn, I am so sorry about yesterday,” Chloe looked at me pleadingly.
“It’s okay, forget it,” I forced a smile as I tried to reassure Chloe.
“No, it’s not!” Chloe looked like she was about to burst into tears, “I didn’t mean to upset you. It’s just that he has liked you for so long! And I nagged him into telling me, and then I pushed him into, well, telling you and everything!”
“It’s fine,” I sighed, “Not like you did anything wrong…except keep the secret from me…” I started to walk towards the school building.
Chloe started walking beside me, “And the whole, Jane thing…I’m really sorry for that…”
I froze in my tracks. “What?” I demanded sharply, “What ‘Jane’ thing?”
Chloe looked nervous, “You mean…he didn’t tell you?”
I stared at her questioningly. “I know who Jane is… isn’t she that girl Danny had a crush on?”
“Well, the truth is,” Chloe looked really uncomfortable, “Just promise you won’t get mad…”
“What?” I asked, wondering how my life had gone from fun to ‘full of secrets’ in just one day.
“Um… well…” Chloe started, “Jane isn’t real…Danny made her up, actually, it was my idea. I wanted to see what your reaction would be if, you know, he liked someone.”
“But,” I couldn’t think. How could my best friend have deceived me like this?
Chloe knew what I was thinking, “Don’t blame him, it’s all my fault. I pushed him into doing it,” She gave me a tiny, apologetic smile, “He was yelling at me about it for the whole night yesterday.”
“The person I chatted to on ‘Zone’? Who was she?” The Zone is a chat site that my friends go to.
Chloe looked away, “It was me…I was pretending to be Jane so I could try to well, see what you felt about Danny.”
I tried to talk. Say anything, but my thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the warning bell.
I sighed as I scurried to class. All my thoughts would have to be temporarily banned, at least, until lunch came.
Despite my greatest efforts to pay attention in class, my thoughts wandered off during French. As I stared down at the worksheet I was supposed to have been doing, I started thinking about the whole incident again.
It had been just a crush. When I set eyes on Isaac, I just had this immediate feeling that he was the one, well, at least, currently. Isaac was a member of the ‘group’. The ‘group’ was the clique of friends I joined in school. It was Chloe that had invited me to join in. Danny had also joined the ‘group’ about the same time as I had. At that time, we were just normal friends, maybe a bit closer to each other than the others were, since we were both the newbies there. Later, Danny moved to another school, to the opposite of town. It was after he left that we started becoming closer.
Either way, I had joined the school just after Isaac had left. He had migrated to Australia with his parents. I never actually knew him, until the previous summer, when he came back to visit. Danny had told me some stuff about Isaac. At first, I hadn’t been too interested, but then, when Danny told me about Isaac being good in sports, not to mention played the violin, and also having a great sense of humor, I just felt like I had to know the guy.
I first met him at the local mall, on the first day of summer vacation. I saw him standing there, laughing with some of my friends, his dark brown hair blending in with the crowd, yet somehow standing out from it……
Then, we started to know each other, and just before he left for Australia, I spilled out my feelings for him. He took it pretty cool, granted that he barely knew me. Either way, we sort of agreed on being just friends. Or, in truth, he agreed, yet I still hoped for the impossible: for him to like me back.
The only person who knew how I felt about Isaac was Danny. He had promised not to tell a soul. But somehow, he probably couldn’t bear the fact that his crush liked someone else, so, he told Chloe about everything.
Unfortunately, Chloe was, despite her grumbles about being stupid, was actually a mastermind. And so, she gave Danny the idea of having a crush that broke his heart, so it would lure me into feeling sorry for him, hopefully falling in love with Danny.
I didn’t. Well, I didn’t fall in love, but I did fall into the trap she had set up. Now, she knew that I had a major crush on Isaac, and a few other personal things that I had accidentally revealed to her on the ‘Zone’, thinking she was Jane.
I looked at my French worksheet. I was supposed to conjugate the verb ‘choose’.
I smiled grimly, I would have to choose. Definitely.
* * *
“So, we’re all set for the filming next week?” Chloe asked.
“I can’t believe we’re actually making a movie!” Emily said cheerfully. “It’s so cool, like something that only happens in books!”
I was going to direct a short movie that my friends and I were going to use to enter a short film contest. “Yeah,” I agreed, “It’s all pretty exciting, but I think we need to assign a few more people for some roles. Like, um,” I thought for a while. “The ‘police inspector’ part hasn’t been filled yet. Who do you guys think is suitable for the part?”
“Hmm…”Chloe wondered, “Aaron, maybe? Or Jake?”
“Hey, I heard that Jonathan is coming back to school in a few days. Maybe he could take the part!” Emily exclaimed.
“What?” I asked, shocked, Jonathan was this guy that had been chasing after me. He had switched schools, but he still called me when he had the time. To be frank, I didn’t like him, at least, not like like.
As if I hadn’t had enough to think of already. Now, with Jonathan, Danny, and Isaac to think of, it seemed like my day was getting worse and worse.
