I practically bolt into the crowded hallway again after class and head towards the lunch room. One of my best friends Keri saddles up next to me and hooks her arm through mine as we walk towards the lunch room. Without a word, she pulls me towards the cafeteria in the way she always does. When we finally get there she gives me a hug and preludes any ‘hello, how are you’s’ with a “So how’s everything going with Michael?” I love how she just gets to the point without any small talk or anything. I have told her everything about him and me since we first met through Sam, a good friend of both of us.

“Oh, you know. Same as usual. I stare into his eyes and practically melt while he just stands there completely oblivious to my melting inside, and then he goes and tells me how he likes Meghan and how beautiful and wonderful and amazing. God, my life sounds like a Taylor Swift song.” Meghan is one of my good friends. It’s ironic that we have the same name, run in the same clique, and like many of the same things, especially guys. This ends up being why we fight most of the time. And it’s true; my life does song like a silly Taylor Swift song. I don’t even like her music all really.

“As usual. You should let me talk to him.”

“No! Don’t do that... I can’t let him know because then it would make things awkward and it isn’t as if I’m not awkward enough already. Please don’t?” I practically beg her not to say anything.

“Fine fine fine, I won’t. But it’s not gonna help if he doesn’t know.”

“I know that, I just don’t want him knowing yet. Maybe later... I think.” I am such a loser at these things. Otherwise, I’m okay most of the time. When it comes to guys, I’m definitely a loser.

“Loser.” Keri said with a joking smile. My thoughts exactly. But I couldn’t dwell on my lack of aggressiveness; Michael was on his way into the cafeteria. I looked at him for a quick second before turning away. I couldn’t let him see my red cheeks or glowing eyes or huge smile that all graced my face. Keri rolled her eyes at me then shoved me towards our normal table. I sit down at our usual table and pull out my journal. I always try to be writing when I’m around him because he thinks it’s cute. I waited silently for him to come over so I can tell him when I had been thinking about all of fourth. Finally, Michael sits down across from me and grabs the pen out of my hand, swatting me with it before I could stop him.

“Hey, what was that for?” I ask jokingly before swatting him back.

“Cause I felt like it, and cause you’re always writing. You should pay attention to the more important things in life, such as me!” I started laughing at this comment. Michael always knows how to make me laugh with a stupid comment or whatever else he does.

“You know what I was thinking about all of fourth period? Where we’re gonna go sixth when we skip together.” A sly smile danced across my lips as I told him the news. I had chorus sixth, so it wouldn’t be as much of a big deal to skip that, as it was to skip creative writing.

“You serious? We’re gonna skip next period?” He asked me, slightly confused because I had just gone back on my word from before.

“Completely serious.” The sly smile continued to shine.

“Awesome. It gets boring cutting on my own.”

“Well you know how amazingly fun I can make things, so I suggest we dip out now.” I said half-sarcastically.

“Yeah, dipping during lunch. So daring.” Michael commented back, rolling his eyes in the process. “Anyway, we can’t do that because neither of us has eaten. I don’t want us fainting in the stairwell.”

“This is sad, but true. Maybe we should get something to eat.” I looked for my wallet in my bag, but soon realized I had left it at home. “I’m such an idiot! I left my wallet at home. No food for me until later, I guess.” I shrug, grab the pen from where Michael had left it on the table, and thought about my next sentence. Michael grabbed the pen from my hand again.

“You need to eat, Meg. Come on, I’ll buy you something.” He grabbed my hand, practically jerking me out of my seat, and pulled me towards the snack line. Once we got there, I leaned on him and tried to catch my breath. I didn’t even realize that I was leaning on him for a few seconds, and once I did, I immediately stood up straight. Being too forward with him wasn’t the smartest idea right now, especially since I was completely out of breath and my face was red. He looked at me questioningly. “You can lean on me. It’s kind of nice, actually.” A small smile graced his face as I looked up at Michael again.

“I’m completely disgusting right now, I don’t think you want me to lean on you,” I said. I looked down quickly in order to avoid him seeing my blushing face.

“Why wouldn’t I want you?” He blushed, then stammered, “Uh, uh, I mean, um... Why shouldn’t you lean on me when I practically, um, dragged you over here?” This was completely surprising to me. Michael never stammers or says “um”. Ever. He makes fun of people who say “um” a lot. He is one of the most eloquent people I have ever met. I just had to tease him about this.

“What is this I hear? Michael, the great communicator, the one who thinks saying ‘um’ is a sin, has stammered and stumbled over his words! Truly, this feat will never happen again! Ladies and gentlemen, you have just seen a once in a lifetime experience. Michael Angel Dawson has just stammered!” My joking speech to no one but Michael and I made him blush exceedingly. He gave me a small, playful push while I was laughing so hard my stomach started hurting. After I was finally done with my laughing fit, we arrived at the front of the line.

“The usual for Meg, and I’ll just have the special.” My thoughts raced a bit. He had ordered for me. And he was paying for me. If this wasn’t just getting food at the lunch line, I would semi-qualify this as a date. I blushed, yet again, at the thought.

My usual consisted of a pretzel, chocolate fudge cookies, and whatever the special of the day was. This is a bit of what I love to eat. A little salty, a little sweet, and a little healthy. Well, healthy sometimes. Today it was a fruit salad. Sometimes it was fries or mozzarella sticks or something like that. “Let’s go back to the table,” Michael said softly. He gave me my food and started walking, not looking back to see if I was following him or not.

We ate lunch rather quietly, at least for us. There was some joking and silliness as always, but there were not playful punches or loud shouts floating across the cafeteria coming from our lonely table.

The bell rang only a few moments after we both finished eating. We had this almost timed out perfectly. Every day lunch ended almost right as we finished eating. We shared a knowing smile, then got up and threw out our garbage. I hooked my arm through his. “So, where we off too?” I smiled up at him almost gleefully. I hadn’t been this much of a “rebel” since last year, and it was my time to do something fun for once. Most of my friends told me I should cut once in a while anyway, that it loosens me up a bit.

“Oh, I don’t know. I was thinking the abandoned stairwell, or maybe Dunkin’ Donuts?”

“You know I don’t have any money, and I don’t wanna mooch off of you any more, so the abandoned stairwell it is.” I blushed a bit as I said it. The abandoned stairwell is also known to the students as the “sex hallway”. Pregnancies, breakups and makeups, first kisses, make out sessions, and countless other sexual things have all happened in this hallway combination stairwell. No one ever goes there unless they’re cutting or planning to do some stuff that should be reserved for the bed. This is the same hallway that we were going to be hanging out in while we were cutting.

I guess it’s somewhat funny that I would be the nervous one here. I had already done stuff with guys. I had been kissed before, and I have done quite a lot more than I care to mention, or even remember. Michael, on the other hand, hasn’t even had his first kiss yet. He’s older than me by three months, and he hasn’t kissed a girl yet. I’m one of the only people that know this though. He thinks that some of the other guys would tease him or whatever for not being “manly enough” to kiss a girl. He has told me countless times how afraid he is of rejection and failure. It gets me a little annoyed, because he’s never rejected by me, yet he seems not to think of me as more than a friend. I would never reject him.

We walked through the crowded hallways together for the first time. We are always stopping to say hello to one another, but we have never walked together before. Walking together is a lot different from stopping to say hello. Michael let my arm stay crooked through his the whole time we were walking up until we got to the stairs of our hiding place. He let go of me and grabbed my hand, practically pulling me down the stairs. I knew why, though. One of the security guards was coming towards the staircase, so if she saw us we would be in trouble. We made it down safe though, and the security guard left.

My heart was practically beating out of my chest as we stood there for a few seconds. Michael hadn’t let go of my hand the whole time we were standing there. I looked down at our intertwining fingers and slowly pulled my hand away. I backed up to the wall slowly and slid down to the floor before looking up at him. “Come and sit. Make yourself comfortable.” I smiled at him with a pink tinge covering my cheeks. I patted to floor beside me. He slid into position a little closer than I expected him to. I wasn’t going to complain though, seeing as I thought it was very cute.

“So, what do you wanna talk about?” What a stupid question. Who asks that and actually expects a real answer? I gave the expected reply.

“I don’t know.” He looked at me straight in the eye.

“Are you sure? Cause you always have something to talk about.”

“Okay, fine. We can talk about how fun it is to poke you and make you laugh!” At this, I poked him right in the side, making him flash a magnificent smile at me.

“This means war!” Michael declared. This began yet another poke fight between the two of us. I almost always won, and this time was no exception. “Okay, okay, stop!” he laughed when I began to tickle him. He pushed me slightly, and me, being the overly dramatic teenager that I am, fell over and laid on the ground as if he had just shot me in the side. I pretended to have died for a few seconds before I couldn’t help but start laughing. Soon we were both practically on the floor trying to stifle our giggles. Michael leaned on me after we finally finished laughing and sighed. “I wish we could stay like this forever.”

“I would like that too.” I smiled back at him. His comment surprised me a little bit, but I didn’t show it. I was used to acting completely normal around him even when my heart is about to beat out of my chest and I feel like I’m going to die. I shoved him off me playfully. “Isn’t the girl supposed to be the one leaning on the guy?” I said as I leaned my head on his shoulder. Michael leaned his head on top of mine and his bangs swept into my eyes. I blinked once or twice before closing my eyes and smiling to myself. “Yeah, it would be nice to stay here forever.”