I was staring at an assigned reading for one of my csses this week, trying to absorb the words into my head. At the back of my mind, the temptation of ice-cream kept calling out to me, and my brain wouldn’t stop conjuring images of sundaes and banana splits and parfaits to the forefront of my thoughts.

  It didn’t help that I was hearing Ashley’s quiet sigh for the trillionth time that day. Neither of us had csses in the afternoon today, so she had come over to study with me. We were sitting at one of the many tables around campus in open space with our books and ptops in front of us. I closed my eyes to better hear the distant chirping of some birds.

  My mutinous mind produced another image of an ice-cream sandwich, the fvor being a tantalizing strawberry cheesecake.

  “Stop it,” I moaned, leaning forward to rest my entire left arm on the table and flopping my head down on it.

  A frown grew on Ashley’s face as she paused in her note-writing.

  “Stop what?”

  “Don’t mind me,” I whispered, closing my eyes. “I’m just talking to myself. I want ice-cream so bad.”

  “You can get ice-cream ter.”

  “Yeah, but the problem is that I want it now.”

  “That’s life,” she said, sounding entirely too unsympathetic for my liking. “Sometimes we need to wait for the good things.”

  “I don’t know why you’re trying to sound so deep over ice-cream.”

  She snorted. “You’re sounding more and more like Non with each passing day.”

  “Isn’t that a compliment?”

  “Shh, I’m trying to focus.”

  Sighing, I closed my eyes and willed the delectable-looking hot fudge sundae in my head to disappear into oblivion.

  Back off, Hot Fudge Sundae! I need to read!

  While my head was still resting on my arm, some voices from a distance reached my ears. We were sitting in front of a building where there were frequent passersby heading to their csses, so it wasn’t uncommon to hear people having conversations while they walked.

  “What?”

  “Pathetic.”

  As the shuffling sounds of their footsteps got louder, so did their voices.

  “Yeah. What’s worse is that he looks like he should be in high school. You know what? I bet he is. There’s no way that guy is a student here.”

  Strange. That voice sounded a bit familiar.

  “Seriously? How young did he look?”

  Maybe I should get an ice-cream sandwich after this. Chocote chip mint sounds so good…

  “Fifteen, maybe sixteen, tops. She probably asked him to come onto campus just to put on an act in front of me.”

  Now that they were getting closer, I felt like I was on the brink of recognizing the voice of the person who’d spoken just now.

  “That’s sad though, man.”

  Someone cackled.

  No, how about froyo? I want to get almond fkes as a topping.

  “Imagine how scared that poor girl was after you asked her out that she had to get some kid to come and pretend to be her boyfriend in front of you.”

  Another person snickered.

  “You probably creeped her out real good. Dude, what exactly did you do to her?”

  I hope Ashley can come with me ter to get froyo.

  “Shut up, Harris. I don’t want to hear that from you. Is Erica talking to you again?”

  I frowned. The voice really did sound familiar. Who was that? Did I know them?

  Someone else with a deeper voice ughed. “Ah, low blow, man.”

  “I’m not the only one here who can’t score a date, boys.”

  Incentivized by the possibility that it was someone I knew, my mind momentarily cleared itself of thoughts of ice-cream. I sat up, groaning inwardly at the massive effort it took. I really wanted to lie there for another hour.

  I looked up in the direction of those voices to see a group of four boys who had just walked past our table. Immediately, one of them looked sort of familiar, but because his back was to me, I couldn’t see his face. I didn’t particurly recognize any of the other guys.

  I craned my neck and twisted my body upwards to get a better look.

  Opposite me, Ashley noticed my action and said, “What are you looking at?”

  She looked over as well.

  The familiar-looking guy turned his head to retort to something his friend had said. In that moment, I caught a glimpse of him.

  The sight of Luca’s grinning face sent a jolt of shock through my heart.

  I’d been distracted by tempting thoughts of ice-cream, so although I’d heard their words quite clearly, I hadn’t realized what they had meant until now.

  It was hard to remain indifferent about their comments now that I realized what Lucas had been saying.

  While he hadn’t named names, it sounded suspiciously like he was talking about me. Had he been referring to Non when he was talking about a ‘high school kid’? Non had come to surprise me just a few days after Lucas had tried to ask me out. Since everything had occurred within this week, I didn’t think he was talking about anyone else—unless I somehow misheard.

  “Do you know them?”

  Despite speaking at a very reasonable volume, Ashley caught their attention. It didn’t help that we were barely a few feet away. Whenever I met up with Ashley, it was just the two of us chilling together. Our social circles didn’t overp, so neither of us knew each other’s friends beyond the occasional mentions of names. Of course, this meant that she didn’t know what Lucas looked like.

  A couple of the other guys gnced back at us. Lucas slowed down and faced me. Almost comically, his rexed smile faded into an expression of mild arm. That reaction wouldn’t make any sense if he hadn’t been talking about me.

  I stared back stonily at him.

  Did he know that I’d heard what he’d said?

  I got up from the chair and turned my whole body towards him. Catching the motion, Ashley shot me a concerned look.

  “Chelsea?” she asked.

  One of the guys in their group said “ooh” and whistled lightly.

  My frown gradually deepened into a scowl.

  “Hi, Lucas.” My voice sounded cold to my own ears.

  He paused for a few seconds before saying to his friend, “You should go on first. Save me a spot.”

  “Will do.” His friend raised a hand and made to resume walking.

  After the rest of them nodded at him, they all moved on as a group without him.

  “I heard you,” I said seriously. “Were you just talking about me?”

  Although she stayed in her seat, Ashley kept looking between us. I knew that she filtered out irrelevant background noise whenever she got into the zone while studying, so she might not have heard what Lucas had said.

  His face was a perfect picture of nonchance as he shrugged. “What about it?”

  “Were you making fun of my boyfriend?”

  Scoffing, he folded his arms. “Boyfriend? Drop the act already. I can take a ‘no’, you didn’t have to pretend to have a boyfriend just to turn down a date.”

  As my eyes widened enough to pop out of their sockets, I gaped at him. “What act? Non is my boyfriend!”

  “Give me a break,” he said derisively. “If you’re not interested, I get it. But don’t make up some pathetic excuse that you have a boyfriend. I’m not that into you.”

  My mouth fell open even further. “What is wrong with you? I’m not pretending!”

  He went on, like I hadn’t said anything, “And you had to get some kid to py the part before me. Come on, at least find a guy in our year to do it. That was insulting, Chelsea.”

  The hard look in his blue eyes caught me off-guard, but maybe it shouldn’t have. All things considered, I didn’t know him that well. We ate lunch together, we talked during and in-between csses, and sometimes we teamed up for group assignments, but that was really it.

  The fury that surged through my veins had me clenching my fists and jaw to keep from shouting at him.

  “‘Some kid’? Are you crazy? He’s a Comp Science major here. You’re the one insulting us!”

  With a look of utmost distaste on her face, Ashley said, “What’s with this guy? He doesn’t believe that Non’s your boyfriend?”

  Lucas eyed Ashley with obvious skepticism.

  “You’re kidding me. He doesn’t even look old enough to be an uppercssman in high school.”

  Was his ego that bruised because Non showed up as my boyfriend? The urge to shake him by the shoulders rose in me like a crescendo. It was insane how unwilling he was to believe the truth.

  “Not that it’s any of your business,” I spat, “but he is a freshman here, and that’s a fact.”

  I couldn’t believe that for the past several months I had thought Lucas was a nice guy.

  The sneer on his face twisted into condescension.

  “If he’s actually your boyfriend, then it’s no surprise you turned me down. So you like them looking young, huh?”

  I was pretty sure I perfectly mimicked a goldfish right then. No matter how hard I tried, I simply could not close my mouth.

  “You just can’t handle the fact that she already has someone else,” Ashley said, her tone saturated in nastiness that dripped off every word. “She doesn’t have to pretend that she has a boyfriend. No wonder you’re still single.”

  “At least now I can see your true colors,” I said, desperately fighting against hollering at him. “Even if I were single, I’d never go out with you.”

  “Of course not,” he said. “After all, I don’t look like I’m still a high school freshman. Looks like I dodged a bullet.”

  I was this close to stomping up to him and screaming in his face. “You jerk!”

  “Whatever,” he said, turning away. “I’m wasting time here talking to you.”

  At his retreating back, I snapped, “I wasted a whole semester being friends with you!”

  Without another gnce backwards, Lucas stormed off.

  Ashley’s face was pulled into a look of disgust. “That was Lucas? He’s terrible.”

  “I can’t believe he’s such a jerk! He seemed so nice about it on Monday when I told him I had a boyfriend, and this whole time he was talking trash about me behind my back.”

  “Well, at least you know now,” she said, tiding up her stack of notes. “He was probably just acting cool to cover it up.”

  “I’m never going to group up with him for anything ever again,” I said with a bit more force than necessary behind every word.

  Every inch of my being was trembling with outrage. I couldn’t believe how easily he’d dismissed and invalidated my retionship and insulted Non all in one breath. Just picturing his horrible face made me want to throw up.

  Confused, I watched Ashley slide her ptop into her bag. I tried to un-furrow my brow, but it felt almost impossible at the moment.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Let’s get some ice-cream. Don’t you need to blow off some steam? I want to throw my shoe at that guy, and I’m not even Non’s girlfriend.”

  “Oh, I’m hopping mad,” I admitted, rising to my feet. “I just don’t want to cause a scene in front of everyone else. I just know someone would have started filming us if I shouted at him.”

  She helped me to pack my ptop away.

  “I don’t bme you. I mean, what can you even say to a guy like that? He sounded so delusional!”

  Ashley’s incensed reaction on my behalf smoothed my ruffled feathers a little, and my love for my best friend grew even more.

  We dropped my stuff off at my dorm before heading out to look for the nearest ice-cream parlor.

  After getting our triple scoop ice-cream cones—we both decided on cones in the end—we took a stroll down the sidewalk. I took an angry bite out of my strawberry cheesecake scoop, determined to get brain freeze to forget about what’s-his-face.

  Thankful to have her by my side, I relished the easy silence between us.

  A question that had popped up in my mind since my encounter with Jerk-Face swirled around in my head, refusing to be dispelled from my thoughts.

  “Ash,” I said.

  “Hmm?”

  “Does Non really look like a high school freshman?”

  She didn’t reply for a long moment.

  We turned at a corner of the street and walked past someone walking his red corgi dog. The corgi turned its head back to peer at us for a second, then it turned back and continued trotting down the sidewalk.

  It brought a faint smile to my face.

  “Well,” Ashley said finally, “since I’ve been friends with him for so long, I stopped noticing his looks after a while. But if I really have to think about it, he does look young for his age.”

  While I tried to digest her words, I licked from my chocote macadamia scoop. Its cold sweetness melted on my tongue, but I was still too riled up inside to really enjoy it.

  Hastily, she added, “But so what? Lucas is still a jerk. I mean, what’s his problem? He’s just pissy that you actually have a boyfriend, and his assumptions made him look stupid.”

  I gave her a smile, and she returned it with a relieved one of her own.

  “Right?” I said before biting into my ice-cream again.

  If Non looked young for his age now, how much worse would it seem in a few more years?

  Just for a couple of seconds, I shut my eyes. I didn’t want to think about it.

  LotteStarburst