Aliens Are Real: Part 2 (6 page)

She
waited.
She
risked a quick glance at him from the corner of
her
eye.
She
tried to watch him without being obvious that
she
was watching him.
He looked at his watch then he shifted how he was sitting.
She
could have sworn that he moved himself a tiny bit closer to
her
.
He stretched his arms above his head and yawned.

The yawn curse struck and
she
found
her
self yawning too.
She
lifted
her
hand to cover
her
mouth.
An inch away from
her
face
she
realized
her
mistake.
She
lifted the hand that was perfectly poised to be held.
Inwardly
she
cursed her
self.
She
tried to be smooth as
she
looked in the other direction as
she
put
her
hand down again.

As
she
laid
her
hand down,
she
didn’t meet the cold floor as
she
expected.
She
jerked
her
hand back to
her
chest and looked down.
She
saw Mark’s hand laying on the floor, this time palm up.
She cursed her
self again as
she
realized that
she
had touched Mark’s hand and just jerked
her
hand away.
In surprise,
she
looked straight at him.
He met
her
eyes and
she
froze.

She
understood at that moment why deer stand in the middle of the
road as a truck barrels toward
them.
It’s because there are too many options on how to proceed from that moment.
The
deer can run forward, backward
, to the left, to the right, jump, veer or any combination of those movements.
It stands, staring at the headlights because it cannot decide what course of action to take next.

She
found her
self in that same predicament.
She
could reach down and hold Mark’s hand,
she
could laugh, pretend to have a coughing fit, or
she
could run
her
hands through
her
hair and pretend
she
didn’t feel his hand there.
She
could try to talk
her
way out of the situation in effort to salvage both of
their
egos.

Unfortunately,
she
didn’t know if he even wanted to hold
her
hand.
She
decided to play it cool.

“So ...
”
she
choked out.

He raised an eyebrow.

She
turned and stared straight ahead as
her
skin morphed into a deep shade of crimson.
She
put
her
hands on the floor away from
her
body, p
alms down, in effort to brace her
self and gather
her
wits again.

She
took a deep breath and relaxed.
This was not the end of the world.
She convinced her
self that
she
hadn’t blown
her
shot to date Mark.
This was just a silly misunderstanding that
they
would laugh about later.

She
shifted
her
hands slightly and
her
hand bumped into his.
She
froze again but
she
didn’t jerk
her
hand back.
She
left
her
hand touching his.
His hand was warm and
,
the little bit of his hand
she
could feel
,
was smooth.

Contact with Mark was thrilling.
When
she
touched Yumi or any of the other aliens,
she
felt electricity
,
but this was different.
There wasn’t an actual physical rush of electricity at that moment
,
but
her
body still hummed.

She
felt him run a finger over
her
pinky.
She
couldn’t help but smile again.
She
tilted
her
head down as
she
enjoyed the sensation.
She
peeked out of the corner of
her
eye again and
she
saw a small smile on his face as well.

“
Jasmine
!”

At the
sound of the sudden new voice,
both she
and
Mark
jerked
their
hands back quickly.
She
looked up to see Alex running down the hall, military jacket streaming behind her, pig tails bouncing.

Excitement emanated from her.
“
Jasmine
,
Jasmine
,
Jasmine
!”

“Uh ..
. yes?”

“You are not going to believe this!”
Alex
looked to the side.
“Hey Mark!”
She turned back to
Jasmine
ignoring
Mark’s unenthusiastic wave.
She started bouncing and clapping her hands.
“
Guess what?
” Alex
,
then,
broke into a makeshift song.
“♫
The gas station’s slushie machine is fixed!
♫
”

“Oh.
Well.
Isn’t that something?
”
Jasmine
was happy that the slushie machine
was fixed but
she
didn’t appreciate the interruption
of her first potentially romantic moment
.
Honorio doesn’t count
,
she insisted inwardly.

Alex
dropped her hands to her sides and pouted.
“Come on, you adore s
l
ushies!
Sheesh!
I
expected more of a reaction from you.”

“Ya
y
?”
Jasmine
feebly waved
her
hands.

Alex threw her arms in the air.
“Ugh.
I
need someone to bask in the
epic glory
of the return of ice-
cold sugar infusion with
me
.”
She turned and dashed down the hall.

Mark stared until
Alex
disappeared from sight
, then
turned, dead-panned, back to Jasmine.
“
I
think she drank a few too many at lunch
.”

“Yeah.
I
think so.”
Jasmine
laughed, and Mark joined her
.

Jasmine
looked over at Mark
,
and he smiled.
She
smiled then looked down and pulled
her
hair behind
her
ear.
She
pulled
her
knees up to
her
chest and rested
her
cheek on them so
she
was facing Mark.
She
wrapped
her
hands around
her
knees and tried to decide if
she
had enough
courage
to try to hold Mark’s hand again.

The bell decided for
her
by ringing.
It felt like
they
had only
been si
t
ting
by each other for a minute but several must have passed unnoticed.
When all
the students had
filed into class,
she
was about to take
her
usual seat toward
the middle when Mark called
her
name.

“Jasmine, sit here!
” He
said as he
pointed to the seat next to him in the back by Alex and the rest of the group.

Jasmine
shrugged
.
“Okay.”

Outside
she
was nonchalant as
she
gathered
her
books
to move
seats
.
Inside
she
was beaming.
Maybe Mark did like
her
.
He wouldn’t ask
her
to sit next to him if he wasn’t into
her
and
she
was sure
they
would have had full-blown
hand-holding
had
they
not been interrupted.

Drama class flew by as
she
glowed from
her
budding friendships.
Sitting with a group of friends and feeling accepted and a
part of the revelry soothed
her
lonely soul.
As hard and
as
often as
she
tried to co
nvince her
self that
she
didn’t care whether
she
had friends or not, the truth was
clear:  H
aving friends mattered to
her
.
Now that
she
had some,
she
couldn’t lose them.

The thought of moving again scared
her
.
Leaving behind these wonderful people was not an option.
Leaving scared
her
more this time than any other move.
She
froze for a moment in
her
seat as panic washed over
her
.
It was more important
than ever
before
that
she
should fi
nd a way to stay in
Omaha
.

How could she do that? She wasn’t old enough to get her own place. Her dad would blow a gasket
,
if she tried. Not because he would miss her, of course, but because it would hurt his precious career.

The only possibility that
came
to mind was convincing her dad to let her stay with other responsible teenagers. It could be complicated since Honorio was supposed to be her boyfriend, but
that wasn’t reality
. If her dad knew how Honorio couldn’t stand her, it should be alright.
Since moving in with Yumi and the other aliens was
her
best shot,
she
made peace inside her
self with the notion of continuing interaction with the group.

“
Jasmine
?”

She was startled by the low voice.
“Huh?”
She
looked up and Mark was standing beside
her
.
All of the students
were
heading to their next classes.

Mark seemed a bit timid.
“It’s time for 5
th
period.
Wanna walk with
me
?”