Puddin'(9)

The only response he gets as I walk to my desk is a few groans.

“Come on, y’all!” he says. “Classical conditioning!”

I chuckle as I sit down at the back of the class next to Malik at the fat-kid table. (Well, it’s not just for fat kids. A few kids in wheelchairs use them too, but I lovingly think of it as the fat-kid table. Amanda prefers cool-kid table. She’s not wrong.) Everyone else has those little desks you slide into, but I don’t quite fit—at least not comfortably. I guess it used to bother me to be singled out, but one size doesn’t actually fit all. (Oh my gosh. That is totally my next cross-stitch.)

Malik isn’t fat, but I am, and he’s my go-to partner on group projects. He is also my crush. In fact, I think he might be THE CRUSH TO END ALL CRUSHES. So, yeah, I like him. But the better news is he might like me. I think. Amanda says yes, definitely. He went with me to Sadie Hawkins last fall. We even held hands. But no kiss. To say he’s sending mixed signals would be the understatement of the year.

My hopes were all but deflated until he volunteered to be my escort for the pageant. I thought maybe then, after seeing me win runner-up, that it just might be the night our lips locked. But instead I got a hug, a pat on the back, and a yellow rose. Nothing says “just friends” like a yellow rose. (And nothing’s wrong with being friends, but what I feel for him is different than friendship.) Not only that, but we have these wonderful hours-long conversations every night via chat or sometimes text. And then I show up to school and I’m lucky if he says more than fifteen words to me.

“Hey,” I say, catching my breath for a moment before adding, “Almost didn’t make it.”

Malik shakes his head. “Explain to me how Clover City can afford to build an indoor training facility for their mediocre football team, but the AP Psych class has to meet in a temporary building that can barely withstand a windstorm, let alone a tornado, and has no windows.”

My cheeks warm. My stomach tingles. That was a lot of words. From his mouth. Using his talky lips that also double as kissy lips. “I swear you should run for city council.”

Malik turns to me, his face a little flushed, like he’s just realized that whole rant was said out loud and not in his head. Or online.

I feel like my insides are glowing, and if I’m not careful, they’ll glow so bright everyone will be able to see.

There may or may not be a small notebook in my room with a furry seafoam cover that is dedicated to all the reasons I find Malik crush-worthy. (I like organizing things, okay? Including my feelings.) There are lots of things I might put on those pages in list form.

His thick, commanding eyebrows that perfectly match his shiny black Fonzie-like hair.

His square tortoiseshell glasses that perfectly complement his deep brown skin and the fact that he keeps a dustcloth folded in his wallet to clean them off a couple times a day.

The way he wears penny loafers and puts real, shiny pennies inside them.

How he rolls his jeans at the bottom and always wears subtle but seasonally appropriate socks.

The way he irons his T-shirts and always wears them tucked in with a cardigan in the fall and a leather bomber jacket in the winter, like a hot South Asian greaser with a little bit of dad sensibility mixed in.



But perhaps the thing that really makes my knees melt is Malik’s drive. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t spent a fair share of our AP Psych classes daydreaming about how we’d make the perfect power couple. Me on the six o’clock news and him running for local office. Or maybe even Congress or working as some kind of documentarian/philanthropist.

His leg brushes against mine as he reaches behind his chair to grab his textbook. “I think we’re doing that open-book quiz today.”

“Shoot,” I whisper before I can even dig through my bag. “I knew I was supposed to stop at my locker. You even mentioned it last night.”

He slides his book toward me. “We can share.”

I smile. There goes the fluttering again. “Okay. Thanks.”

I tear out a piece of notebook paper as Mr. Prater turns on his projector and lowers the lights. He plugs in the twinkly lights strung overhead. He hung them himself due to the lack of windows out here in the temporaries, which means no natural light for note-taking while the projector is on.

I realize this wasn’t Mr. Prater’s intention, but it’s all sort of romantic. Sharing a book with Malik underneath the low lights as our thighs touch so frequently it’s more than an accident . . .

I have to force myself to concentrate on the quiz questions displayed on the slides, but it’s hard not to let this breathless feeling overtake me completely.

Is this what liking someone is supposed to feel like? Because if this is a crush, I don’t know if I can handle the intensity of actually loving someone. Or maybe this is love. I don’t know. What I do know is that whatever I feel for Malik goes way beyond just friends.

That afternoon, Will and El are waiting in the courtyard with Tim and Bo. Amanda’s close on my heels as we make our way to their table.

“I don’t want to step on any toes,” I call out to them. “But this meeting is girls only.”

Tim shrugs, and Ellen gives him a quick kiss on the cheek with his face glued to his phone before he walks off toward the parking lot. “I’ll be at the car.”

“His latest obsession is that geocaching app with those little trolls and gnomes,” Ellen explains.