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nother notification buzzed on my phone—the fifth in less than a minute.

“Willa, come on. It’s Saturday morning. Turn it on silent,” Nick groused from his bunk bed.

“Sorry. I’m not sure who it is. Ben’s not really—”

Nick peeled open a bleary eye. “Does it look like I care?”

“Right,” I whispered to myself, searching for the phone with the stream of incoming texts. My second date with Ben had been a success, despite the evil little geese that decided to chase me around the park to Ben’s loud amusement—seriously, it was no wonder people these days didn’t go on dates like that anymore. If the geese were that hungry, they shouldn’t be such terrible, greedy little goblins. They’d run themselves out of business by chasing off all the bread paying customers, but Ben was somewhat old-fashioned like that, and so to the park we’d gone.

To feed evil geese and die.

After about two weeks of dating, Ben had given my number to Kolton since Kolton was his best friend, and if I had to guess, that would be him this early in the morning.

An early riser, Ben was not. All of our phone calls took place in the evening. It probably had something to do with the training he was constantly waking up for, so during summer, when he had more free time, he chose to sleep in.

Wiping my eyes with one hand and blindly searching for the phone with the other, I finally found the annoyance. It had broken out into nearly nonstop buzzing.

Squinting at the bright screen, I swiped it open.

KOLTON KEISER: Hey, wake up!

KOLTON KEISER: Heeeey!

KOLTON KEISER: Wiiiiiiillllllaaa!

KOLTON KEISER: Wakey, wakey.

KOLTON KEISER: I need to ask you something.

KOLTON KEISER: I won’t stop.

KOLTON KEISER: Seriously.

KOLTON KEISER: Bet.

KOLTON KEISER: I have nothing better to do.

Even as I was reading, more messages poured in, so I eventually gave up trying to read all of them. I got the gist of it anyway.

ME: Hold your horses! You’re just like Ben. You send tons of messages at once. If you wait, I can go through them and make sure I’ve read them all before replying. As it is, I can’t read as fast as you’re sending them.

I thought he’d listen, because a brief ceasefire followed, but before I could finish, he was back at it.

KOLTON KEISER: Wait.

KOLTON KEISER: Did you just call me a spammer?

I finished his previous messages—and yes, they were just more of the same—before replying to his latest.

ME: If the shoe fits…

KOLTON KEISER: Alright, novelist.

ME: What’s your question, spammer?

KOLTON KEISER: See what I mean?

KOLTON KEISER: Look at all that grammar and shit.

ME: It’s autocorrect.

KOLTON KEISER: Not at the end of your messages.

KOLTON KEISER: Phones don’t add periods and ????s

I pinched the bridge of my nose, sensing I wouldn’t be getting any more sleep this morning. Kolton had possessed my number for about a week and hadn’t done much more than announce he’d gotten it and to save his contact information.

Out of spite, I edited his contact name to Spammer Kolton Keiser.

SPAMMER KOLTON KEISER: Helloooooo

SPAMMER KOLTON KEISER: Did you fall asleep?

SPAMMER KOLTON KEISER: Listen, you’ve been getting real close to my boy.

SPAMMER KOLTON KEISER: And I think it’s time you found out that we’re a package deal.

SPAMMER KOLTON KEISER: Don’t believe me?

SPAMMER KOLTON KEISER: Ben and I have known each other since kindergarten.

ME: It’s difficult talking to you when you won’t let me get a word in edgewise. What do you mean, you’re a package deal? Because you’re friends? Ben has a lot of friends. Does that mean I have to get all their numbers too? And you never said what your question was. Let’s start with that. Oh, never mind my question about the package deal. You answered that. That’s a long time to know each other.

SPAMMER KOLTON KEISER: Damn, wordsmith.

SPAMMER KOLTON KEISER: Yeah.

SPAMMER KOLTON KEISER: We’re a package deal because he’s my boy.

SPAMMER KOLTON KEISER: And no, you don’t need everyone’s number.

SPAMMER KOLTON KEISER: Ben knows a shit ton of people.

SPAMMER KOLTON KEISER: That’d be insane.

SPAMMER KOLTON KEISER: I’m the only one that matters.

ME: Not Hunter or Ralph?

SPAMMER KOLTON KEISER: Okay, those two are alright, but Ben and I are neighbors.

SPAMMER KOLTON KEISER: We grew up together.

SPAMMER KOLTON KEISER: We only met Ralph and Hunter a few years ago.

At this point, I was beginning to feel like a sounding board and feared he’d never get to the point so I could salvage a few precious minutes of sleep before Dad announced breakfast.

Even now, the salty, savory scent of bacon frying in a pan drifted up the stairs. The breakfast bell loomed ever nearer.

ME: Interesting.

SPAMMER KOLTON KEISER: What happened to the novels? Too good for this conversation?

ME: Honestly? I’m not sure you even need me in this conversation. You seem to be carrying on just fine on your own, and I’d really like to fall back asleep. Ben and I went to the skate park yesterday, and we returned kind of late, so come on. Just ask your question. I’d like to go back to bed sometime today.

SPAMMER KOLTON KEISER: THAT!

SPAMMER KOLTON KEISER: That’s what I want to talk about.

SPAMMER KOLTON KEISER: What’d you do to my bro?

An inch of grogginess receded.

Was Ben hurt?

Before I could type a reply, Kolton had already carried on.

SPAMMER KOLTON KEISER: He came back talking crazy.

SPAMMER KOLTON KEISER: Saying he’s going to ask you out and shit.

I rushed to send a response, because my head was still spinning from the first one-eighty of being worried for Ben’s safety. Now Kolton had jumped to this?

ME: Are you drunk? He’s already asked me out a dozen times.

SPAMMER KOLTON KEISER: No, that’s dating.

SPAMMER KOLTON KEISER: Big difference.

ME: And? What’s the big deal? I’ve seen him holding hands with lots of girls at school.

SPAMMER KOLTON KEISER: Are you that na?ve?

SPAMMER KOLTON KEISER: How do I put this so Ben won’t want to rip my head off for hurting your delicate sensibilities?

SPAMMER KOLTON KEISER: He loves ‘em and leaves ‘em.

I frowned, rubbing the pang deep in my chest.

ME: If you’re trying to scare me away, it’s not working. I knew this going into the first date.

SPAMMER KOLTON KEISER: I’m not trying to scare you away.

SPAMMER KOLTON KEISER: I just want to make sure you understand how big of a deal it is.

SPAMMER KOLTON KEISER: He banged on my window, looking all dopey-eyed and dazed and said he was going to ask you to be his girlfriend.

My heart thudded.

Ben wanted to be boyfriend and girlfriend?

SPAMMER KOLTON KEISER: That’s a BIG deal.

SPAMMER KOLTON KEISER: Despite the front he puts on about respecting girls, he never talks about committing to one.

ME: Sorry, Dad’s calling us for breakfast. I’ve got to go.

SPAMMER KOLTON KEISER: So?

SPAMMER KOLTON KEISER: It’s a cell phone.

SPAMMER KOLTON KEISER: Nice new invention. Can carry it around?

I exited the conversation. Kolton would stop trying soon enough. My brow arched at the speed of incoming texts, so I amended my thought with, “Probably.”

Either way, I just stared up at the slats of the bunk bed above me, deconstructing the whirlwind of a conversation, and a dreamy sigh escaped.

Ben Pierce wanted to be my boyfriend. I had my official license now, I wasn’t a total social pariah for my last summer of high school, and Ben Pierce planned to ask me to be his girlfriend.

My good mood vanished when a piercing pain lanced through my skull, making me hiss and double over in a tight ball.

The room dimmed, pulsing with dull brown lighting around the edges of my vision. Nick’s bunk across the way blurred as black spots danced a merry two-step before me. Too disoriented by the distortions, I closed my eyelids and prayed that it would pass. I was blind and deaf, unable to hear through the pounding in my head.

I couldn’t even see well enough to check my watch.

Eventually, the episode passed, and I came to in time to see a hand reaching for me. I jolted away from the outstretched arm.

“Jesus!” Nick yelled, springing back. “I was just going to ask if you planned on answering Dad. He’s been yelling that breakfast is ready for ten minutes now.”

“Oh.” I swiped my hand across my forehead. Somehow, it was sweaty, even if the rest of me was frigid. “Right. I’ll be down in a minute.”

Nick cast me one last zinger of a look containing equal parts concern and disgust before he shrugged and headed out the door.

Clicking the watch on, I noticed my temperature read ninety-seven degrees. So, yeah, I needed food, stat.

I collapsed back against the mattress, retracing the grooves of the wooden slats once more, only this time, the sharp knife of reality had pierced my happy bubble. Even if Ben wanted to date me, how long would it last before he got too close and discovered my weirdness? It’d taken me years of blending into the crowd at school to escape the single incident from elementary school, and the near miss at the middle school dance reminded me it was wiser to keep people at arm’s length.

What was I thinking, agreeing to a date with Ben Pierce?

His friend was already snooping around, and even if Ben was too chivalrous to do anything but awkwardly end our relationship if an episode occurred in front of him, Kolton Kieser would have no such qualms about informing any and all about the psycho that was Willa Walker.

I sank into a bit of depression, and my mood deflated as no answers came forth.

One thing was certain though. If I was having an attack, I needed food—a truth I’d never escape—so despite not having any appetite, I dragged myself downstairs, prepared to put away a full square meal, and buy myself a few more hours of normalcy.

Four days later, after stewing over Kolton’s words forwards, backwards, and upside down, the doorbell rang.

“Willa?” Dad called from the garage. “Is that Ben again?”

“I don’t think so.”

He hadn’t mentioned he’d be coming over, and we’d been texting almost nonstop. Still, since the first night he ate dinner with us and met Mom, it wasn’t unheard of for him to stop by unannounced.

“Well, do you mind getting it? I’m covered in gear oil from this stubborn” —A clank sounded, as if he’d banged a wrench off the side of something in frustration— “rear diff!”

I double-checked my messages just in case as I angled for the door, but there wasn’t anything there since we’d last spoken thirty minutes ago.

Ben stood outside, shifting in place, looking more uncomfortable than he had on his first trip here to meet my slightly neurotic mom. It wasn’t until he raised his hand that I clocked the single pink rose. “Willa, would you like to be my girlfriend?”

My first reaction dismissed this as another fantasy I’d dreamed up since Ben’s BFF spilled the beans, inadvertently or not.

Despite a fierce love for driving off-road and long hours learning all things mechanical under Dad’s tender, loving tutelage, I was still a pink, gooey teenage girl at the core, and four days proved to be a tortuously long wait for my overeager imagination.

Ben cleared his throat, taking a step back as the rose faltered in his grip.

My heart leaped into my throat with fear. In all my imaginings, this would be the moment he’d sweep into a low dip and kiss me stupid, and boy, did I want that. We hadn’t kissed yet, and it was sort of driving me crazy.

That he backed away with a small crease between his brown eyes projected that this was, in fact, reality, and I’d left him hanging.

“Yes!”

My rushed response made him jolt, but his entire demeanor changed the instant my answer registered. The morph in his expression from uncertainty to intense warmth shot my pulse jackrabbiting out of control.

“Yes?”

“Yes,” I replied, quicker on the uptake.

“Well, okay then,” he said, but his grin looked ready to split his face, starting from the deep craters of his dimples. His hand jerked up with the rose once more. “Here, this is for you.”

My beaming grin matched his and then some. The more he regained his confidence, the quieter my responses became as the reality of the situation hit. I wasn’t a girl who got swept up in these tooth-decaying romances. Boys didn’t seek me out. Outside of maintaining a grade point average that kept my parents off my back, my efforts went into flying under the radar.

But I’d had a lot of time to war with myself over the pros and cons the last four days. Sure, this might go down in flames if—no, when my condition reared its ugly head, but we were starting our senior year. At worst, I’d have to endure a few months of stares and whispers before we drifted off to college.

While I couldn’t nail down Kolton Keiser’s exact intentions for reaching out to me, most likely wanting to scare me off, he could be credited for my lack of anxiety as I accepted the rose and all it entailed with a soft smile.

“Thank you.” Someone had painstakingly removed the thorns, and I wished I could do the same with the sharp barbs of my life to prolong this new thing we had going for us to give it a fighting chance. I allowed myself that one moment of whimsy before locking it down. It wouldn’t do to become overly invested when only one logical conclusion waited at the end of this highway.

A kind of freedom existed in that line of thought—a live in the moment and soak it up while I could attitude that had me being upfront in a way I hadn’t been to this point. “No one’s given me flowers before.”

Some of his joy bled from his features. “You said you were new to this, but that still stuns me. How couldn’t one guy in our school ever—”

“You included,” I reminded him before he veered off on that familiar tangent. “So don’t be too hard on the male half of our class, yeah?”

He shook his head, but his dimples popped back out, gentled now from the serious turn of conversation but visible nonetheless. “So are you busy now?”

“Too busy for my boyfriend?”

A single eyebrow rose at my quip before he reached out and tweaked my nose. “I’m going to take that as a no, and as much as I find your dad and brother endlessly entertaining, especially when they are regaling me with stories of little kid Willa Walker, I wouldn’t mind some alone time.”

My hand shot over my heart. “No, I’m so devastated. I love being embarrassed and picked on. How will I ever cope?”

He snorted and looped his arm around my shoulders, making me stumble. Solid muscle weighed a ton.

We sat on the porch swing, holding hands and discussing the most random stuff. A rosy haze of giddiness surrounded me the entire time, keeping any negative thoughts at bay.

Dad stuck his head out the front door at one point, popping the warm bubble. “Willa Marie Walker. Do you have any idea what time it is?”

“Um, ten?” I guessed since night had already fallen when Ben arrived. By Dad’s tone, I figured we’d been talking around an hour, even if it hadn’t felt like that long.

“Try midnight,” Dad deadpanned.

Ben jolted, sending the swing rocking as he shifted to dig his phone out of his jeans. “What? Oh man, my dad’s going to kill me.”

Then, without fuss, Ben kissed my cheek and jumped up, bounding down the steps with nothing more than a, “See you, Mr. Walker.”

Ben’s old truck lull-lull-lulled to life as the crank sluggishly turned, and then he was gone, oblivious to Dad’s raised brow and my shocked hand touching the place his lips had pressed so fleetingly.

Luckily, my wide-eyed reaction told Dad enough about the newness of such an action, even if Ben acted like we’d been doing it every day for years.

“Don’t let it happen again, kiddo,” he warned with a gruff, if slightly amused, expression.

It took me two more hours to fall asleep, and even then, my smile didn’t diminish.

Ben and I were dating.