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Y ou might not think a half an hour a week is enough time to get to know someone, but if it’s quality time and you like the other person, I promise you can learn more about someone in that small amount of time than I suspect lifelong friendships could produce.

With Zack and me, there was no hiding our true natures, no pretending to be someone we weren’t.

After all, we were meeting in Chess Club, something already looked down on by fellow students.

We couldn’t get much lower than that…so why not just be ourselves?

Over the months, I not only looked forward to those meetings, but I began to like Zack as more than just a friend.

I didn’t have the guts to say anything to him about it, though, and back then, as a freshman in high school, he probably wouldn’t have known what to do with the information.

It was just as well, because even if I’d found the courage to tell him I liked him as more than a friend, I wouldn’t have known how to string the words together in a meaningful way.

I didn’t have that kind of maturity—or experience .

Ava, on the other hand, was trying her hand at flirting and getting pretty good at it.

As I continued to distance myself from her, I missed an opportunity, failing to learn her techniques—but those techniques seemed phony to me anyway.

I supposed touching a guy’s arm wasn’t so bad, but laughing at his stupid jokes and hanging on his every word when he was saying something chauvinistic or dumb seemed like it would be selling out.

I cringed when I watched Ava do that shit in the lunch line or on the bus heading home.

So I didn’t tell Ava when Zack and I exchanged phone numbers and began texting, and I made sure not to text him back when she was around—even though she had a couple of boys she talked to that way.

Somehow, I felt like Ava would ruin my friendship with Zack if she knew how important it was becoming to me, and I didn’t want to take the chance that I was right.

And right around spring break, I acted defiantly when I did what I considered cheating.

Zack and I spent one Chess Club meeting not playing the game at all but instead figuring out our classes for fall.

Ava probably would have killed me had she known, but how would she find out?

Braden joined in and, before I knew it, all the kids there did, so Mr. Lopez gave us his blessing and just ate his lunch, answering questions as they arose.

“We have to take World History,” I said. “That’s a requirement.”

“Yeah.”

Braden joined in. “But it’s luck of the draw which section you end up in.”

I agreed. “Yeah. What about math?”

Zack chewed his bottom lip in the cutest way. “I have to take geometry.”

Braden frowned. “Algebra for me. ”

I wasn’t going to ask if he had to retake it or if that was just the next class for him because, either way, he didn’t seem happy about it.

Zack said, “It looks like there’s only one section of geometry, so we’ll be in there together.”

“Cool.”

“Yeah. I might need your help in there.”

“I doubt it. You smoke me at chess all the time. I’ll need your help.”

“Shut up, you guys,” Braden said, all but rolling his eyes. “What about English?”

English was one of my strong suits, despite having hated it in middle school.

We’d been told that Nopal kids did well in high school English because of the exemplary education we received before coming here—so, unless, we’d done poorly in eighth grade English, we were encouraged to take the honors version.

I’d been stuck with Ava in that class, and it had been a major pain second semester, because she’d constantly passed notes to me about the cute boy in front of her.

Honors or not, I wasn’t going to learn anything if she kept distracting me.

“That’s another requirement where you don’t have a lot of choice.”

“What about Honors English?” I don’t know why I even asked, because that would be blending my two worlds...and I wasn't ready yet.

Zack laughed. “Hell, no.” I grinned because he didn’t even blink an eye at his mild curse, even with Mr. Lopez just two tables away.

Of course, Mr. Lopez didn’t hear him because the teacher was busy answering other questions.

“I don’t want to complicate school life.

Geometry will take care of that for me just fine. ”

So I wrote down regular English. How I could keep that from Ava, I wouldn’t know .

“What about a foreign language? What are you guys taking?”

“We put it off last year,” Braden volunteered. “But everybody keeps saying Spanish is easier than French.”

Zack asked me, “What about you?”

For just a second, I hesitated. “I took Spanish I last year. It was all right. But my mom really wants me to try to go to college…so I have to take Spanish II.”

“That’s cool. We gotta take Health and Wellness, too.”

I wrote that one down. There were other physical education classes available, but I was going to be with Zack if at all possible for as many classes as I could.

Braden scratched his pencil on the sheet of paper he’d been writing on. “Dude, I’m taking weightlifting. I thought you wanted to take that with me.”

Ugh. I’d heard about that class. I didn’t necessarily have a problem with lifting weights, but I’d heard it was a testosterone-fueled lovefest, with boys slapping each other on the back, telling themselves they were getting swole for the ladies.

Zack shrugged. “I dunno. I was kinda thinking about taking band, and that’s during the same time as weightlifting. ”

“ Band? You haven’t done that since sixth grade—and you hated it the whole tie. Didn’t you get rid of your clarinet anyway?”

“Yeah, but I wanna do drums. Marching band.”

“You don’t just march, dude. They have those concerts, too.”

“But drums . I didn’t realize how much I love those things till the pep assemblies and football games. The whole band’s kinda cool, but the drums are the best part. I kinda want to be a part of that.”

I couldn’t help but grin. “ I want to take band after that.”

“You should .”

Braden shook his head. “I’m taking weightlifting. ”

Raising an eyebrow at me, Zack asked, “Health and Wellness?”

I nodded.

Zack and Braden began examining the list of classes offered on Zack’s phone once more, and I found myself staring at my friend.

While Zack lacked a little self-confidence with other women from what I’d seen (just like I felt with the opposite sex), for some reason, we had no issues talking and hanging out with each other.

It was almost like we didn’t “count.” We both had the same insecurities but when we were together, they didn’t matter.

And underneath the glasses was a strikingly handsome boy who was beginning to appeal to me as more than just a friend.

Of course, I’d been discovering other boys in the school who were cute, but most of them seemed out of my league.

Not only would I never have the nerve to flirt with them like Ava, but I also never expected them to give me more than fleeting consideration if that.

The shyness that gripped me when I had to speak in class doubled if I thought a boy in there was cute—and Ava experienced none of that.

I figured Zack felt the same way I did, but I would never ask.

“What about you, Dani? You wanna take band?”

I laughed. “I’ve never played an instrument. I would suck.”

“I could teach you what I know.”

His offer was tempting—but I had no confidence.

As much as I wanted to hang with Zack every possible moment, I’d have to pass on band.

Even though that would be a guaranteed class together, because there was only one section, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Music was one of those subjects that felt completely foreign to me, even though I liked singing to pop songs when no one was around to hear.

“I can’t.”

His green eyes searched mine but I couldn’t read them.

Before he spoke, though, it was as if everyone else in the room had faded away…

even Braden who sat at the table with us.

“You…” Air clung to my lungs, refusing to move as I froze on his words.

“You know you’re the only reason I keep coming to Chess Club, don’t you? ”

Did I? Was that even true? But his words, almost like a confession, brought out every awkward fiber in my being, and I forced myself to breathe—and it quickly became a laugh. “Yeah, ‘cause I’m holding a gun to your head.”

“No, I mean it. This shit would be boring without you.”

Swallowing the saliva that had pooled in my mouth, I nodded. “Yeah, I feel the same way.” I did…but I wondered if he felt the same way about me that I did him—in a more-than-friends way.

Braden broke the spell. “You guys sure you don’t wanna take weightlifting with me? You’d look hot with biceps, Dani.”

I started laughing then, part of me relieved that I didn’t have to ask Zack what he’d really meant, and we continued figuring out our entire schedules for the following semester. We’d barely finished our lunches by the time the bell rang.

For the rest of the day, I worried about telling Ava. It was a tug of war inside me, a little thrill at squirming out from under her thumb while trying to ignore the knot in my stomach.

But she made it quite easy with her own confession when we got settled on the bus ride home. “I’m thinking about trying out for next year’s cheerleading squad.”

“That is so you, Ava.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I just mean I could see you doing that. I mean it in a good way.”

“What about you? You need to try out with me. Your upper arms look fat from behind, but I could help you tone up during the summer. ”

She just couldn’t resist getting another dig in—but today after my friendship with Zack and Braden felt fortified, her words didn’t affect me like they used to. So I completely ignored her comment about my arms and said, “No way. I couldn’t do those kicks—or the splits.”