Аманда Хокинг - Switched

“Just to be nice?” I eyed him up suspiciously.

“Yeah!” Patrick laughed. “Believe it or not, I am a nice guy. And sometimes, I do thinks just for the sake of being nice. Isn’t that weird?”

“Kinda,” I nodded.

We had left the lunchroom and were walking down the hall. Several other kids had left lunch a little bit earlier and were loitering around. Before lunch, I had dumped my bookbag in my locker, and I went to retrieve it. Patrick followed me. I struggled to open my locker com because locks of any kind were a sworn enemy of mine. I either twisted it around too much or not enough.

Patrick leaned on the locker next to mine to wait out the fight.

“Hey, you know what? We should go!” Patrick exclaimed suddenly.

“What? Where?” I still hadn’t gotten my locker to open, so I was only half paying attention to him. Patrick nodded at something across the hall, and I glanced back over my shoulder at a bright orange flyer hanging on the hall, proclaiming the fall semi-formal the event of the season. “The dance? You can’t be serious.”

“Why can’t I?” Patrick grinned. “It’d be fun. Have you ever even been to a dance?”

“That’s beside the point,” I shook my head and yanked on the lock, which stubbornly refused to budge.

“That’s exactly the point! You have to go to at least one dance in your high school career!” Patrick insisted and his excitement was building. He clearly thought this was the greatest idea he’d ever had. “Oh, come on, Wendy! It’ll be so much fun! I promise.”

“I doubt that,” I scowled. My lock finally gave way and opened, so I had a momentary lapse in judgment as elation spread over me. “When is it?”

“Friday. At seven.” Patrick had already won, and he knew it.

“In two days? Don’t I need to get a dress or something?” I opened my locker and started rummaging through it so I could switch out my books for class.

“I have the sinking suspicion that you already have something,” Patrick said. “So. I’ll pick you up on Friday at seven?”

“You know you will see me at some point over the next two days,” I pointed out, looking up at his goofy smile. “Okay, fine. Yes. Seven. Friday.”

“You won’t regret it!” Patrick promised and took a step back from my locker. “I gotta go get my stuff for class. But this is a good idea! You gotta live a little, Wen!”

“Yeah, I don’t know how that relates to a school dance!” I called after him, watching as he turned and jogged the rest of the way down the hall.

My experience with friends was admittedly limited, but I really didn’t understand what was happening here. Patrick seemed to be trying to set me up with Finn at lunch, but he had just asked me to the dance, and he was far happier about it than any guy should be. Finn was a total creep. He really was.

Sure, he had really amazing dark eyes, and this mysterious sort of sex appeal going on. But he was a creep, and that gave him no right to make me feel all fluttery about him. I had met lots of jerks in my time, and a few nice guys, and none of them had ever had this effect on me. I sighed and grabbed my bookbag, realizing had I had bigger problems at hand. I had just agreed to go to a dance.

Following the eventful lunch on Wednesday with Finn, he had avoided me the rest of the day. And by avoided me, I mean “treated me pretty much like he usually did.” I could feel him staring at me, but only when I wasn’t looking, and there wasn’t much I could do about that. Besides, I wasn’t in a hurry to talk to him again. I was trying to avoid feeling the way that he made me feel.

Unfortunately, I should’ve known that Patrick expected us to sit with Finn at lunch the next day, and I was starting to think that might be his plan for the rest of the year as well. Somehow, Finn managed to eat with us without me having the urge to punch him or… or… I don’t know. Do something else to him. Patrick hijacked the conversation, so we didn’t have any leeway to talk about things that I might find upsetting. Instead we talked about why people didn’t carry boom boxes on their shoulders anymore.

“Even in the 80’s, they had Walkman’s and stuff,” Patrick pointed out.

“So they weren’t carrying boom boxes just to hear music. If they wanted to do that, they could’ve carried a small, portable Walkman. No, the boom box meant that they wanted everyone else to hear their music too. Why did that stop?”

“When you consider how cumbersome a boom box was to carry around, it makes even less sense,” Finn agreed thoughtfully. “And they took like

37 D batteries. Wasn’t that the subplot of a Spike Lee movie? Somebody spent the whole film trying to get batteries for his boom box.” He had half of a turkey sandwich in his hand, but I had yet to see him take a bite of it. He had just been gesturing around with it since we had sat down at the table.

“Yeah, yeah, Radio Raheem in Do The Right Thing,” I answer quickly swatting it away. “I hate that movie. But you’re right. They were huge and expensive with the batteries. With iPods now, don’t they have like smaller, light weight iPod boom boxes?”

“Yeah, but I think they all double as a charging base so you have to plug them in,” Patrick shook his head. “But I mean, if there was a demand for it, I’m sure they would come up with some kind of thing like that.”

“Maybe the iPod killed everything.” Finn shook his head and leaned back in his seat, as if the idea depressed him. “Since it’s been around, nobody’s had the urge to harass their peers with their music anymore.”

“I should get a boom box,” Patrick added thoughtfully.

“You should,” Finn agreed, then tossed his uneaten sandwich onto his plate. “Anyway, I should get out of here. I gotta check on something before class.” He nodded at both of us and stood up. “I’ll see you guys later.”

After he left, Patrick smiled appreciatively at me. For lunch, I had settled on a massive pear and I took a bite out of it, waiting for Patrick to explain what he was so happy about it. He didn’t, so I quickly chewed my bite down and swallowed.

“What?” I demanded.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Patrick was practically beaming. “I mean, you talked to him. And it was good. Right?”

“What is your deal?” I shook my head, refusing to admit that I had had a decent time over lunch.

“I’m just trying to prove to you that he’s not a creep.” Patrick feigned too much innocence, making me all the more suspicious. “If you’d just admit, I’ll stop.”

“Never. He is a creep. Just because he understands the complexities of boom box use in the 21st century does not make him any less creepy.” I took another bite of my pear, and Patrick shook his head at me. “I’m starting to think you might have a little crush on him.”

“Now you’re just projecting,” Patrick chuckled.

“Maybe you are,” I countered.

Patrick ate the rest of his meatloaf-esque meal, then suggested we leave.

I had already finished my pear, and the lunchroom smell upset my stomach, so I was happy to oblige. We still had plenty of time to kill before class started, so we meandered slowly in the direction of our lockers.

“Hey, hold up,” I paused at the women’s restroom, and Patrick halted next to me. “I’m gonna run in real quick.”

“I’ll be right here.” Patrick leaned on the wall next to the bathroom.

“Alright,” I smiled and turned to head into the bathroom.

Stupidly, I had been looking at Patrick instead of paying attention to where I was going. At the same time I went to enter the bathroom, Tegan started to come out, and we ran into each other. I don’t know if she was running or what, but it wasn’t a gentle bump. It was a total smack into each other. I cracked my skull on hers and stumbled backwards. I saw white for a minute, and when I regained my footing, Tegan was standing in front of me, yelling.