When the World was Flat (and we were in love) Read Online Free

me. I know what was going through his mind. But at the time it was like being spat on.
    I suddenly realized I was out of my seat and sat back down with a nervous giggle. Jo was giving me a what-the-hell look. I blushed like it was going out of fashion, staring at the ground and wondering if the entire cafeteria was laughing at me or if all eyes had been on Tom.
    Please. Please. Please, I thought, as I bit the bullet and looked up. It was the latter, of course. I could have juggled lunch trays while balancing on a stack of chairs and no one would have looked twice at me. Tom was magnetic, and girls were being pulled in left, right and center, me included.
    Melissa was on his arm in an instant. They looked like a couple as she paraded him around the cafeteria, the Homecoming King and Queen. Tom looked bored as she introduced him to the Mutts. I smiled, even though I knew I should care less, given Melissa was basically royalty and I was one of a million dust motes.
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    â€œWas it as good for you as it was for him?” Sylv asked as we walked through the corridors to class.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThe eye-sex.”
    â€œThe what?” I asked in a high-pitched voice.
    â€œThe eye-sex,” Sylv repeated. “You know, when your eyes meet across a crowded room.” She surveyed our blank looks and sighed, as if we were stupid. “Like this.” She held Jo by the shoulders and gazed into her eyes like they were in a soap opera.
    â€œGet a room,” I complained.
    â€œShould I be pressing charges?” Jo asked.
    â€œCome on, Lillie. I saw him looking at you. Spill.”
    â€œHe looked at me for like a second,” I protested.
    â€œPremature ejaculation?” Sylv joked.
    â€œStop it!” I looked over my shoulder, worried that Tom was within earshot.
    I spotted Melissa and her entourage a few yards back, sans Tom. They were having their own powwow about our new addition. I heard his name mentioned three times in the one breath, as Melissa fanned herself with a manicured hand.
    Jo joined in on the innuendo. “Was he that bad?”
    â€œNo!”
    â€œWhich means he was good?” Sylv asked.
    I gave up.
    Â 
    I sat behind Melissa in Economics, staring at her shiny black hair. Of course, Tom would go with her in a heartbeat. They were like two thoroughbreds in a stable of donkeys. She was known for her string of boyfriends, but unlike Sylv she had standards. One of those standards was that they had to be out of high school – the oldest had been a senior at Green Grove State College – but I could see her making an exception for Tom.
    He was no Jack O’Lantern.
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    My heart played Double Dutch when I saw Tom at my locker that afternoon. For a moment, I thought he was waiting for me, but then he spun the dial of the locker next to mine and my heart stopped jumping rope.
    Get a grip, I told myself, as I spun the dial on my own locker. This connection between me and Tom was one-sided. I took a deep breath and went about my business, but two seconds later my business became our business when a box of tampons fell out of my locker and bounced on the linoleum.
    Tom bent down to pick them up, as if on autopilot. My cheeks burned and I closed my eyes, praying that when I opened them I would see the dream-catcher Deb had made from an old coat hanger and a bunch of chicken feathers that hung above my bed, but then I heard Tom clear his throat and I knew that this was no nightmare. Oh well. At least I was safe from the man in the balaclava, if not from Tom.
    I opened my eyes and saw him holding out the box of tampons, offering them as casually as you would a packet of mints. He stood about half a head taller than me, tall enough to look down on me, but not tall enough for me to crick my neck.
    â€œEarplugs,” I joked. “For Algebra.” I laughed and took them from him, but when our fingers brushed, the hairs on my arms rose, as if charged with electricity. I