Chapter 27

Tasha hadn’t spoken to Brian at all since their closet tryst, but now she had finally caught him alone.

“You were mean to me,” she told him. The embarrassed boy looked for a way to get past her, but she had had him trapped in a corner. “You made a fool of me in front of everyone. But still ... I want you to be my first.”

Brian was speechless.

“Laurel’s having a party this weekend. We can turn all the lights out if you want. No games, okay?. I just want it to be you.”

Tasha waited for an answer but one didn’t come, so she turned and walked away, thinking she was seconds from being crushed by heartbreak.

Brian’s silence wasn’t due to malice. He had been thinking about Tasha a lot since the party - thinking that what they’d shared in the closet hadn’t felt like a prank, or an act of lust. They had had a moment together, but he had ruined it. He was ashamed - that’s why he had been avoiding her.

This new proposal was just too confusing for him to process. Was she sincere? Could she maybe have felt the same way? And if she did, could she forgive him? Or was she as desperate and needy as the guys always said about her? Maybe she would become some clingy psycho, no matter what he said. Or maybe this was a trap: maybe she and Laurel had devised some elaborate revenge plot.

Brian decided it was worth it to try. “Um, yeah!” he answered before Tasha was out of earshot. She looked back and gave him a Mona Lisa smile, with her bangs hanging low on her face. It was minutes later that he realized that he hadn’t always thought of her as pretty.