Miracle

Chapter XIII.

  “So what did you do this weekend?” Aimee asked as they walked to first period English together.

  “Saturday Gina and Jonah came over and we worked on our Government project.”

  Aimee groaned. “Oh yeah, I still need to write my paper. What a pain! Okay, so what else?”

  “I went over to Jonah’s house for dinner Saturday night.”

  Aimee’s eyes nearly popped out of her head. “What? Oh my gosh, are you two dating now? I knew you liked him.”

  Heads turned as they entered the classroom. When Aimee got excited her voice tended to carry. Lyra ducked her head and made a bee-line for her seat. Unfortunately, Aimee sat right across the aisle.

  “So, are you?” she asked in a stage whisper.

  “I don’t know.” Lyra whispered back, shifting uncomfortably. She wasn’t sure how to define their relationship. He’d kissed her, yes, but he’d never actually asked her out. Every time they’d seen each other outside of school, she’d done the asking—except for dinner Saturday night, when her mom had arranged it for her. Ugh.

  “Are you going to the dance with him?”

  Lyra grew even more agitated. There again, she’d asked him. “I think so.”

  “What do you mean, you think so?”

  Lyra glared at Aimee. Her curiosity was rabid.

  “Come on, Lyra. You’ve never had a boyfriend in your life. Now you’re seeing Jonah Forrester, a complete stranger. What do you expect?”

  Lyra sighed. “Well, as far as the dance goes, I asked him. He doesn’t want to go, but I think I…um…talked him into it. And Saturday, well, his uncle invited me and my parents over. Mom and Dad already had plans so I just went over alone.” Lyra frowned and examined her nails. Now that she thought about it, Jonah had not initiated even so much as a phone call with her. “I would have to say no, we are not dating.”

  Lyra had told herself she was helping Jonah come out of his shell, that she’d even felt sorry for him. But were her motives, in truth, selfish? Had she been pushing herself on him?

  The bell rang and Mrs. Garza called the class to order. Aimee didn’t have a chance to interrogate Lyra any further, but Lyra continued to question herself.

  By the time Lyra got to Algebra, she was miserable. Had Jonah just been being nice to her? Maybe her infatuation had been so obvious he had felt sorry for her. She cringed inwardly thinking about how she’d told him she loved him. In the bright light of day, at school where everything and everyone so ordinary and normal, her declaration seemed ridiculous in the extreme (even if it was true). Yeah, he kissed her. So what? Didn’t guys do that all the time—to whatever girl happened to be around? She’d seen Trevor make out with one girl at a party over a weekend, then be back to holding hands with Lisa on Monday. A wave of guilt washed through her; she had no reason to think Jonah was like that.

  In her peripheral vision Lyra saw Jonah enter the classroom. She kept her head down afraid of what she would see in his eyes. His steps slowed ever so slightly as he approached her, but Lyra didn’t look up. He walked past and took his seat behind her.

  As soon as the bell rang at the end of class, Lyra bolted. She was half-way to the cafeteria when she felt his hand grab her shoulder from behind.

  “Lyra, stop.”

  She stopped and turned around, but kept her eyes on her tennis shoes.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing.”

  Jonah put his forefinger under her chin and lifted. She met his eyes, which were concerned.

  “What’s wrong?” he repeated.

  “Nothing.”

  His eyes narrowed and he studied her for a minute. “Okay,” he drawled. “Are you going to eat lunch with me today?”

  Not ‘will you eat lunch with me?’ Lyra noticed, but are you going to? “Do you want me to?”

  “Do you want to?”

  One side of Lyra’s mouth lifted in a reluctant smile; this could go on forever. “I would like to eat lunch with you, but only if you want me to.”

  Jonah’s expression cleared and turned humorous too. “Well, I want you to, but only if you want to.”

  They both laughed. “Now that’s settled, let’s get in there before all the food’s gone.” Jonah tugged her sleeve pulling her toward the cafeteria.

  When they’d gotten their food and were sitting across from each other, Jonah asked, “What was all that about anyway?”

  Lyra shrugged. She didn’t want to sound childish or insecure.

  “What happened during the time I left your house last night until this morning?” Then he went completely still and his voice had an edge to it. “You changed your mind about me after this weekend.” It wasn’t a question.

  Lyra’s fork clattered onto her tray. “No. No, Jonah. I was just being stupid. Aimee was asking me about you, about us, and I didn’t know what to tell her. It made me start thinking about how you never ask me to come over, or sit with you, or go hiking, or whatever, and that maybe you wished I’d just leave you the heck alone.”

  He looked at her incredulously. “After everything that happened this weekend, after everything I told you, you could think that?”

  Lyra blushed, picked her fork back up, and began toying with her baked potato.

  “Was Aimee asking if you and I were going out?”

  “Yeah,” Lyra mumbled, her pink cheeks turning red.

  “And you said…?”

  “I said no.”

  “What about the dance?”

  Lyra eyes shot up to his. “You don’t want to go.”

  “Yes I do.”

  “No you don’t. I asked you, you said no, and then I bullied you into it—sort of.”

  Jonah laughed. “You think too much of yourself, Lyra, if you think you can bully me into doing anything I don’t want to do.”

  Lyra eyed him skeptically. “So, now you’re saying you do want to go?”

  Jonah put his elbows on the table and leaned toward her. “I’m saying that I want to be wherever you are this Saturday night. If that’s back here at the dance, that’s where I’ll be. If you’d rather go to the movies, or ice skating, or out to dinner…if you want to hunt grizzlies in the woods…that’s where I’ll be.”

  Lyra swallowed with difficulty; her mouth had gone dry. “We don’t have grizzlies here.”

  Jonah smiled and leaned back. “Well, we can just mark that one off the list then, can’t we?”