Ladies' Choice (re-uploading SOON)

CHAPTER ONE

Anyone who says you should just be yourself is putting on their own show.

Every decision, every answer, and every reaction could be giving a little of yourself away and depending on the audience, there was less I'd like to show off. Once you start peeling back my layers, only my bad parts might be left.

And no one wants to see that.

My phone dinged.

A text from Mona right before I could walk into school. For whatever reason, someone rudely replaced all my blood with cement without asking. Now my limbs were too heavy to push through to the other side.

Amazing I could even read the idiot proof sign: PUSH without forming at the mouth.

Common sense told me there were no masked men with knives behind this door. No active flowing lava spilling out into the halls. Killer bees weren't real... but dread still pricked my skin like the world's itchiest sweater.

Some days were harder than others.

"As a kid..." a deep voice rescued me from my mind prison, and I whipped around to find Loman staring at me. If you combined a sasquatch with a golden retriever and a sprinkle of the stereotypical football jock cliché, you'd have a steaming plate of Loman McMan. He had that usual glazed look over his big brown eyes.

Not an ounce of humor to his voice, Loman said something funny. Just not funny comedic. "I thought I could hear people's thoughts, but it turned out to just be my own thoughts."

I blinked. "What?"

Loman pointed to the door, hiking his bag up his shoulder. "You were checking to see if you had superpowers, right? To try to open the door?"

"Oh, uh..." I looked between us, and the door and the word PUSH is bold red letters. "No," I said when my phone buzzed.

Relief flooded the basement of my soul as Mona's name flashed across my screen again. A bit of my anxiety went flat, after getting shaken for too long. Pushing through the side door, I held it out for Loman as we entered the school. This would be the typical entrance for the students who drove here.

Naturally, Loman fell into step with me as I read:

MONA: [Hey Zoey! Just checking to see if you can still pick me up tomorrow?]

The light from the screen would have to be an adequate substitution for the sun. Mona Fabray had the power to peek through the storm clouds. She was a hillside covered in flowers with no people around. Only a calm breeze and silence. No one else could make me quiet.

Quickly, I texted back:

ZOEY: [Of course! I got you.]

MONA: [Thank you so much!!! A girl could get used to this]

My lips pinched to the side in a smile. Hovering towards the side of the hallway, I took root there and tried to think of a clever response. Something flirty. Not too much. This was the beginning phase of a relationship. Crushes could go two ways:

1. I get the super pretty girlfriend of my dreams.

2. Soul crushing rejection.

We weren't far enough in for me to know the outcome, so I had to play it smart.

Without asking him, Loman joined me by the wall and looked around as if to wait for me. I'd like to think when school was over, Loman still roamed the halls as if class was still going on. Just roaming. Not a care in the world. Not a thought outside his head other than circus music. He was an attractive guy without having to do much. Wish I could hold the same privileged.