After school had ended, I stood at the base of the steps, waiting eagerly for Lily to appear. I had no idea which class she was coming from, or which part of the school, but it was a very long wait. I was painfully aware that Rosie was watching me from afar, she must have heard about what happened in the hallway earlier that morning because she had been directing daggers at me all day. You'd think she'd be grateful that I stood up for her sister, but instead she viewed me as a different kind of threat. She was really going to love this. 

"Hi, Jason."

I glanced to my right to see a tall, slim light-browned hair girl smiling at me. "Hi," I said back, bouncing my knees up and down with agitation. 

"I was wondering if you wasn't doing anything maybe we could-"

"Sorry," I said, cutting her off, as Lily emerged through the doors. "I have plans."

Lily stopped at the top of the steps and the wind blew her hair around her face as she smiled at me. My heart stopped in my chest instinctively and then she started walking down, holding her hair as she paced herself slowly, probably as to not do one of those 'fall a lots' that she was babbling about. 

The girl next to me looked between us with her eyebrow raised, but I didn't care. Lily was the only girl I suddenly had eyes for, and even I couldn't explain it. 

"You ready to go?" I asked her. 

"Ready as I'll ever be," she said with a shrug. 

She joined me as we walked to my car, and almost every student was staring at us. I met Rosie's eyes for a moment and she gave me the most evil scowl that I'd ever seen.

"I don't think your sister likes me very much." I swallowed. 

Lily laughed. "She doesn't like anyone. Don't take it personally."

She stood at the door of my car, fiddling with the button of her blue overall outfit and fixing the straps over her shoulders. I opened it for her and she sat inside, while still trying to tighten it. I slipped into the driver's seat casually, ignoring the sweat that was beginning to swamp my hands.

As we drove out of the parking lot and toward town, I tried to think of a conversation starter. We hadn't even gotten to the actual cafe yet and I was struggling to fill the awkwardness. But then, she took the reigns. 

"I don't really like coffee," she mumbled, shuffling in her seat. "Do you?"

"They have other drinks," I smiled. "Do you want to get some coffee is just something people say, isn't it?"

"No," she laughed. "Well, maybe. No one's ever asked me so I'm not sure. Probably. I definitely think so."

I looked at her and she looked back.

"What?" she said. 

"You're not normal, are you?"

She didn't take offense from that, she just smiled. "If everyone was normal, then normal wouldn't be possible."

"Is that your motto?"

"My one of many."

"Well, I'd really like to hear the rest."

"As long as it's not over coffee," she gave out a shrill laugh. "Unless you have coffee, then it'd be over coffee. Not for me though. Maybe one day I'll like it. Hopefully. I'm a bad American otherwise."

I turned the car into a parking space at the side of the road and when I switched the engine off, she took deep breaths, staring at the coffee shop with a sudden anxiety.

"We could come another day," I said, noticing her sudden reluctance to leave the car. "Or never."

"No," she gasped. "I can do this. I just. . . I don't really go out much."

"Because of your anxiety?"

She stared at me suddenly, her eyes wide and big. "My what?"

"It's okay. Rosie told me about the over-confidence thing. You don't have to pretend."

"Why would Rosie tell you that?" she said in a small voice. 

"Well, it was during a pretty heated rant in which she warned me to stay away from you. You don't have to put on a show for the world to see you're okay, we all have our demons. I mean I've never been bullied, but I can imagine it having an impact."

She read my eyes and a hint of anger flushed in her face. "You had a conversation with my sister and suddenly you're an expect in personalities? You don't know anything about me."

"That wasn't what I was trying to-"

"Forget it," she said quickly, picking her bag up from below her. "This was a bad idea."

"I didn't mean to upset you."

She clicked her tongue across her teeth. "I'm not upset, Jason. I'm confused. Was this entire thing about pity?"

"No!" I said immediately. "I want to get to know you. That's the reason I asked you here. Please, just have one drink with me."

She rubbed her fingers across the straps of her bag, conflicted with what to do. "There's something you need to know about Rosie, and it's that she'll do anything to protect me. As I would her. But even though she likes to think that she knows me, she doesn't. I don't put on a show to the world, this is who I am despite what I've been through. And I'll never change who I am, no matter what the world throws at me."

"Okay," I said, holding my hands up. "I'm sorry. I won't bring it up again, I swear."

She kept her head down. "I don't know."

"If you want to go, then I'll drive you home right now. But you'll have to live with the fact that you weren't brave enough to take a chance."

She looked up with a warm smile. "Why are you doing this? I mean, you can have any girl you want. You probably do."

"You're not other girls," I whispered. "And on the contrary, I've never met a girl like you. I mean you spent two minutes babbling about how much you hate Summer. In what universe would a sixteen-year-old girl do that?"

She laughed out. "You haven't heard about my thoughts on Spring yet."

"Then tell me," I said, motioning my head toward the cafe door. "Just a drink. And if I've bored you to death at the end of it, then you can politely tell me to piss off and that'll be that."

She grinned so wide that it made my knees tremble. "Okay."

"Okay."