Lovesessed (7 page)

Amber was the type of
plastic girl who was beautiful on the outside, but her beauty was
superficial, because she was ugly on the inside. She probably
looked like a troll on the inside. I wish that I could turn her
inside out. Her name suited her perfectly because she had long,
thick auburn hair. She was curvy and had full lips that made the
guys in our school stare at her constantly. She wore a lot of
make-up to school, so she looked older than the other girls in our
grade.

I was in the bathroom a
few weeks ago, and Amber and her friends came in talking, so I
stayed in the cubicle and listened. I heard her telling them that
she wears a size 34C bra. I only wear a 34A, but my mom says that
maybe I’m a “late bloomer.” Whatever that means, I hope she’s
right.

“
Hey Phoebes, happy
Valentine’s Day, I like how you’re getting into the spirit of the
day,” Liz said gesturing to my red tank top when I met her in the
hallway.

“
I thought I’d try. But I
don’t think that it’s going to be a very happy day, because I don’t
have a Valentine.”

“
What about
Ben?”

“
He doesn’t count because
we’re just friends.”

“
I don’t think that he
thinks of you as a friend anymore.”

“
You mean he doesn’t want
to be friends with me anymore?”

“
Phoebe, no, I don’t mean
that. I mean, I think that he likes you as more than a
friend.”

“
I’m like his sister. We
used to run under the sprinklers naked together when we were six,
how could he suddenly like me ‘like that?’”

“
It is, as they say,
chemistry,” she said with a flourish of her hand.

“
Don’t
start,” I rolled my eyes.
“Speaking
of chemistry, like I said, I seriously doubt that Chase would eat
the chocolates containing the love potion, and even if he did, I
don’t think that it would work. Love potions are probably just a
bunch of nonsense.”

“
Don’t be so negative,
aren’t you a big believer in the Law of Attraction?”

“
Well, yes. It’s just that
love potions seem like a bunch of hocus pocus.”

“
Don’t be so sure,” she
said, pointing to my locker.

I followed Liz’s gaze to what I was
sure was the wrong locker, and gasped.

I wanted to rub my eyes because I
couldn’t believe what I saw. There were about a dozen red
heart-shaped balloons taped to my locker. I opened it to get my
books and inside, there was a gold charm bracelet with little heart
charms, and a Valentine’s card.

“
There’s a card, what does
it say?” Liz asked curiously.

“
It’s signed ‘love your
secret admirer.’ Ben must have completely lost it, or he’s playing
a practical joke on me. The bracelet has got to be a fake,” I said,
holding it up to the light.

“
Hmm, it looks pretty
real,” Liz said examining it. “Are you thinking what I’m
thinking?”

“
No, it can’t be,” I said
in disbelief. I felt a hard knot in my stomach. I got my books and
headed to History. When I got in the classroom, there was a single
red rose on my desk. I saw Ben sitting at the desk next to mine and
I playfully punched him.

“
Hey what was that for?”
he asked, rubbing his arm.

“
Ha-ha very funny. You can
drop the act now secret admirer.”

“
Who’s the rose from?” he
asked, ignoring me.

“
You mean…it’s not from
you…and the stuff in my locker…” I stuttered.

“
Phoebe what are you
talking about?” he asked confused.

“
Nothing, it’s just girl
stuff.”

“
Hey, that’s not fair,” he
pouted. It hit me like a ton of bricks. Ben wasn’t my “secret
admirer.” That meant it must have been Amber playing a cruel joke
on me. It had to be a simple explanation like that, it couldn’t
possibly all be from Chase. Could it?

#

When I walked into the cafeteria at
lunch, something seemed odd. It was just a feeling, but something
was off. I made my way to our usual table. Liz and Ben were already
sitting there. Liz looked very amused, while Ben looked
confused/stunned/upset.

On the table, there was a massive
bouquet of red roses. There must have been about two dozen. The
card was predictably signed, “Love your secret admirer.” My mouth
actually dropped open again. I needed to stop doing that, or else
I’d catch flies as my mom said.

“
Now do you believe me?”
Liz asked satisfied. Liz was very scientific as you may have
noticed, so she took great delight in compiling evidence to support
her case that the love potion did, in fact, work.

I just shrugged. I honestly didn’t
think that the roses were from Chase. But, I had racked my brains
trying to think of a possible explanation, and I still couldn’t
come up with one.

“
Believe you about what?”
Ben asked. The poor guy was completely confused about everything
that had happened.

“
Nothing, don’t worry,”
Liz said. “It’s just girl stuff.” That’s the excuse we always used
when we didn’t want to tell Ben something, and he couldn’t argue.
We would never tell Ben about the love potion, because guys just
wouldn’t understand.

I sat down on the bench on the other
side of the table. I could hardly see them over the huge bouquet.
It couldn’t possibly be that Chase had actually eaten the love
potion laced chocolates, and that it had actually
worked.

Suddenly Liz stopped chewing, and sat
straight up. “Phoebe, don’t freak out. Chase has just walked into
the cafeteria.”

*****

7. Love Struck

Excitement exploded all around me,
but I was frozen. I grabbed the edge of the table so hard that my
knuckles turned white. Uncontrollably I sucked in my breath until I
realized that I was about to faint. My heart was racing so fast
that I thought it was going to jump out of my chest. Was it
possible for a teenager to have a heart attack? My brain
seemed to have stopped working because it couldn’t tell dreams from
reality. But I knew one thing for sure - dreams did come true. It
was the moment I had waited for all my life.

Chase glided into the cafeteria like he
was walking onto a concert stage. Immediately all the girls started
screaming and going hysterical, but their high pitched screams were
on mute. It was his concert all over again. They ran over to him
like a herd of stampeding buffalo. Elvis had entered the building.
He grabbed the microphone that the teachers used for
announcements and said, “Phoebe Parker. I need Phoebe
Parker.”

I was sure that I was
dreaming. It was one of those dreams, when you know that you’re
dreaming. “Liz, I need you to pinch me. This must be one of my
fantasy dreams about Chase, because this
cannot
be happening.” She was too
stunned to move and her eyes were wide with shock.

Ben almost choked on his sandwich. I
was about five seconds away from passing out, like that time in
History. I was frozen in shock, so I couldn’t speak or move. I just
sat there hiding behind the roses. If I didn’t see him, then he
wasn’t there.

Chase immediately spotted the bouquet
and ran over to our table. I had my head down pretending to study.
“Phoebe Parker, I love you,” he proclaimed.

Ben really started chocking on his
Pepsi, and Liz had to hit him on the back. He coughed a
lot.

“
I never thought that
heaven would be so close to me,” he said, gazing at me like I had
switched bodies with Alicia Spark.

I was sure that I was
hallucinating.
I had finally lost it
because things like this just didn’t happen to girls like
me.

“
If water were beauty,
you’d be the ocean.”

It was surreal, like something out of a
movie. I tried to pinch myself, but I didn’t wake up. The
shocking truth was staring me in the face – the love potion
had worked. Chase was my “secret admirer.” I didn’t want to even
hope that it could be him who had left the trail of gifts. I
couldn’t believe that the love potion really had caused him to fall
in love with me.

Silence fell over the cafeteria
as Chase started singing “Love Struck.” My breath caught in my
chest when I realized that he was singing to me. It was so
crazy, that is was actually funny.

I glanced at Amber, who looked like she
had just thrown up in her mouth.

Romantically Chase held my hand as
he sang. The crowd of girls circled our table, and swayed to his
melodic singing. His A cappella version of our song made me feel
like I was floating on a cloud. After the last notes of the love
song had drifted away, he went down on his knee. Everyone gasped
like he was about to propose to me. As if that would happen, I’m
only 14.

“
Phoebe, will you do me
the honor of allowing me to escort you to the dance tonight? It
would make my day, no my year, if you said yes,” he said, amid
‘oohs’ and ‘aahs.’

“
Yes,” I eventually
squeaked. Everyone except Amber and Ben applauded. Then the bell
rang for the end of lunch.

“
Phoebe, I want to spend
the rest of the day with you. Now that I our hearts have found each
other, they are one.” He began every sentence with my name. I
looked over at Ben, and he looked like he wanted to punch
Chase.

“
Ok,” I whispered. I
realized that I had been speaking in one word sentences, but I was
in severe shock, so even uttering one word was an
achievement.

Chivalrously Chase picked up my books.
He paused when he saw his pictures covering them.

“
I ran out of paper to
cover my books, so I used
Teen Idol
magazine…” I lied.

He beamed his toothpaste commercial
smile at me. “I’m so honored that you even know who I
am.”

“
Everybody knows who you
are,” I whispered.

“
But you’re the only one
who matters.” He proclaimed.

Ben clenched his jaw.

“
Shall we?” he said
holding his arm out in that old-fashioned way.

“
Uh … yes.” I grabbed hold
of his arm before I fainted.

Chase was a guest in the rest of my
classes, and he even carried my books covered in his pictures. The
teachers were more than happy to allow him in their classes. In
fact, they gushed over him like they were teenagers, and even asked
him to sign autographs for their children.

Two scary bodyguards
straight out of
Men in
Black
stuck to Chase like glue.
They were dressed in black suits with black sunglasses, and they
had ear pieces. They staked out my classrooms, by standing on
either side of the doors in the hallway. It was weird
because Chase and I were never alone. “Isn’t it difficult
to have any privacy with bodyguards following you all day?” I
leaned over and whispered.

“
It is, but I have to have
bodyguards everywhere I go, for protection.”

“
With all of those
screaming girls, I can understand why. When I was at your concert,
it was like being at a Beatles concert.”

He looked stunned. “You’ve been to one
of our concerts?”

“
Yes, the one last
Saturday.”

“
I wish I had known. I
can’t believe that you were so close, and I didn’t even know,” he
said dramatically.

“
It’s ok, don’t worry
about it. It was an awesome concert. I was one of the many girls
wearing green, so I think that I was camouflaged.”

He laughed loudly, and the whole class
turned to look, but the teacher just smiled.

“
Maybe we should keep it
down a bit,” I whispered.

“
Of course,” he shot me an
apologetic look.

We didn’t talk much until the end of
class, because I knew that everyone was eavesdropping. But he
stared at me the whole time, like I was a model or a movie star.
After a while, I started to feel like a caged animal at the
zoo.

Luckily I had dressed well that day,
because I usually looked terrible when I saw a hot guy. That always
happened, it was Murphy’s Law. One morning, before I had had a
shower, I decided to quickly run to the shop in my oldest pair of
sweatpants with holes. Of course, just my luck, I literally ran
into a group of really hot surfers. I apologized for knocking into
them, and they were very nice about it. They whispered to each
other as I walked away, they probably said how hideous I
looked.

It still hadn't sunk in that Chase
Carson was really at my school, with me. He seemed totally head
over heels in love with me. He constantly gazed into my eyes, and
stood, sat, and walked very close to me.

“
You have the most
mesmerizing eyes I’ve ever seen,” he said, as though he had read my
mind. He looked at me like he was hypnotized.

“
Thank you,” I
blushed.

“
They sparkle like green
emeralds, floating in a sea of jewels. You know, green eyes are my
favorite.”