She is over me.

I have a two-week window in which I’ll be nothing. I won’t be a student. I won’t be a teacher. I’ll be a twenty-one-year-old college graduate. I’ve thought about walking straight over to Lake’s house today to tell her how much I love her, even though I’m technically still a teacher, considering the contract I have with the junior high. Not even that would stop me if it weren’t for the way she reacted to me last month with so much indifference. She seemed to have accepted our fate, and it was good to see her handling everything so well, as much as it hurt. The last thing I want to do, or need to do, is pull her back down with me.

God, this is going to be the hardest two weeks of my life. I need to keep my distance from her, that’s a fact.

When the audience begins clapping, I snap back to reality. I’m supposed to be judging tonight, but I haven’t heard a single word any of the performers have said. I hold up the standard 9.0 on my scorecard without even looking up at the stage. I don’t even want to be here tonight. In fact, I don’t want to be anywhere tonight.

When the scores are tallied, the emcee begins to announce the winners. I lean back in my seat and close my eyes, hoping the night goes fast. I just want to go home and get to bed so graduation will come and go tomorrow. I don’t know why I’m dreading it. Probably because I’ll be the only person there who couldn’t find enough people to give my graduation tickets to. The average person never gets enough tickets for graduation. I have too many.

“I would like to perform a piece I wrote.”

I jerk up in my seat at the sound of her voice, the sudden movement almost causing my chair to flip backward. She’s standing on the stage, holding the microphone. The guy next to me laughs along with the rest of the crowd once they realize she’s interrupting the night’s schedule.

“Check this chick out,” he says, nudging me with his elbow.

The sight of her paralyzes me. I’m pretty sure I forgot how to breathe. I’m pretty sure I’m about to die. What the hell is she doing? I watch intently as she brings the microphone back to her lips. “I know this isn’t standard protocol, but it’s an emergency,” she says.

The laughter from the audience causes her eyes to widen and she spins around to look for the emcee. She’s scared. Whatever she’s doing, it’s completely out of character for her. The emcee nudges her to face the front of the room again. I take a deep breath, silently willing her to keep calm.

She places the microphone back in its stand and lowers it to her height. She closes her eyes and inhales when the guy next to me yells, “Three dollars!”

I could punch him.

Her eyes flick open and she shoves her hand into her pocket, pulling out money to hand to the emcee. After he takes the money, she prepares herself again. “My piece is called—” The emcee interrupts her, tapping her on the shoulder. She shoots him an irritated glance. I expel a deep breath, becoming just as irritated by all the interruptions. She takes the change from him and shoves it back into her pocket, then hisses something at him that makes him retreat off the stage. She turns back toward the audience and her eyes scan the crowd.

She has to know I’m here. What the hell is she doing?

“My piece is called Schooled,” she says into the microphone. I swallow the lump in my throat. If I wanted to move at this point, my body would fail me. I’m completely frozen as I watch her take several deep breaths, then begin her piece.

I got schooled this year.

By everyone.

By my little brother . . .

by The Avett Brothers . . .

by my mother, my best friend, my teacher, my father,

and

by

a

boy.

A boy that I’m seriously, deeply, madly, incredibly, and undeniably in love with.

I got so schooled this year.

By a nine-year-old.

He taught me that it’s okay to live life

a little backward.

And how to laugh

At what you would think

is unlaughable.

I got schooled this year

By a band

They taught me how to find that feeling of feeling again.

They taught me how to decide what to be

And go be it.

I got schooled this year.

By a cancer patient.

She taught me so much. She’s still teaching me so much.

She taught me to question.

To never regret.

She taught me to push my boundaries,

Because that’s what they’re there for.

She told me to find a balance between head and heart

And then

she taught me how . . .

I got schooled this year

By a foster kid.

She taught me to respect the hand that I was dealt.

And to be grateful I was even dealt a hand.

She taught me that family

Doesn’t have to be blood.

Sometimes your family

are your friends.

I got schooled this year

By my teacher

He taught me

That the points are not the point,

The point is poetry . . .

I got schooled this year

By my father.

He taught me that heroes aren’t always invincible

And that the magic

is within me.

I got schooled this year

by

a

boy.

A boy that I’m seriously, deeply, madly, incredibly, and undeniably in love with.

And he taught me the most important thing of all—

To put the emphasis

On life.

COMPLETELY.

Utterly.

Frozen.

My eyes drop to the table in front of me when she finishes. Her words are still sinking in.

A boy that I’m seriously, deeply, madly, incredibly, and undeniably in love with.

In love with?

That’s what she said.

In love with. As in present tense.

She loves me. Layken Cohen loves me.

“Hold up your scores, man,” the guy next to me says, forcing the scorecard into my hand. I look at it, then look up at the stage. She’s not up there anymore. I spin around and see her making her way toward the exit in a hurry.

What the hell am I doing just sitting here? She’s waiting on me to acknowledge everything she just said, and I’m sitting here frozen like an idiot.

I stand up when the judges to the right of me hold up their scorecards. Three of them gave her a nine, the other an 8.5. I round the front of the table and flip the scores on all of their cards to tens. The points may not be the point, but her poetry kicked ass. “She gets tens.”

I turn around and jump onto the stage. I grab the microphone out of the emcee’s hands and he rolls his eyes, throwing his hands up in the air.

“Not again,” he says, defeated.

I spot her as soon as she swings the doors open to step outside. “That’s not a good idea,” I say into the microphone. She stops in her tracks, then slowly turns around to face the stage. “You shouldn’t leave before you get your scores.”

She looks at the judges’ table, then back to me. When she makes eye contact, she smiles.

I grip the microphone, hell bent on performing the piece I wrote for her, but the magnetic pull to jump off the stage and take her in my arms is overwhelming. I stand firm, wanting her to hear what I have to say first. “I’d like to perform a piece,” I say, looking at the emcee. “It’s an emergency.” He nods and takes a few steps back. I turn around to face Lake again. She’s standing in the center of the room now, staring up at me.

“Three dollars,” someone yells from the crowd.

Shit. I pat my pockets, realizing I left my wallet in my car. “I don’t have any cash,” I say to the emcee.

His eyes shift to Lake and mine follow. She pulls out the two dollars in change from her fee and walks to the stage, slapping it down in front of us.

“Still a dollar short,” he says.

Jesus! It’s one freaking dollar!

The silence in the room is interrupted as several chairs slide from under their tables. People from all over the floor walk toward the stage, surrounding Lake as they throw dollar bills onto the stage. Everyone quickly makes their way back to their seats and Lake eyes the money, dumbfounded.

“Okay,” the emcee says, taking in the pile of cash at my feet. “I guess that covers it. What’s the name of your piece, Will?”

I look down at Lake and smile right back at her. “Better than third.”

She takes a few steps back from the stage and waits for me to begin. I take a deep breath and prepare to tell her everything I should have said to her three months ago.

I met a girl.

A beautiful girl

And I fell for her.

I fell hard.

Unfortunately, sometimes life gets in the way.

Life definitely got in my way.

It got all up in my damn way,

Life blocked the door with a stack of wooden two-by-fours nailed together and attached to a fifteen-inch concrete wall behind a row of solid steel bars, bolted to a titanium frame that no matter how hard I shoved against it—

It

wouldn’t

budge.

Sometimes life doesn’t budge.

It just gets all up in your damn way.

It blocked my plans, my dreams, my desires, my wishes, my wants, my needs.

It blocked out that beautiful girl

That I fell so hard for.

Life tries to tell you what’s best for you.

What should be most important to you.

What should come first

Or second

Or third.

I tried so hard to keep it all organized, alphabetized, stacked in chronological order, everything in its perfect space, its perfect place.

I thought that’s what life wanted me to do.

This is what life needed for me to do.

Right?

Keep it all in sequence?

Sometimes life gets in your way.

It gets all up in your damn way.

But it doesn’t get all up in your damn way because it wants you to just give up and let it take control. Life doesn’t get all up in your damn way because it just wants you to hand it all over and be carried along.

Life wants you to fight it.

Learn how to make it your own.

It wants you to grab an axe and hack through the wood.

It wants you to get a sledgehammer and break through the concrete.

It wants you to grab a torch and burn through the metal and steel until you can reach through and grab it.

Life wants you to grab all the organized, the alphabetized, the chronological, the sequenced. It wants you to mix it all together,

stir it up,

blend it.

Life doesn’t want you to let it tell you that your little brother should be the only thing that comes first.

Life doesn’t want you to let it tell you that your career and your education should be the only thing that comes in second.

And life definitely doesn’t want me

To just let it tell me

that the girl I met—

The beautiful, strong, amazing, resilient girl

That I fell so hard for—

Should only come in third.

Life knows.

Life is trying to tell me

That the girl I love?

The girl I fell

So hard for?

There’s room for her in first.

I’m putting her first.

AS SOON AS the last line escapes my lips, I set the microphone down on the stage and jump off. I walk directly to her and take her face in my hands. Tears are falling down her cheeks, so I wipe them away with my thumbs.