Tuesday – English

I managed not to run into her before class today. I saw her once and quickly went into the boy's locker room. But now it's time for English again, and…

Gabriella turns around in her seat and smiles at me. "Hey!"

"Hi," I say nervously. "Umm, how was yo-your first day at school?" I can't believe I'm this nervous talking to a girl! I've done it a million times before. I've had tons of dates and several girlfriends. Never was I this nervous.

"It was ok," she answers. She still has this way of looking at me. Like there's something about me that she doesn't understand. Maybe I'm looking at her the same way. Cause there's tons of things I don't understand about her. At least not when it comes to her with me. "Are you ok after you fell yesterday?" She laughs a little now. Oh, my gosh, it's so embarrassing.

"Yeah," I laugh awkwardly. "It wasn't that mad. Only amazingly embarrassing."

"No, no, no," she says with a look that only says one thing; she feels sorry on my behalf. Which, for the record, is like even worse, cause I don't want her to feel sorry for me. I don't even want her to think about me. Ok, fine, that was a lie. But I don't want her to think of me as the clums in English.

"Good morning everyone," Ms. Hill smiles at us…and then she looks at me with the same look Gabriella gave me. "How are you Mr. Bolton. Are you feeling alright after that fall you had yesterday?"

Geez, can this day get any worse? Like REALLY!

I laugh a very awkward laugh again as I answer "I'm fine, Ms. Hill." Can people like, stop looking at me? I look down at my desk and try to hide. But I feel curios looks all over my body. Life is cruel…

Tuesday – Basketball practice

"What's up with you today?" Chad says as I miss yet another ball he's throwing at me.

"I'm sorry man," I say as I shake my head. "I just have too much on my mind right now." It's true. Gabriella is invading my mind and I don't even think she knows.

Chad looks at me with this weird look, like there's something really abnormal about me. "Well, get it off your mind."

"Focus Troy!" my dad says, as on cue. But there's nothing I can do about this. Believe me, I've tried the whole day, to stop thinking about her, but it seems like she's glued to my mind – with superglue!

Ouch! That's the 5th ball that's hit my head today. Cruel, cruel mind. Get over her already!

"Coach, can I please speak to Troy for a minute?" My dad nods his response and Chad drags me away to the locker room. "What's on your mind?" he says once we're behind closed doors.

"Nothing," I mumble and sit down on the bench. Maybe that wasn't the brightest answer, seeing I told him not long ago that I had too much on my mind.

I'm so right. "Yeah, keep believing that," Chad says. He sounds kind of angry. "Troy, you're the captain. You need to focus! You can't walk around on the court thinking about other stuff and get hit in the head over and over again."

"Yeah, that did kind of hurt." Maybe not the smartest move to try to joke it off. Chad is my best friend and a very good person, but when it comes to basketball – it's the thing he's most passionate in the whole world, and no one messes with him on the court.

"FOCUS!" See, I wasn't kidding about Chad being serious.

Tuesday – dinner

Practice was a pain in the ass, also after Chad yelled at me for 5 minutes in the locker room. I thought I was the captain, I thought I was the one to make sure everyone was on their feet with their brain at the right place. Well, I don't think it's been announced officially, but I believe Chad is my assistant captain or something like it. When I don't pay attention, he's right there making sure people know what's right and what's not.

When it comes to Gabriella…I don't know what to do, and it's driving me crazy. Everyone is picking on me because my mind is elsewhere, and I try to change things, I want to pay attention, but somehow, I can't. It's like when you desperately want to sleep because you know that you need it and that you'll have a hell of a day the next day if you don't get some kind of sleep. But you can't sleep. You're wide away, even though you're actually tired. It's like your mind is living its own life, without listening to what you really want.

Tuesday – after dinner

My life is wicked. Seriously. As I was sitting at the dinner table with my mom and dad the phone ringed. My dad answered it, and I quickly understood it was some sort of work call, at least someone from work calling. And I was right.

My history teacher called to inform me that I'd gotten a partner for the project we're working on these days. We're actually supposed to be working alone, and then hand in a paper on around 10 pages about the World War II. But apparently, there's this new student who needs to pair up with me because we've already started and come quite far. It's alright by me. I don't mind help in history, it's not exactly my favorite subject. But my project partner had to be no other than Gabriella Montez – the girl that won't leave my mind for even 10 seconds. Oh yeah, it'll be easy not to think about her now, having her around all the time to work on this project.

Hang on, that's the door bell.

Tuesday – way too late; again.

You will never guess who was at the door earlier today!

Alright, maybe you will. It was no other than Gabriella Montez herself. She'd gotten the same call from Mr. Thomsen, and as the perfect schoolgirl she is, she wanted to start working on it ASAP.

I was taken a little off guard and somehow she ended up in my mom's office, where our computer is. I had to show her my work, my two first pages. She read through it and corrected a bunch of stuff before she turned around to look at me and said: "Not bad, Bolton, not bad."

I feel pretty stupid thinking back at it. "Is…is that a good thing?" I asked. Yeah, I know what you're thinking; Dumbass! And you've got every right to think that. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure Gabriella thought the exact same thing right then.

Only she laughed that lovely laugh of hers and nodded. Then for a few seconds I looked right into her eyes and she looked back in mine and it was magical.