I know it's been a while, guys. I'm very, very sorry. I dealt with bullies and bully victims all afternoon today, so this story was on my mind on the drive home. Here's the next chapter. I'll try not to make you wait so long next time.

Oh my God. He almost kissed me. He almost kissed me. He almost kissed me!

I didn't even see it coming or I could have reacted better. I was in the junior lockers just thinking that I'd lost him when he came up behind me and scared me half to death by putting his hands on my shoulders and saying my name in my ear. I jumped and whirled around. Had he been following me? Had he been following me? Seriously?

"Hi," I managed to say after a long slow breath. I read that in some magazine once-to take a long slow breath before speaking; it keeps your voice from coming out all squeaky. Instead, it sounded all breathy and winded. "Hi." It was almost seductive, wasn't it?

He grinned. "Hey," he said back, putting his arm up against the locker, forming a protective barrier around me.

My skin tingled.

Half-laughing: "Have you been avoiding me? I haven't seen you around much."

Giggle. "No!" Another slow deep breath. That 'no' had been squeaky. "No, of course not." (Much better.) "I've... I guess I've just been busy." I tipped my head so my bangs fell across my eyes a little further. "I'm really sorry." I tucked a lock of hair behind my ear as if it had fallen in my eyes accidentally and laughed as though what I was about to say was a joke. "Why, did you miss me?"

He smiled. That wide, toothy grin. Half a laugh. His eyes flitted to the side briefly, and then his face turned serious. "Yeah, you know," he ran his hand-the one that wasn't attached to the arm still making a barrier around me-over his hair. "Maybe I did. I think maybe I actually did." He nodded slightly and came closer.

I could smell him. He smelled warm and natural, not a strong cologne scent, not a nasty after athletic period odor, not even deodorant, just faint odor I couldn't place that was pleasing and made me want to curl into his chest and close my eyes.

I could feel him, closer still. Our bodies brushed against one another briefly. I must have closed my eyes. I felt his hand on my chin, and I lifted it. My eyes opened, apparently instinctively. He was mere inches away, slightly above me as I gazed up at him.

"I did miss you, Christine," he murmured. "Don't go away again."

"I won't." I should have said something better, shouldn't I? But I couldn't think of anything better. I couldn't think of anything at all. I could feel my pulse in my throat. My lips parted.

"Let's go! Clear the halls!"

The world around me came sharply into focus again as the moment shattered and I could hear the standard school noises all around. Where had all those people come from suddenly. A moment ago I could have sworn we were the only people in the locker hall.

"Ryan Johnson!" Ryan turned from me and lowered his arm from the locker.

I let my head swivel away from Ryan's face to land upon Mr. Smith's. Ryan was already moving away from me.

"Move along. Get to class." Standard chant used by the administration to clear the locker banks, but today it really bugged me.

"Catch ya later, Chris," Ryan said with a winning smile.

I glanced over my shoulder at Smith. He was looking at his watch. "Thirty seconds!" he yelled to me and anyone else remaining in the hall. When I turned back Ryan had disappeared. I sprinted down the hall to class. I didn't make it before the bell and there were consequences, consequences, consequences.

The logical consequence for a tardy is after school detention. My school is big on "logical and natural consequences" with a focus more on the "logical" than natural. The natural consequence of being late, of course, is that you miss some work and maybe you fall a tiny bit behind. But it's easy to get the notes, and most teachers don't say anything important in the first two minutes of class anyway, so a natural consequence isn't good enough in that situation. You need a logical (but unnatural) consequence. So, for being late, and therefore wasting a bit of the school's time, the school gets to keep you late and waste a bunch of your time. It's never proportionate, unless you multiply by 30. I mean, I was probably, literally two minutes late. So I served an hour of detention.

Whatever.

I didn't complain.

I didn't complain a bit because it made me a whole hour late to theatre, which is what I've been trying to avoid since, oh, since I got the part. Becavac was pissed and Sheila, my own personal Carlotta, a greater torment than usual. But people mad at me is far better than people aware that I completely suck, right?

We went over blocking, then I sat with Mark and debated whether to tell him that I needed to quit or not. I never worked up the nerve, and next thing I knew, it was time to go.

After so-called rehearsal it was home again. Instant Noodle cup for dinner. Upstairs. Too tired for homework, but not quite tired enough to sleep. Chapter ten of The Phantom of the Opera. A slightly-different-than-the-musical masquerade ball that was less about the Phantom's showing up and more about the fact that Raoul doesn't trust Christine and Christine tells him goodbye forever. I read that part twice. She actually told him goodbye forever. What gives, I wondered. I could picture any number of guys I knew reacting like Raoul with all the sarcasm and mean comments and then changing their minds and taking it all back after it's already too late. But she could say goodbye forever all she wants. I can tell by looking that I'm only halfway through this book, and I doubt that the book goes on without him in it, so she's only BSing too. Whatever, Raoul. Whatever, Christine. I get this drama at school every day. I don't need to read a book for it! What year was this book again? 1900-and-what? Apparently the world doesn't change much in a hundred years.

So he runs off and goes to hide in her dressing room all stalker-like (all these damned guys from old literature are always doing that! I even wonder if that's why stalkers exist today-they get the ideas from these books they make us read in school!)

So then he's all self-pitying and sad, but still hiding in the closet, mind you, because that's just a completely reasonable and logical thing for a guy in love a hundred years ago to do, apparently.

And there she is. Yeah. I'm telling you this because it's the part that stuck with me for days afterward.

"Poor Erik," she says over and over again. It gave me chills when I read the words.

In the part that followed that, "Erik" showed up and sang to her and she sang back and then off they disappeared through her mirror like was supposed to have happened way back in Act I, but after I'd read the words "Poor Erik" my eyes were repeatedly drawn back to them, and even after I'd forced myself to read on, I had this terrible nagging feeling in my stomach like when you have this huge project and it's worth 25% or more of your grade and it just slips your mind entirely until the night before, but it's too late to do it then because you have to go to the library, so you lay awake trying to think of a way to fix it and knowing that you can't, you can't, you can't, no matter what.

Off they went together, and there sat crying Raoul wondering what had happened.

But the words "Poor Erik" echoed in my head. They made me feel heavy as I changed into a nightgown and crawled into bed.

Reviews?