The bell rang. Jonathon looked up at the clock on the wall; it was 2:00. Forty-five minutes until freedom. His last class of the day was computers, an incredibly boring class, but incredibly easy all the same. The whole class was pretty much independent study, everyone just goofing around on the internet. Computer class was forty-five minutes of him going to Jonathon-land, a place of ponies, rainbows, and flying midgets...a magical, beautiful place.
He sat at his computer about to go to the dating website Ben was talking about at the beginning of the day.
"You probably wouldn't have to go to dating websites if you weren't so mean to girls that you didn't even know." Jonathon looked up; there stood the girl from the morning.
"I'm never going to live that down, huh?", he asked. She shook her head and pulled out the seat next to him and sat down.
"So Jonathon..." He was taken aback that she actually used his name. "You need a date?"
The two of them spent the whole period looking at profiles of singles looking for someone to love. They even came upon Benjamin Connor, a "bright, outgoing, youthful man looking for a sweet, independent, fun woman to share long, intense conversations about current events, philosophical icons, and comic books." The period went by incredibly fast. The world Jonathon was in now was way better than flying midgets. He found out the Elle was an "army brat" and her dad had just retired to become an author. She had traveled all over the world, and seen things that Jonathon couldn't even dream about.
"I want to be an editor of a fashion magazine when I am older, and I was in New York for Fashion Week last year, it was amazing, you would have loved it, photographers everywhere..." The bell rang cutting her off. They finished their conversation as they walked out of the class.
"Hi, smushy-butt..." The two turned around to see Deborah. She stood there smiling at them. Since Jonathon seemed paralyzed for the moment, she extended her hand. "Hi, I'm Deborah." Elle grabbed it, "Hi, I'm Elle." Jonathon snapped back to reality.
"Um, Elle this is Deborah.", he began. "Deborah is my, um..." They both looked at him. "she is my um, what's the word?" He could feel their eyes burn holes through his head. Why was he so nervous? The kind of nervous, when you had just done something wrong and were just waiting to get caught.
"Girlfriend." Deborah finished. Elle looked at Jonathon.
"Oh." Elle said. "Um, right, he's said very nice things about you.", she lied. At no point in their conversation that day did he mention his girlfriend. Before Jonathon had a chance to say anything else, Ben and Dino ran up. As soon as Elle recognized Ben as the kid from the computer, she began laughing hysterically. Jonathon smiled.
"What?" Ben asked.
"Dino." Deborah said coldly. Dino rolled his eyes.
"Hey Deb..." She was still angry about everything that happened between him and Jackie. She really just needed to get over it. He turned to the girl standing next to Jonathon. "Hi I'm Dino." He smiled. Jonathon and Ben looked at each other, they had been witness to many of Dino's classic flirting methods, and they could see this one coming from a mile away. "I apologize for my friend here, he is incapable of making introductions."
"Hi, I'm Elle." Jonathon was hoping she would walk away before Dino could finish his dialogue, but by looking at her, he could tell she was already hooked.
"In that case, Elle, I'm going to grab something to eat tonight on Saturday...around let's say dinner time. You want to come along?" Dino said smoothly.
"Like dinner on Saturday night?" Elle said.
"Seems so..." finished Dino. Elle stared at him for a second, then reached into her bag and wrote something down on a piece of paper. She handed it to him.
"Only if we can talk about current events, philosophical icons, and comic books..." Elle said as she walked away.
"Come on!" Ben screamed after her. "It's a normal thing to do! I'm not desperate...Elle, I'm not desperate!"
Dino opened up the piece of paper Elle had given him. Inside was her phone number.
"Oh, yeah!", he yelled. "Sometimes my charm amazes me..." Dino and Ben walked off leaving Jonathon and Deborah alone.
"Can you believe that?" Jonathon said. "What the hell was he thinking asking her out? She's new; he's totally taking advantage of the fact that she knows no one, well, no one except for me. That's probably it. I met her first, and so Dino tries to compensate by asking her out. I can't believe he would do that!" Deborah looked at him, curiously.
"I mean...I can't believe that he would do that to Jackie.", he said saving himself.
"Jonathon, is there something I should know?" she asked. She knew him too well, she knew something was up.
"No. Nothing.", he replied. "Nothing." He grabbed her hand and they walked out of the school. Nothing was wrong...everything was wrong.