Oh, Dakota

1- Had Me At Hello

“Ugh! Why can’t he marry me?”

 My best friend laughed beside me. “Probably because he doesn’t know that you exist.”

I groaned and threw my face into my hands. “But we’re meant to be.”

Lunch is always a painful hour for me, everyday it just hurts. Why is that? Oh, good question. You see, we sit two- count them- two tables away from the popular table. It was mostly just jocks, the baseball players and a few of them had girls hanging on their arms. I knew most of the guys around that popular table for multiple reasons that are not relevant to what I’m talking about.

It’s painful because Caleb Fisher sits at that table. He’s a baseball player, naturally, and he sits there, two tables away from me every day. Every. Single. Day. I’ve never measured the distance, but it’s about three yards or meters or whatever system that you use away. And that’s not very far.

Who’s Caleb Fisher?

You ask such good questions, newbie. Caleb Fisher is probably the most attractive person that went to our school. He’s the co-captain of the baseball team and he’s just… well, he’s incredibly perfect. And I know that he’s not just a pretty face because last year, when I was a junior, he was in my chemistry class and I sat to the right of him for a month straight and this one time, I forgot to bring a pencil for one of our biggest tests of the year and he let me borrow one of his.

See? I told you that he’s perfect. You’re in love with him now, right? Too bad because he’s mine.

“Stop staring.” Marnie, my best friend, laughed with a nudge to my gut. “He’s going to notice you.”

“Good!” I wailed. “I want him to notice me.”

“Not as the stalker-ish girl who stares at her during lunch.” She retorts.

I let out a long sigh. “Okay, you’re right.”

“Of course she’s right.” Karen piped.

“Yeah, you’ll like, weird him out or something.” Alexis giggled teasingly.

I rolled my eyes at my dramatic friends. “I won’t get caught, don’t be ridiculous.”

“Kota’s right, she’s been creepily staring at Caleb for over a year now, so I think she’s mastered the staring.” Nikki defended me.

I nodded. “Nikki’s right, I have.”

“Although, I don’t know why you don’t just go over there.” Karen piped. “I mean, your brother is literally sitting at the same table as Caleb, so just go over there and pretend to be sitting with your brother and wa-la, you’re sitting at the same table as Caleb.”

That was true, my brother is on the baseball team with Caleb but not only that, they’re co-captains together so I guess they’re kind of friends. I mean, Owen has his own group of really close friends, the ones that are always at the house and everything and they’re all on the baseball team too, so Owen isn’t really close friends with Caleb but they’re acquaintances, I suppose.

“Because,” I sighed exasperatedly. “I’m not going to smother my brother just to get close to Caleb, I’m not that pathetic, okay?”

My friends, Marnie, Karen, Nikki, and Alexis, we all were on the dance team together, which is why we sat together at the table, but in all honesty, the only two that I really hang out with outside of school and dance are Marnie and Nikki, and mostly I’m always with Marnie. I’m not really all that close to either Alexis or Karen but they’re all pretty cool to hang around, I guess. They’re cool enough that they know about my embarrassingly obvious obsession with Caleb Fisher.