By The Sidelines

S

Alice was bored.

She peeked discreetly out of her book to take a quick glance at Daniel, who was so engrossed in his book that he was not paying any attention to her.

When Daniel had agreed to go on a date with her, she thought it would be majestic, something out of a manga, where he would have taken her all over the town, showing all the sights that he thought would please her. She thought he would do this effortlessly as he flirted and complimented her with every stride.

And then she couldn't be blamed if she flirted back and made all the other girls jealous.

But no she was stuck at the library. She didn't want to end up in this place for a date. But if Daniel said it was a date, it was a date. Now how did she get into this in the first place.

Daniel was astonished.

That Alice could tell.

Alice watched his face interestingly turn white, then to red with realisation before it cooled down to his natural colour. However amusingly she still could detect blushes of pink on his cheeks.

"Wait what," was all that managed to escape from Daniel's mouth.

Alice repeated calmly, "I want to go on a date with you."

"Now?" Daniel asked confused.

"Oh no! We were going to have it next week!" Alice applied a bit of sarcasm just to confuse Daniel .

It worked.

"Do you really mean that?"

Alice's hope of managing to get a date out of this conversation was diminishing every second.

"Are you stupid or something?"

That seemed to jolt Daniel back into the normal facade of the bad boy he usually played.

"Nah," Daniel answered, "Just shocked. Didn't think you were going to act so quick."

"Quick?"

"Yeah. My mates were having bets on how quick you would respond to my dare. None of them expected how quickly your feelings could change."

"Well I'm here now, aren't I?" Alice said cheerfully. But that cheer was soon gone as Daniel sighed tiredly.

"Yeah, the thing about that," Daniel began, "was that if I took you out on a date, that would mean you would be like my previous girlfriends. And I don't want to do that to you, Alice. You are someone special and unique to me."

Alice thought that she could never hear anything sweeter than that coming from a person's mouth.

"So," Daniel continued, "What do you say for a study session at the library? Or even better make it a study date?" Daniel winked at her and all Alice could do was swallow and nod. "Great. Meet me at the library near Rosina's house - you know where that is, right, - and I will treat you to the best date or study session of your life!"

That was an under exaggeration.

Alice was having the ultimate time of her life.

Reading a random book that she had picked up from the library. It's not even that good!

Getting all excited to be seen by Daniel in a cute outfit that had taken her painstakingly ages to decide, only to be ignored by him. That's great!

And the worst thing of all was that his eyes were straying from his book, not onto her but...

On me giving books to the librarian.

Alice's first thought was why did I have so many books to return. They all looked too mature for Melissa to read and my sister and her boyfriend did not look like they had enough time to read that many books.