Is it Happily Ever After

Chapter Three

First period had finished quickly, thankfully. Now it was time for second period. This is where the four friends split up. Evie had chemistry for second period. She didn't know what is was, but Evie had always loved the idea of chemistry. At the lab desk where she sat, she had Doug to her left and Chad in front of her. Evie sometimes feels this setup is a little awkward.

Back in middle school, Evie had a huge crush on Chad. However, because Evie was super smart, Chad had taken advantage of her to do his homework. Chad had grown up from taking advantage of girls and did feel bad about it later, but they had a sort of rocky relationship since then. Evie was really hurt about the situation back when it happened. Thankfully, learning from the experience, Chad had confronted every other boy who tried to pull the same thing on Evie that he did whenever Ben wasn't around to protect her.

As for Doug, Evie didn't know exactly how she felt about him. They had been great friends since kindergarten, but she wasn't sure if she was feeling something more for him. Did she like him? She couldn't. After all, he was Carlos's older brother, and Carlos was one of her best friends. How would he feel if she had a crush on his brother? The biggest reason Evie didn't want to admit she liked him was because she didn't want to be hurt by another boy. After Chad, many other boys had used her, mocked her, and bullied her. She just wanted to find that one boy that made her heart skip a beat.

"Hey Evie," Doug said, getting her attention. "Do you have a pencil I could borrow. Mine just broke."

"Yeah," Evie replied, reaching into her bag. She grabbed a pencil and handed it to Doug. "Here you go..." she said, not realizing that their hands her touching. Evie looked into Doug's eyes. "Y-You have hazel eyes," she said.

"Yes, I do," Doug said. "And you have dark brown eyes."

Evie took her hand away quickly. "S-Sorry. I-I just thought you had brown eyes, but up close, you can totally tell that they're hazel. They suit you. Not like my ugly, brown eyes."

"They're not ugly. I think they suit you as well. They're like cute, sweet, little chocolate chips," Doug said.

"Y-You think my eyes are cute?" Evie asked.

"I-I mean, you know, they remind me of chocolate chips," Doug said frantically. "They really do pop with the blush on your cheeks."

"I didn't put blush on-" Evie said as she touched her cheeks. Her cheeks were warm, indicating that she was blushing right through her makeup. "Y-You know what? I did put blush on. I-I was just in such a rush that I can't remember half the things I did this morning. You know?" Evie said, frantically trying to cover herself up.

"Yeah," Doug said as he looked back down at his chemistry work.

Evie then let out a breath after practically embarrassing herself in front of her maybe crush.

"Evie," the chemistry teacher called out.

"Yes," Evie said with a high pitched voice. She covered her mouth with her hand after realizing the sudden volume of her voice.

"Would you like to demonstrate how to find the atomic weight of silver?"

"Oh, um, sure," Evie said as she got up from her seat. "To find the atomic weight of silver, that would be 106.905 times .5200 plus 108.905 times .4800, which, Mr. Deley, would give us 107.9 a.m.u."

"That is correct," Mr. Deley said. "Thank you Evie."

Evie nodded before returning to her seat. "I thought I was gonna get that so wrong," Evie whispered to Doug.

"Nope. You did just fine. You know, just believe in yourself. Never second guess your instincts. Plus, you're super smart. You've always been since we were kids," Doug said.