The Year I Became Isabella Ande - Jessica Sorensen Page 0,3

he does things that make me hate him. But in love sounds so much less porn star-ish than in lust.

The playground isn’t the only time he’s done something nice for me, though. There’s so much more to my in lust crush than that.

When I was in eighth grade, he gave me a rose on Valentine’s Day.

“Hey, Isa, I have something for you,” he said as he jogged across the middle school parking lot toward me.

I paused when he said my nickname and gaped at him spastically with half a brownie in my mouth. He was a year older than I was, and I couldn’t figure out why he was talking to me. Not only was I Hannah’s loser younger sister, but I was in middle school and he was in high school.

“Happy Valentine’s Day.” He stuck out his hand, and his fingers were wrapped around the stem of a red rose.

I cautiously glanced from the rose to him then gulped the brownie down. “Is this a trick?”

Chuckling, he brushed his brown hair out of his eyes. “Why would I ever want to trick you, Isabella? I have no reason to.”

My insides quivered at the sound of my name leaving his lips. The last time he had any social interaction with me was when I was in the third grade and he stopped some of his friends from picking on me, including Hannah.

My gaze darted around the mostly vacant parking lot as I searched for a blonde-haired girl hiding out somewhere, laughing her ass off. “Did my sister put you up to this?”

He swiftly shook his head. “I swear to God it’s not a trick. I just wanted to do something nice.”

I still didn’t take the rose, worried the moment I accepted his gift, my sister would show herself and laugh at me. Knowing her, she’d probably have her Super Bitchy Cheer Pod People with her, who’d be ready to take pictures of my mortification.

“Isa.” He dipped his head to make eye contact with me, not because I’m super short—I’m actually above average height—but he’s like one-step-away-from-not-making-the-parking-garage-clearance tall. “I swear to you this is just one neighbor giving another neighbor a gift with no tricks attached.”

A neighborly gift? I almost frowned. But it was a completely selfish, Hannah-like reaction, so I sucked it up, took the rose, and even managed a smile. “Thanks.”

He smiled, and my heart did an Irish tap dance. “You’re welcome.” He didn’t leave right away, and it seemed like he wanted to say more. “Hey, so I have to ask you for a favor.” He paused, hesitant. “And you can totally say no, but . . . I really need to work on my free shot for tryouts next season, and since you won that contest and were pretty badass, I thought you and I could practice together. Maybe you could teach me a few pointers.”

Is Kyler seriously asking me to help him improve his basketball skills? I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. On one hand, I was excited that I had an opportunity to spend time with him. On the other hand, it made me feel like he saw me as one of the guys.

“Sure,” I replied with a small smile.

“Thanks.” He looked relieved. “Wanna meet at my house tomorrow morning?”

I nodded and he threw me another smile before he turned around and headed toward the football field, located between the middle school and high school.

I stared down at the rose, wondering what the gesture meant—if it meant anything—and spent the next couple of weekends obsessing about every other gesture he did during our practices. Like when he brought me a doughnut or we spent a couple of hours after practice watching a movie. Part of me wonders if he was just being friendly, while another small part of me hoped it meant more.

He even opened up to me a time or two.

“Sometimes I feel like I have to be good all the time—because that’s how everyone expects me to be,” he muttered after his dad had come home and spent over a half an hour critiquing Kyler while he made basket after basket.

“I’m sure no one expects you to be that way,” I said as we sat on his porch steps, drinking lemonade, our clothes soaked with sweat. “No one can be good all the time.”

“Yeah, I know.” He scratched his arm, staring at the driveway. “But sometimes it feels like the whole school doesn’t see it that way. Like I have to