Nerd Loves Boy (Boy Meets Nerd #3)

Chapter 19

I stare at the little pop up for who knows how long before I move the cursor on my laptop to the little green button and finally click 'call' and wait. I let it ring for a few seconds before freaking out a little and hurriedly clicking the red button to stop the call. I rub my temples as I stare at the screen for a second before shaking my head at myself and click 'call' once again. I barely let it ring for two seconds before clicking 'end call' and I bang my head a couple of times on the desk. This was getting ridiculous. I'd been trying to hype myself up all day to just shoot a text to Kile, an email, something to let him know I was still relatively alive and hopefully maybe talk things out but I couldn't even bring myself to do that, let alone try having a face to face chat over my laptop. Trish thought it was time that I talk to him after he'd called me every other day for the past week but I still had yet to return any of his calls or messages. I told Trish I wasn't mad at him, that I just didn't know what I wanted to say to him and she pretty much challenged me when she made a point of how I couldn't expect Kile to know that if I didn't talk to him about it and tell him myself.

I was still a little weird about the whole Cameron and Kile thing and the last thing I wanted to do was talk about it but at the same time, I missed talking to him and hanging out like we used to. He was my best friend and I couldn't stand not talking to him but I still couldn't bring myself to at least text him or something. Cameron stopped calling me as well after I kept ignoring her calls, not that she'd call all the time, but I assumed she was just giving me space. I heard Trish talking to her last night when she thought I was asleep and not once was my name brought up from either person. I didn't think it bothered me but at the same time, it would've been nice to know that I was at least part of the reason for Cameron calling Trish late at night when they should've been asleep. Great, now I was becoming a brat. What was wrong with me?

I pick my head up and stare at the screen again, the brightness of it staring back at me and I'm tempted to just close my laptop and read a book but I needed to get some studying done so that was out of the question for now. I pick up my highlighter and scroll down on the screen to type out some sentences for my assignment. I highlight a particular phrase in my book, feeling like a horrible human being for highlighting a book even though I thought it was quite boring and didn't understand why it was required reading for my literature class but I still felt bad about marking it up. It didn't feel right. I'm just about to type out the phrase onto the document when all of a sudden a call comes through and my laptop starts ringing, Kile's picture popping up and the green and red buttons tempting me to either ignore the call or answer it. I'm tempted to hit the red button but would he think I was even more upset with him for not answering? Or would he think I really wasn't available to chat? If I picked up the call what would I even say? What would he say? I know I had some studying to get done so maybe I could use that as an excuse to escape talking. But then again, that was a little third-grade of me. I take a deep breath and just suck it up, move the cursor to the green button and without thinking for a second longer, I click it and hold my breath. A second later, Kile's face appears and I practically freeze up. Wow. This was going great.

"Hi," he says hesitantly like he doesn't know how I'll react to such a simple word. Given, I haven't talked to him since Thanksgiving but that's not entirely my fault. Okay, it was totally my fault but I'm just telling myself that so I don't feel as guilty for ignoring him.

"Hey," I force out a little too loudly. He doesn't seem to notice how nervous I am but I play with my highlighter since I'm not sure what else to say. I didn't think any farther than just a simple greeting.

"What are you doing?" he asks.

"Um, working on a paper," I reply nodding and almost drop my highlighter when it practically flies out my hand. "Assigned reading. It's going pretty well."