The Summer I Stopped Watching

I'd basically become a professional spy at sixteen. Not the cool kind with gadgets and European cars—more like the awkward kind who spent seventh period lunch hidden behind the library stacks, studying how Jordyn Pierce laughed with her head tilted back, how the baseball team moved through the hallways like they owned oxygen, how everyone seemed to know a secret handshake I'd never been taught.

"You're doing it again," said Lena, sliding onto the library chair beside me. She was the only person who'd somehow noticed I existed without me having to announce it first.

"Doing what?"

"Spying. It's creepy, Mike."

"It's research."

"For what? Your dissertation on How to Be a Normal Teenager?" She flipped through her AP Chem textbook without looking at me. "Just talk to them sometime."

"I can't just talk to them. They're in a different dimension."

The truth was, I'd spent so long watching from the sidelines that I'd started feeling like a zombie—just going through the motions of existing, showing up to classes I didn't care about, nodding at conversations I wasn't really hearing, waiting for something to happen instead of making things happen.

My palms had been sweating since sixth grade. Every time someone looked at me too long or I had to answer a question in class or walk past a group of popular kids, my hands would get so clammy I could barely grip my pencil. It was like my body had decided feeling anxious was its full-time job.

"There's a party at Jordan's tonight," Lena said, still not looking up from her textbook. "You should go."

"I wasn't invited."

"Everyone's invited. That's how parties work." She finally looked at me. "You spend all this time watching people live. When do you start?"

The baseball game was already in full swing when I showed up at the field. Jordyn was playing shortstop, and for some reason, Sam—the guy who'd been in my English class since freshman year—was sitting on the bench alone.

"Hey," he said, like this was normal. Like I wasn't the kid who'd spent three years being professionally invisible.

"Hey."

"You coming to Jordan's after?"

My palms were sweating so bad I had to wipe them on my jeans. "I wasn't planning on it."

"You should." He held out his hand to help me up from the bleacher. "Being a zombie is optional, Mike."

I stared at his hand for a second. Then I shook it.

My grip was sweaty and uncertain. His was firm and sure.

"I'm Mike," I said.

"I know," Sam said. "I've been in your English class for three years. I was wondering when you'd finally say something."

I blinked. "You noticed me?"

"Dude," he said, "you're not exactly subtle."