Love at Fifth Sight
Part 3-3
Although Ami was generally right about things, Zach turned out to be right about quite a few things as well. Leah was grumpy about Zach settling down with their group of mainly girls until he showed her that he was there to study, not disturb them. Mostly.
They had a few more laughs, a few more sarcastic comments, and a broader range of conversation topics on breaks. He made an effort to get along with all of them, except for Greg, who joined them occasionally and who Zach liked to taunt by teasing Ami.
Eileen Coruni nearly had a heart attack the first time she came into Zach’s room and found him at his books again. His teachers were similarly taken aback when they started receiving assignments from him, although the majority of them were encouraging to the point of embarrassment.
The members of the study group all ended up preparing for an important chemistry test instead of attending Homecoming, which wasn’t such a big deal at their school, after all. But after the test was over, they went out for ice cream and to see a movie that weekend.
Zach’s grades skyrocketed abruptly, and while his G.P.A. was slower to recover, he seemed enthused about his chances of getting into a good college. He worked on his nerves by coaxing Ami to stop revising her applications for what must have been the thirtieth time and just submit them before winter break so she could enjoy the holidays.
As for Ami, she did her best to keep her spirits up while school, applications, and the swimming season swamped her. It became somewhat routine for Zach to go home with her when their study group ended, since their houses seemed a little lonely with Rei and Jaden off at college and Ami’s mother was never back until late.
Zach never became particularly personable with their study group. More often than not, a sarcastic comment would issue forth from his smart mouth, but he was marginally more friendly.
He still helped silly girls with their homework and occasionally played basketball with guys who ragged him about his newfound study habits. He shrugged it off and continued to sass the teachers as much as he dared.
With Ami, he was more himself, willing to laugh and make fun of himself. They talked about school and politics, science and poetry. She listened to him moon over blonde girls with at least average intelligence and above average figures, while he made her admit her crush on young Einstein. Although he didn’t tell her so, Zach figured he had to be much better looking than Einstein had been at their age.
When college break began, they started spending less time with each other outside of the study group, as Rei and Jaden were both home. At the close of the last day of school before winter break, Ami found Zach standing by her locker. “Did you cut last period?” she asked suspiciously. His last period class was much farther away than hers, and she hadn’t dawdled on her way.
“Nope. I have my ways. Want to give me a ride home?”
Ami raised her eyebrows, pretending to consider. “What happened to yours?”
He shrugged. “Jaden dropped me off this morning. He wanted the car to take his girlfriend on a date. It’s really weird – I didn’t even know he had a girlfriend, but apparently she goes to college with him and lives close to us. I told him I’d catch a ride with you.”
“You did, did you?”
Zach grinned charmingly at her. “Yes. Come on, Ames. You’re not going to leave me stranded here, are you?”
She sighed as she closed her locker and zipped up her backpack. “It would serve you right. You’re a shameless reprobate.” Then she narrowed her eyes at him as he fell behind, a hand inching toward the front pocket of her backpack.
“Don’t even think you can finagle the car keys from me, Zach.”
“But your car is so much cooler than mine,” he whined.
“Yes, it is.” Ami smiled smugly, a new expression for her that she found very gratifying when it was directed at Zach. “Which is why I’m driving it and you’re not.”
He sighed in a melancholy manner but cut the act short when he spotted the very delectable Rachel Hughes approaching them. “Hey, Rachel.”
Ami barely resisted the urge to roll her eyes at Zach’s “suave” tone.
Rachel smiled brightly with her white, even teeth that didn’t even have lip stick stains on them. “Hi, Zach! Hi, Ami,” she added as an afterthought.
“Hi, Rachel,” she responded tiredly.
From that point on, the conversation turned to Rachel’s winter plans (skiing with her family in the Poconos) and what a drag their AP Lit teacher was for assigning them Crime and Punishment over break.
Ami pasted a polite smile on her face during their chat, relieved when Rachel finally ended it.
“Sorry about that… Okay, let’s go,” Zach said somewhat wistfully.
She glanced over at him and asked sweetly, “Oh, are you sure? I wouldn’t want you to miss out on talking to Rachel.”
She tried to imitate the way he had said her name, and he turned beet red. “Shut up. You’re so mean.”
“Me? I’m mean? This coming from Mr. Ami-will-give-me-a-ride-home?”
“You don’t really mind, do you?” He widened his eyes and gave her his best earnest look.
Her heart somersaulted in her chest, and she looked away quickly. ‘It’s not fair. No guys should have eyelashes that long.’
“No. I don’t. Come on, it’s freezing, and I parked really far away today.”
He grumbled as they jogged to her car, “You’d think that we would have snow for Christmas, but no, it’s just freezing cold all the time.”
Ami laughed at him as her chilled fingers fumbled with the keys. “You’re just out of shape.”
“What?!” he yelped, half-outraged. “I’ll have you know, just because I’m not on the swim team – which is a good thing, because if I were, I’d have to shave more things than my face and that’s just not manly – doesn’t mean I’m out of shape.”
They argued cheerfully on the way home about his physique, the weather, and what radio stations he was switching to. As they approached their houses, Zach asked, “Can I come over? Mom and Dad won’t be home for awhile, and I can call Jaden and bully him into picking me up.”
“Of course. That’s strange… There’s another car in the spot, and it’s not Mom’s. Actually, it’s – Zach, why is your car in my parking spot?”
He lifted his hands in an I-don’t-know gesture and grabbed his backpack and hers from the backseat. Suddenly, a disturbing thought occurred to him. “Don’t tell me Jaden’s girlfriend is…”
“Give that back. I’m perfectly capable of carrying a backpack to the front door. In fact, I carry it by myself through the entire school day.”
“Calm down, don’t get snippy. Let me be a gentleman. Do you think Jaden’s dating–”
“You, a gentleman?” she scoffed. “Besides, I need my backpack to get my house keys.”
Zach relinquished the backpack by dumping it unceremoniously in her outstretched arms. “Here, take it. Any chance your cousin is –”
The front door opened before Ami could unlock it and before Zach could finish his sentence. A girl with incredibly long black hair and purple eyes looked out at them.
“Rei! What are you doing home so early? I thought you were going out today.”
Rei shrugged and said in a slightly irritated tone, “I was, but someone got hungry so we came back here.”
A pair of azure blue eyes under a mop of messy blond hair peered over her shoulder. “Don’t talk about me like I’m not here, Rei. It hurts my feelings.”
“What feelings?”
Ami blinked as Zach started cracking up. “Wow. I didn’t know your cousin was my brother’s girlfriend.”
“What?” Surprised, Ami stopped in the process of unlacing her shoes. “Rei, you’re dating–”
“Me.” Jaden smiled at her. “Hi, I’m Jaden Coruni.”
Rei blushed at the arch look Ami directed at her. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. We just…kind of got together. Recently.”
“What Rei is trying to say,” Jaden cut in smoothly, “is that my handsome face and debonair manner had her so falling so hard that she couldn’t bring herself to succumb to my charms until right before winter break.”
As Zach snorted, Rei muttered, “Charms. He thinks he has charms.”
Ami glanced back and forth between the three of them, feeling overwhelmed. She sought refuge in formalities. “Rei, I don’t think you’ve met Zach, have you?”
“Oh, but she has,” Jaden said, his eyes twinkling merrily.
“She has?” Zach and Ami asked at the same time.
It was Rei’s turn to smirk. “Oh, I have. Don’t you remember, Ami? A couple of summers ago, when we were, I don’t know, nine? Ten? we went to the beach and were tormented by these two terrors.”
Ami wracked her brain for her memory of that golden summer, the last one before her parents had gotten divorced. She brought to mind the image of two extremely hyperactive young boys and glanced up to see their grown up selves standing before her. ‘So that was why his name sounded familiar.’
“No way,” Zach said, staring at her in disbelief.
“You were really mean to Ami,” Rei reminded him heartlessly. “I’m surprised she even speaks to you now.”
He fidgeted, embarrassed. “Oh yeah… sorry about that.”
Ami smiled, able to appreciate their earlier run in with more grace now that they were older. “Oh, well. You turned out better than I thought you would, anyway.” Over Jaden and Rei’s laughs and Zach’s affronted protests, she said, “I thought you were completely hopeless.”
“Hmph.” He sulked as they all laughed at him.
Soon enough, they were gathered around the kitchen table, sipping the green tea Rei brewed and Zach gagged on until Ami supplied him with hot chocolate.
________________________________________
As soon as they Zach and Jaden left, Ami turned to Rei with a questioning look on her face. “So?”
Rei flushed and moved to clear the cups from the table. “So what?”
“How did you start dating? You never mentioned him! Or was he–” Ami cut herself off and began laughing again. “Oh no, he was, wasn’t he?”
“Was what?” her cousin grumbled.
Ami reminded her, “That guy you never named but always called a numbskull. You said he was one of those people whose sole purpose in life was to consume precious oxygen and contribute to global warming by exhaling carbon dioxide.”
She started laughing again, and Rei couldn’t help smiling as well. “That wasn’t a bad one, was it? But don’t tell him I said it!”
“All right, I won’t. Jaden seems nice. He even knows how you brew tea,” Ami teased, watching the color come into Rei’s cheeks.
To turn the tables, Rei asked slyly, “And what about you and Zach?”
Ami’s eyes widened as Rei watched her carefully. “What? What are you talking about?”
“You seem close.”
She fiddled with the dish dresser. “Oh. Well. We’re just friends. He joined the study group.”
Rei raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Really? He doesn’t seem like the studious type.”
“He isn’t, but he’s really smart.” Ami was detailing the extent of Zach’s intelligence when she noticed Rei was holding back laughter. “What??”
Rei smirked at her. “Not that he isn’t good-looking, Ami, but I would have known you’d fall for his brains first.”
“Who said anything about falling? I’m not – I don’t like him that way!” she insisted, turning as red as a tomato.
“Oh, well, that’s a shame because you’ll have to find a way to turn him down, then. From the way he looks at you, I’d say he’s in for a big disappointment.” She watched in satisfaction as more color came into Ami’s cheeks. She had learned a few things, somewhat unwillingly, over the semester about pumping people for information on their crushes from her roommate.
“He doesn’t like me,” she said softly.
“How do you know?” Rei asked in a logical tone of voice.
Ami shrugged. “We’re friends. We talk, and he likes someone right now. Anyway, he goes for beautiful blondes.”
“Oh, Ami. You more beautiful than they could ever be. And I never like it when guys have a type,” Rei declared loyally.
Ami smiled shyly. “Thank you.”
________________________________________
The four of them hung out sometimes over winter break, and Ami felt much more comfortable with them than her friends at school. She found herself watching Zach more carefully after what Rei had said, but she couldn’t see anything special in the way he looked at her. Once the holidays were over and Rei and Jaden were back at college, she figured Rei had been in the “honeymoon stage” of her relationship and seeing sparks – or smoke, more aptly – where there wasn’t a fire.
As school picked up again, Ami and Zach basically fell back into their normal routine. Most of their acquaintances were on edge about the college decisions they wouldn’t get until April. Much of the senior class had begun to slack off, confident that their senior grades didn’t matter. Ami’s study group continued to meet, with only slightly diminished attendance.
Zach came slightly less often, although he kept up with his work. The few times she questioned him about it, he closed up like a clam, so Ami gave up asking. It wasn’t her way to push when people didn’t want to talk, and he seemed to be doing fine. She figured that he just wanted to spend more time away from the study group, since he spent just as much time with her as he had previously.
She once wondered if he had a secret girlfriend he wasn’t telling her about, but gossip traveled fairly fast in their school, and neither Leah nor anyone else had anything to say about Zach’s love life. He continued to treat her as he always had, messing up her hair or putting his arm around her casually, especially when Greg joined them. But he did that even when they were alone.
________________________________________
One chilly morning, Zach dressed with extra care, wondering why he was so nervous. ‘She’s just a friend,’ he reminded himself. ‘And we hang out a lot. She’ll say yes. And if she says no, it’s no problem. I’ll just…ask someone else. Like Christy.’
He hoped it wouldn’t come to that, though. Christy was no longer his lab partner since they switched at the beginning of the semester, but she was remarkably persistent. The other girls had backed off once he had begun spending so much time with the unpopular members of Ami’s study group.
He glanced at the clock and cursed loudly when he realized that the minute hand had jumped ten minutes ahead while he was primping. “I’m going to be late!”
He skimmed five miles over the speed limit and reached the school building just as the bell for first period rang. He sighed as he sidled in, incurring a stern look from Ms. Nichols, and noticed Ami in her seat – five rows away from him.
Class seemed to last for an eternity. He sprang out of his seat when the teacher dismissed them and made his way over to Ami. He tapped his foot, waiting impatiently until Leah finished talking to her.
“Hey, Ames, can I talk to you?”
“Sure,” she said, her forehead wrinkling in slight confusion.
Just then, Ms. Nichols looked up and called, “Ami, would you mind staying after a minute so we can talk about the Chess Club elections?”
“Of course.” She looked back at Zach, who seemed unduly frustrated. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Fine. Catch you later.”
________________________________________
There never seemed to be a good time to ask her. The halls were buzzing because it was the first day prom tickets were on sale. Class wasn’t private enough, but he hadn’t had the nerve to call her up and ask her over the phone.
Among their study group, opinions about prom were mixed. Some thought it was a waste of time and money, while others were actively stalking their potential dates. Some of the girls were together in a group. He hoped Ami hadn’t already made arrangements with them, but so far, she hadn’t seemed overly interested in prom. He wondered if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
Zach had already been asked to prom twice by the time he managed to track Ami down again, and he was feeling more than slightly stressed. The girls he had turned down had been alarmingly nosy about his date or lack thereof, and he didn’t want to look like a fool if she turned him down and he had no one to go with.
He pushed his way through the crush of people on the staircase, with some annoyed yells of “Watch where you’re going!” following him. He thought the bruises and curses were worth it when he saw Greg zeroing in on his quarry.
“AMI!” he yelled.
She turned pink as her name was called loudly. “What’s going on? Why are you yelling my name?”
He smiled – bared his teeth, rather – at Greg, who was still quite a few feet away. “Sorry, sorry. It’s just, I’ve been waiting to talk to you all day.”
Ami looked at him quizzically. “Okay. Here I am, at your disposal. At least for the next ten minutes; I have to get to that Chess Club meeting.”
He began to sweat. “Um. Okay. Good. Let’s just… go for a walk.”
“Zach, you–” She found herself being dragged down the hallway until he found an empty corridor. “What has gotten into you?”
“Nothing. Nothing, nothing.” Zach smiled nervously at her. “So, uh… are you planning to go to prom?”
Ami’s heartbeat jumped but she made herself calm down. ‘He’s just making small talk, leading into things. It always takes him awhile to get to the point. No reason to think he’s going to ask you.’
“You pulled me out here to ask if I’m going to prom? Couldn’t you have done this in Bio?”
He messed up his immaculately-styled hair in a second. “Argh! Just answer the question!”
She looked at him with some concern. “Are you…okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Please? Have some mercy?”
Ami eyed him warily. “Okay… I don’t know if I’m going yet. Mom wants me to go, and Rei says it’s fun. She says there aren’t really many formals at college unless you’re in a sorority, and I’m not planning to be.”
“Who are you going with?” Zach demanded.
“Um… I don’t know. Leah and the girls want me to go with them, but I actually think they have enough people to fill a table already. Marcus asked me but–”
“What?! Marcus asked you??”
Ami blinked at him, one hundred percent confused. “Yes, he asked me. What’s your problem? You didn’t think anyone would ask me to prom?” She had actually thought that herself, but having him think so hurt even more.
“What? No – that’s not what I meant. What did you tell him?”
“It’s none of your business.”
Zach panicked and readied himself to grovel. “I’m sorry, Ami. I really didn’t mean for it to come out that way. Please tell me?”
She looked at him coldly. “I have to get to my club, and I really don’t see how this is so important.”
He kept pace with her easily as she started walking away. “Please? Please, Ames. Otherwise I’ll come in and disrupt your meeting. You know I’d do it.”
She stopped short and glared at him. “Oh! You’re so frustrating. I said no, all right? Why would I want to go to prom with Marcus? I’d have more fun if I went with the girls. Or stayed at home to watch Jeopardy!”
Zach beamed at her in relief. “Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Why would you say yes to Marcus.”
“If I can go in now?” she asked too patiently.
“No, wait. I wanted to… uh… Well, are you–” He saw Greg coming towards them and the Chess Club room and asked rapidly, “Iwaswondering, would you go topromwithme?”
“Excuse me?” Ami asked, trying to decipher his babble.
He cleared his throat. “Will you go to prom with me?”
She blushed hotly until a terrible thought occurred to her. “Are you joking?”
“What? No!”
“Sorry… I just…really?”
Zach had thought he would end up asking her leaning casually against her locker, looking irresistible yet unconcerned, but he found himself standing as straight as he could, his eyes fixed on hers. “Yeah, really. We’re friends, aren’t we?”
“Good friends,” she answered, starting to smile.
‘Best friends,’ he thought.
“So? Are you going to come with me, let me torment you the whole night?”
She laughed somewhat shakily. “All right. Since you ask so nicely.”
“Awesome.” He grinned back, then felt the need to reassert some distance between them. “So – club meeting. Don’t want to hold you up. We’ll work out the details later.”
“Okay.” She watched him stride away as if in full retreat, uncharacteristic giddiness rising within her.
She was slightly dazed all throughout the elections, although she did her best to listen closely to all the speeches. At the appropriate times, she soberly marked her ballot with thick, clear checks, even though she felt infinitely more bubbly inside.
The current board, which included Ami as its Vice President, stayed behind to count the ballots with their advisor once the elections were complete. After the results were recorded, the students began trickling out.
“Hey, Ami.”
She looked back questioning. “Oh, hi, Greg. What’s up?”
He cleared his throat, looking embarrassed. “Uh – I was wondering – would you be interested in going to prom with me?”
“I’m sorry, Greg. I already have a date.”
“Oh, yeah. Of course. Sorry.”
She gave him another sympathetic smile, then said she would see him tomorrow and headed to her car. She wasn’t sure how she felt about having to give a second rejection in a day, but she was still buoyed from Zach’s asking her. Smiling brightly despite the February chill, she thought hopefully, ‘Maybe Rei was right after all.’
Love at Fifth Sight
Infinite Ice
