The Ordinary Life of Emily P. Bates by Anna Cackler Page B

muttered.
                  He laughed suddenly. “ Days ?” he sputtered. “You’ve gone days ?”
                  “Yes!” 
                  “I think I just broke you in less than five minutes!”
                  “Shut up! I was hungry!”
                  He raised one eyebrow. “Are you sure you want me to do that?”
                  “No!”
                  He grinned triumphantly and took another healthy bite.

Eight
                  “What do you mean you had a date with Ethan Friday?” If Shannon hadn’t been wearing lab goggles at the time, I would have been a little abashed at her tone. Monday was lab day in Chemistry. Enough said.
                  “You know, I can’t take you seriously in those goggles, Shannon.”
                  “Just answer the question!”
                  “How many connotations of the phrase, ‘I had a date with Ethan on Friday’ are there?”
                  “How could you not have told me?” she asked. “What did you do? How did it go?”
                  “We had burgers then we went to the movies.”
                  “What did you see?”
                  “ Dead End .”
                  “You saw a thriller on your first date?” She groaned and clawed the air in frustration. “That’s not even supposed to be a good thriller!”
    “It really wasn’t.” I adjusted my own goggles, wincing as the sharp edges dug even further into my face. We were both going to have huge lines around our eyes for the next hour, but the fact that everyone in our class was sharing our doom made the humiliation much less.
                  “So how did he ask you?” she asked. “What happened exactly?”
                  “Why aren’t you dating anymore?” I asked, suddenly annoyed. “You used to always have plans with some guy on the weekends. Now you’ve resorted to pretending you have plans when you don’t really. I haven’t even seen Charlie around lately.”
                  “How is my love life relevant right now?” she asked, stung.
                  “Because you’ve been so caught up in everyone else’s for the past two months!”
                  “Well don’t worry,” she said, turning back to our lame little experiment. “I was just happy that you finally got your date with Ethan. Please forgive me. I’ve given up meddling as a hobby.”
                  Guilt washed over me. Maybe my comment on Shannon’s love life hadn’t been exactly necessary. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say those things.”
                  “But you did say them whether you meant to or not.”
                  “I know. I’m sorry.”
                  “You know, it’s not like I haven’t been asked out several times this year already,” she said. “I just felt like a break. That’s all.”
                  “I know.”
                  She cast a sideways smile at me and shrugged. “It’s all right. I have been meddling.” She hesitated, and then continued in a low voice. “I didn’t want to tell you, but I’ve been talking you up to Ethan every day in Spanish class.”
                  “What?”
    Mr. Lankford glared at us from across the room where he was helping Randi Feldman light her Bunsen burner when my voice echoed across the lab. “What?” I whispered. “I didn’t even know you had Spanish class together!”
                  “I’m sorry! I stopped, I swear. I stopped bringing it up last week!”
                  “You stopped?”
                  “Yeah. I told you. I’m giving up meddling.”
                  “Why the change?”
                  She shrugged,