24 Am I Crazy?

(Winona)

I’m speechless. I stare at Jayden and sit down in the chair opposite him. What does this really all mean? Apart from the wish thing, which is stupid anyway, I do need to be able to get along with him from a business perspective.

There will be times we need to be out together. Maybe it is better to rip the sticking plaster off quickly and get it over with.

As if he reads my mind. “A business date. That’s all. Honestly, we can’t always be in the office. It’s just one date.”

I can’t help remembering the first time he asked me out.

***

It’s junior year of high school. I watch the two fools passing notes in a math exam and one drops, floating over to land closer to my desk than to theirs. It’s not that they were not brainy enough, they were just too lazy to bother focusing. Of course they had money to fall back on.

And the math teacher, commonly known amongst the students as Old Man Bulldog, is someone who doesn’t tolerate this kind of behavior, no matter how much money your famil