Without You: Book 1 of the Changing Hearts Series (2 page)

A while later, the projector was turned off, and it was time for lunch. She grabbed money for a soda and headed out the door with Mayra. They headed to the bathroom.

As she came out of the stall, Mayra was already washing her hands.
 

“He’s cute, right?”

“Who?” Ariana turned on the faucet and watched the cool water wash over her hands.

Mayra stared at her and rolled her eyes. “You know who. Lucas.” She said his name slowly.

“Yeah, he’s cute, I guess.” She focused on rubbing soap in between her fingers.
 

Mayra scoffed. “Please. I saw you staring at him the whole time.”
 

Ariana shook her head but smiled. “No comment.”

They dried their hands and walked to the lunchroom, stopping for a soda from the machines on the way there.
 

Lucas was in line already, and they joined the line behind him.
 

Ariana saw him grab a slice of pizza, some corn, and an apple. He already had a water bottle. She went through the line herself and grabbed a chicken sandwich and some fruit.

As they paid for their lunch, they saw him walk towards their usual table.
 

A large group of people from their class sat together most of the time. They always had a blast. Much better than last year when they had to sit with some other girls.
 

She punched in her student number and handed over a crumpled five dollar bill to the lunch lady sitting at the register.

She heard someone talk to her. “Excuse me, young lady,” the lady asked. “Do you want change back or not?

“Uh, no. Just add it to the account.”
 

The lunch lady punched some numbers in and shook her head.
 

“Thanks,” Ariana said as she grabbed some napkins and headed towards the table.
 

She sat down next to Lucas. The only two empty seats at the table were right next to him, and everybody else was already seated.
 

Mayra joined them just a few seconds later, putting down her tray.
 

Ariana tried to focus on eating her chicken sandwich. She squirted some mayo on the bun, opened her soda, and took a bite of her sandwich. She listened to the conversation around them, laughing when someone said they’d gotten in trouble for wrecking their car. She felt someone looking at her. She wiped her mouth with her napkin and looked to her right.
 

Lucas was looking right at her, a slight smile on his face. His eyes met hers for a brief microsecond before turning back to his food.
 

She stared a bit too long before getting back to her sandwich, wondering why he had looked at her. Did she have an ugly laugh or something? She made a mental note to make sure her laughs weren’t dorky.

She finished eating her sandwich, ate most of her fruit, and looked at the clock over her shoulder. Their lunch was almost halfway over. As she turned her head back to the table, she saw Jimmy come into the cafeteria. He smiled and waved as he got in line and grabbed two chicken sandwiches and a slice of pizza.
 

“Oh my gosh,” she said with a smile.
 

“What?” Mayra asked, looking to where Ariana was turned.
 

“Jimmy,” she said.
 

“Oh wow,” Mayra said, looking at Jimmy’s tray, piled high with food. Lucas turned in the same direction and smiled. “Is that your brother?”

She hesitated for a second before answering. “Yeah, he’s a sophomore.”

“Maybe you know him,” said Mayra. “He’s on the varsity basketball team.”

Lucas looked at her again before looking back at Jimmy. “Oh yeah. I recognize him. I went to some of the basketball games last year. He’s good.”

Lucas flashed her a smile.

They rejoined the conversation at their table. All the while, she kept reimagining Lucas looking at her with that smile.

Ariana walked out of her last class and to her locker, which was around the corner. Mayra was already there, twisting the dial to unlock her own locker.
 

Ariana began doing the same, holding her books in one hand.
 

“So…” Mayra said with a smile in her direction.
 

“So,” she said as she got the locker open and threw in her books. She took out her math book and a novel she was reading for her advanced literature class.
 

“I saw the way you were looking at Lucas today during lunch.” Mayra put in all of her books and took out her science textbook and binder.

“Please,” she said.
 

“Why are you in denial about it?”

“I’m not. I just met the guy, remember?” She looked at Mayra, who stood still.

“You’re right. He’s cute, though, you have to admit.”

“Yeah, he’s cute. But that’s it.” They began walking towards Ariana’s car. It was hot outside, too hot for fall.
 

They passed Ryan, who was running to the bus all the way at the end of the parking lot. He waved. They waved back.

“Does it scare you?” Mayra asked.
 

“What?” She looked somewhere else, anywhere else.

“What happened with Carlos? Do you think it’ll happen again?” They climbed the steep steps towards the student parking lot.

“I don’t know.” They passed people walking down.

A few minutes later, they were at her car.
 

“Not every guy is Carlos, Ariana,” Mayra said as she got into the car. “It’s been a long time since that happened.”

Ariana turned on the radio and closed her eyes as they waited for Jimmy so they could go home.
 

Mayra began reading a magazine. The silence began to annoy Ariana.
 

“So when are you going to go out with somebody? I haven’t heard you go on and on about any guys lately.” She thought about it. “Or for a while, actually.”

Mayra shrugged. “Eh. Pretty much all the guys at our school are dumb, too short, jerks, been there done that, or just not boyfriend material at all.” She flipped another page.
 

Arian squinted her eyes at her. “You said pretty much. Not all. Who is he?”

Mayra rolled her eyes. “There is no ‘he’.”

“Whatever. You’ve taught me too much. I know you like someone.” She looked over at her. “Is it someone I know or what?”

Mayra began to open her mouth. Then Jimmy opened the door and got in. “What’s up, guys? Did y’all miss me?” He messed up their hair.

No way Mayra would say it now. They each brushed their hair out of their faces. Mayra put her magazine away and put on her seatbelt.

Ariana started the car, and they headed home.
 

“How was school, Jimmy? Did you learn anything today?” Ariana asked.
 

“No. It sucked. I can’t wait until basketball season starts.” He looked out the window.

“Are you passing your classes, though? Remember you need to be keeping your grades up.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m passing. I have Bs. It’s just boring. I’d much rather be playing basketball.”

She nodded. “Of course.”

###

Ariana was walking to Spanish class on Thursday when Lucas fell into step with her.

“Where’s Mayra?” he asked.
 

So he was interested in Mayra? She made her mind shut up before answering the question.
 

“She’s out sick.” She stared at his hands out of the corner of her eye and noticed the way they gripped his books and notebook. He nodded.
 

“Tell her I said to feel better.”

“Sure.”
 

They walked into Spanish class. She went right to her seat, but Lucas went over to a group of guys. She was a bit bummed. Maybe he
was
interested in Mayra then.
 

She had no one to talk to today since Mayra was home sick with a nasty stomach virus, and she didn’t really talk to anyone else as much anymore. They used to have a couple of other good friends, but those friendships had died away last year. Now she only talked to Mayra, Ryan, or the people in her DECA class. And she preferred things that way.

She still hadn’t forgotten those few weeks of school last year. It had been torture for a little while, but everyone seemed to have forgotten about what had happened. There was one other girl in this class, Megan, that Ariana talked to sometimes, but she was busy talking to Francisco at the moment. She grabbed a library book from her stack of books and opened it.
 

She was just getting into the story a minute later when someone said, “Watcha reading?” It was Lucas, and he was right in front of her. She hadn’t even noticed him sit down.
 

“Oh. Just a book.” She closed it, and he laughed.

“Well, that much was obvious,” he said. He twirled a pencil in his hand. It reminded her of Carlos and the way he would put a pencil behind his ear. She made her eyes go back to her book briefly before meeting Lucas’s eyes.

“It’s about a girl who has to fight to the death against twenty three other teens,” she said. “And she finds out one of the guys has been in love with her forever.”

“Wow,” he said. “I think I saw the movie.”

“Trust me. The book’s way better. It’s actually the second time I’ve read it.” She tried not to internally groan because of how nerdy she just sounded.
 

He grabbed it from her desk and looked at the cover. He turned it over and flipped some pages.
 

He put it back.
 

“Do you like to read?” she asked.
 

He looked away. “Sometimes.” He looked back at her. “Not really. I like drawing and art better.”

She nodded. “Well, you should give this one a try. It’s really good.”

He nodded but kind of pursed his lips. Ariana tried not to cringe. She wanted to ask him about the drawing, but the bell rang. Mrs. Randolph shut the door and walked around the room.
 

“Buenas tardes, amigos.” She began in Spanish. “Today, we’ll be continuing our unit on Hispanic art. So we’re going to go to the library to conduct some research on an artist you’d like to know more about. You’ll end up doing a presentation and a paper on the artist.” Some people groaned.
 

“In Spanish.” More groans. “With correct Spanish grammar and spelling.”
 

“Mejor mátenos ahorita,” one guy said.
 

“I do think death would be a better option,” muttered Lucas. Ariana laughed quietly. He looked back at her and smiled quickly before turning back around. Her stomach fluttered, and her mouth fell open for a second before she snapped it shut.
 

“You don’t have to choose an artist today, but browse around. And think about who you want to be in a group with. We’ll have groups of three. You’ll need to let me know by the end of class on Monday who you’ll be working with and who you’ll be researching. We’ll be in the library working on this project this week and next. It’ll be twenty percent of your grade for this nine weeks. Let’s line up.”

Everybody got up at a snail’s pace and headed to the library. They were more of a huge blob than a line as they went there, but the great thing about Mrs. Randolph was that she didn’t mind as long as they didn’t get too loud.

Lucas and Ariana headed straight to the computers against the wall.
 

“There are plenty of books over there too.” Mrs. Randolph indicated some tables stacked with books, but no one took her up on her offer except one group. And only because there weren’t any computers left.

Ariana sat down, with Lucas right next to her. She knew Mayra would be in her group, but she didn’t know who else could be in it. She said it before she could doubt herself. “So you wanna be in my group? Mayra and I will need one more person.”

Lucas turned to her. He was leaning back in his chair.
 

“You’re smart, right?”

She rolled her eyes.

“Just kidding,” he said with a laugh. “Yeah, I’ll join your group.”

What a relief, she thought. It would have been mortifying if he had said no.
 

And it meant that she’d spend more time with him for the next week and a half. Inside, she pretended she didn’t know why that idea appealed to her.

###

Mayra was pale and up to her neck in blankets when Ariana arrived at her house to see her. She had a sports drink on her nightstand that she drank out of every few minutes.

“We have to do a presentation and a paper together on the artist,” she finished explaining to Mayra.

Mayra groaned rather loudly.
 

“Lucas said he’d be in our group,” Ariana said while playing around on her phone.

Mayra sat up. “Interesting,” she said. “So he asked to be in the group?”

“Yeah,” she said quickly. “He didn’t have one.”

“Hm.” she said. And then she smiled.

“So when are you coming back to school? Did it suck being here all day in bed?” Ariana sat down on the bed and laid back with Mayra.

“I should be back Monday. Might as well go ahead and take tomorrow off since it’s Friday.”

Ariana rolled her eyes but smiled.
 

“And yeah, it sucked. Someone’s supposed to take care of you when you’re sick, but my mom said she couldn’t miss work.” She pulled the covers up and stared at the television.

Ariana patted her hand. “Well, I’m here now. That reminds me.” She pulled a folder out of her bag.

“I picked up all of your missing work for today. And tomorrow, in case. Good thing I did.”

She handed it to Mayra, who opened it and groaned again, this time loud enough for the entire neighborhood to hear her.

“I don’t want make up work.” She threw it towards the end of the bed.
 

“At least you’ll have something to do tomorrow,” she said.
 

Another roll of the eyes, and she laid back down and put the covers over her head.

“So what else did I miss today that has nothing to do with actual work?” Her voice was muffled.