Page 29 of Sending Love Letters to Animals

“Uh, what?” I gasped. “Wh-what are you talking about?”

“The sign-up sheet by the auditorium?” Davud asked. “Mr. Melvin was putting it up when Mom dropped me off at the front door. It had your name on it.”

“Oh!” I laughed, my fear melting away immediately. “No. Uh, I just got volunteered to help him select songs and do the auditions and stuff. I’m not performing. I can’t hold a tune, dude.”

“Yeah. I’ve heard you sing,” Davud said, slyly. “I was kind of concerned.”

“Jerk.”

“I would have supported you anyway. I just had to mentally prepare myself for the screeching.”

As we made our way into the science hall, we were laughing and jabbing at each other, my mind pushing away any thoughts of Chris Beale.

Much to my surprise, Chris’ stubbornness was not fleeting. When he saw me in the hall before school the next day, it was like he was looking right through me. Not even a smirk or a frown. His indifference to my presence was worse than if he cursed me out in front of everyone. Quite simply, Chris ignored the fact that I even existed. He walked right by me the following morning when we were heading to our first classes.

I didn’t try to force him to talk to me, though. If one thing dealing with Juno for my entire life taught me, it was that you can’t fight stubbornness with more stubbornness. Then it becomes a competition, and things keep escalating until you’re on the verge of war. On the second day that he ignored me, I simply ignored him back. I didn’t let it bother me—mostly—and I didn’t try to force him to change his mind, either.

Theoretically, I figured that within a few days, he’d realize that ignoring me meant not completing the project. Not completing the project meant that he wouldn’t have a report to give at the end of the twelve weeks. Not having a report to give meant that he would get a big, fat zero for a grade. While that wouldn’t ruin his entire senior year, it would affect his GPA for English. I knew Chris well enough to know that his grades did matter to him.

Of course, I didn’t know if he hated me more than he loved good grades, so my strategy wasn’t perfect. It was the only one that I had, though, so I stuck with it. Besides, if I wasn’t bothering him, he wasn’t bothering me. Having Chris mind his own business while we were both at school was the best-case scenario. At least, it was the best scenario I could conjure up.

When a full week had passed and Chris was still ignoring me at school, I began to panic a bit. He wouldn’t talk to me when we passed in the halls. He wouldn’t even glance at me in English. At lunchtime, he sat with people I didn’t know well and blatantly avoided my gaze if I tried to get his attention.

Over the weekend, I composed a text to him at least a hundred times, deleting it every time. Then I tried to force myself to write an email that might settle things between us enough so that we could work together on the project. Each time, I chickened out. What could I possibly say—especially in a text or email—that would make things better overnight?

By the following Monday, it became apparent that Chris wasn’t merely being stubborn. We were in a full-on standoff. Chris had absolutely no intention of ever speaking to me. Certainly, any text or email I could’ve sent would have been ignored, similarly to how my actual presence went unnoticed at school. Chris was torturing me. At least, that’s how it felt. Maybe he wanted me to give up and leave him alone, take the “L” for the English project, and move on with my life. However, it felt more personal than that. For reasons that only Chris and I knew.

Ms. Tabatabai didn’t make things better for me, either. Every single day in English class she’d ask the class how things were going. Mostly, people grumbled some sort of noncommittal response. It helped somewhat knowing that there weren’t any other enthusiastic pairs in class. However, I knew almost everyone was getting annoyed by the parameters of the project. Most of them were happy with, or at least fine with, their partners.

On Friday, at the end of two full weeks, I had mostly given up on maintaining my GPA in English. If Chris wouldn’t work with me on the project, there wasn’t much I could do about it. Of course, I could have gone to Ms. Tabatabai and laid things out, begged to be given a new partner. Or, since that really wasn’t an option because I’d barely had a partner to begin with, I could’ve asked for an alternative assignment.

Then again, she would have wanted to know why Chris refused to work with me on the project. She would have had questions. Uncomfortable questions with equally uncomfortable answers that I wasn’t sure I wanted to provide. My options for solving my problem with Chris were practically nonexistent. It was on that Friday that I decided to simply give up and let the cards fall where they may. It wasn’t ideal, but I couldn’t see any other way out of the mess I’d found myself in simply because Chris was the new transfer student.

“Earth to Ryan,” Jules said. “Are you there?”

We had been walking to English from lunch, as we always did, her arm locked through mine with her boob resting on my forearm.

“Huh?” I shook my head clear.

“Boy, what is going on with you?” she asked. “You have been a total space cadet for two weeks.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I guess I’m just tired. I’m ready for the weekend, you know?”

It was obviously a lie, and Jules wasn’t stupid. But she let it go. We’d been friends long enough that she knew when to not press me on something.

“Mmhm.” She hummed. “We still on for movies tonight?”

“Yeah,” I said mindlessly. “I guess.”

“Glad to hear you’re excited about it,” she replied. “Let’s meet, like, at eight. I finally caved in and told Connor we’d meet at Starbucks to work on the project together.”

“Oh.”

“Gotta do something. Time is wasting, you know?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“I don’t know how he thinks we can get to know each other at a coffee shop without talking, but whatever,” Jules said as we approached our classroom. “But since we won’t get dinged for it, it’s fine. As long as we get it done.”