Crossing the Barrier by Martine Lewis

Wes had tried to bury the hatchet in his own way, and Malakai owed it to him to make an effort.
    Half an hour later, he pulled into the parking lot of their usual burger joint and walked into the restaurant. He looked around and spotted Wes with Zoe and Andrea, sitting at a table along the window. He should have known this was a setup, especially since he was now showing interest in someone Zoe didn’t approve of.
    He considered leaving, but before he could, Andrea looked up and smiled. With no other choice, Malakai slowly made his way to them. The girl must have a sixth sense; she always seemed to know when he was around.
    “Hi, Malakai,” Andrea said bubbly, waving her hand in greeting as he approached.
    Malakai took the empty seat next to her. Andrea was pretty tonight, and her shirt ran low to show some cleavage. Any guy would be blind not to see how cute she was, but something wasn’t clicking with her.
    “Hi,” he said, then turned and looked pointedly at Wes across the table.
    Wes was grinning. “Zoe and Andrea wanted to join. I couldn’t say no.”
    Déjà vu all over again.
    Of course you couldn’t , Malakai thought.
    All throughout dinner, Andrea was her usual self: bubbly and fun again, but Malakai wished Lily was the one sitting next to him instead, and David sitting across from him. He wondered for a moment which girl would be sitting next to the friendly and uncomplicated junior.
    Once dinner was over, Malakai walked Andrea to her car. Again, he knew the news of their going out would be all over school by tomorrow. He only hoped when Lily heard, she wouldn’t think anything of it. Because he was certain she would hear. Someone would make sure she did.
    Once they got to Andrea’s car, she opened the driver’s side door and turned to face him.
    “I had a great time,” she said.
    “Good,” Malakai said, at a lack of what else to say.
    He couldn’t very well say he had a great time too as it would have been a lie, especially since all throughout dinner, he had thought of Lily.
    “Maybe we should go by ourselves some time.”
    Before Malakai could formulate a response, Andrea did something he had not expected. She stood on her tiptoes, put her arms around his neck, and pulled him toward her. In the next moment, her lips were on his, and Malakai was too surprised to pull away. She did smell good, strawberries and cream, but she didn’t smell right.
    He liked green tea.
    As thoughts of Lily crossed his mind, he pulled away, grabbing Andrea’s arms and removing them from around his neck. And just in time because Andrea’s tongue had touched his lips in an attempt to deepen the kiss.
    Malakai took a step back and looked at the girl. She was nice, she was more than all right, but she was all wrong for him. Her kissing him hadn’t done anything for him while a simple touch from Lily set him on fire.
    Lily.
    It was all about Lily.
    “Listen, Andrea, you’re nice and all, and pretty too, but I don’t think I’m the guy for you,” he said, trying to let her off as easily as he could.
    “I thought you liked me.”
    “Well, I do. As a friend.”
    “Okay,” Andrea said, looking away.
    “I’ll see you tomorrow at school,” he said, turning around and taking a step to leave.
    “It’s that band girl, isn’t it? Lily?” Andrea asked, her voice cracking.
    Malakai stopped and sighed. He didn’t know how to answer that, and he felt like a loser for making Andrea cry.
    Slowly, he turned around. “Andrea, go home,” he said gently, instead of answering.
    As he walked away, his thoughts returned to Lily, the girl he wanted to get to know more, the one he wanted to talk to, the one who was able to chase the loneliness away. But he didn’t even have her phone number. He hadn’t dared ask her, and to be honest with himself, he didn’t know how. One would think walking up to someone and saying “I want your phone number” would be easy, but with Lily, it was the hardest thing in the world. She was