daydreaming. Urgh! Is this why so many of my friends are boy-crazy? Does a switch flip inside their heads that makes it impossible to think of anything but guys?
Is this what makes Tessa so insane?
I need Josh to stand five feet away from me with one of his high-powered water guns and shoot me in the head. Or in the heart.
I don’t want to be this way. I want to be my same, reliable, studious self. Dependable. Even-tempered. Logical. Focused on important things like my classes rather than on whether or not Connor Strabinowski might kiss me again. With the (whopping three) guys I’ve gone out with before, my brain didn’t suffer this kind of poisoning, and—as much as I want to—I can’t attribute the disparity solely to the fact I share Connor’s MIT dreams.
Bottom line: They didn’t kiss me like Connor did.
“You have a boyfriend these days, Peyton?” Tessa asks. “Maybe a cute guy Mom and Dad and Josh don’t know about?”
My head whips up so fast it’s a wonder I don’t injure myself. “Why do you ask?”
Tessa laughs at my suspicious tone. “Just curious! You don’t have to tell me. The thing is, Matt introduced me to yoga. But that’s all he did. As much as I adore him, as much as his hard work inspires me to do the same, the teacher training was my idea. That’s what Mom and Dad can’t comprehend. There’s a difference between doing something because a guy is telling you to do it—no matter how wonderful you are together—and pursuing it because it’s what you truly want. I mean, if Matt dumped me tomorrow, I’d still want to do the teacher training. I wouldn’t take his class, obviously, but I’d find a teacher training program I liked and enroll.”
She exhales. I think she’s finally winding down. “This is about what I want to do in life. My future. Not about any possible future I might have with Matt. I’ve figured out that having or keeping a boyfriend isn’t entirely within my control, but my career? That can be. Knowing you, you’d do the same thing in my shoes. Wouldn’t you?”
“I hope.” I fiddle with the pencil I’d sharpened right before Tessa called. “I wouldn’t want my boyfriend—not that I have one—diverting me from what I really wanted to do.” That’s been Tessa’s record, despite what she says now. Her senior year of high school, she and her then-boyfriend got busted at Burger King at ten in the morning by the principal’s husband. He didn’t buy their story that they were eating egg and cheese sandwiches as research for a class project. In fact, Tessa missed turning a class project because she was at Burger King.
Maybe she’s finally learned from her mistakes?
“The thing is, I know that yoga teacher training isn’t the expected thing for an accounting major to pursue, Matt or no Matt. But sometimes, you know a decision is the right one.”
“Then do it,” I tell her. Because really, what’s her choice? She either does it or not. Griping to me might make her feel better, but it doesn’t solve her problem.
My three-word recommendation is met with a dramatic sigh. Five bucks says she’s sitting on the beat-up orange sofa in her dorm suite, holding her coffee mug and rolling her eyes at me. “I can’t until Mom and Dad see this from my point of view. They’re all hot to pay for college but won’t pay for this. I can’t convince them that it’s all education. The yoga teacher training and the accounting degree complement each other. I mean, how can someone run a yoga studio if they can’t manage the business side of things? And it gives me a backup plan. If I end up being a terrible yoga teacher, I can still get a straight-up accounting job. By the same token, if I discover that I’m a great teacher but lousy at running a business, I could teach at someone else’s studio. This is smart. And it’s what I really want, even if—”
“Tessa,” I interrupt. “If you
Is this what makes Tessa so insane?
I need Josh to stand five feet away from me with one of his high-powered water guns and shoot me in the head. Or in the heart.
I don’t want to be this way. I want to be my same, reliable, studious self. Dependable. Even-tempered. Logical. Focused on important things like my classes rather than on whether or not Connor Strabinowski might kiss me again. With the (whopping three) guys I’ve gone out with before, my brain didn’t suffer this kind of poisoning, and—as much as I want to—I can’t attribute the disparity solely to the fact I share Connor’s MIT dreams.
Bottom line: They didn’t kiss me like Connor did.
“You have a boyfriend these days, Peyton?” Tessa asks. “Maybe a cute guy Mom and Dad and Josh don’t know about?”
My head whips up so fast it’s a wonder I don’t injure myself. “Why do you ask?”
Tessa laughs at my suspicious tone. “Just curious! You don’t have to tell me. The thing is, Matt introduced me to yoga. But that’s all he did. As much as I adore him, as much as his hard work inspires me to do the same, the teacher training was my idea. That’s what Mom and Dad can’t comprehend. There’s a difference between doing something because a guy is telling you to do it—no matter how wonderful you are together—and pursuing it because it’s what you truly want. I mean, if Matt dumped me tomorrow, I’d still want to do the teacher training. I wouldn’t take his class, obviously, but I’d find a teacher training program I liked and enroll.”
She exhales. I think she’s finally winding down. “This is about what I want to do in life. My future. Not about any possible future I might have with Matt. I’ve figured out that having or keeping a boyfriend isn’t entirely within my control, but my career? That can be. Knowing you, you’d do the same thing in my shoes. Wouldn’t you?”
“I hope.” I fiddle with the pencil I’d sharpened right before Tessa called. “I wouldn’t want my boyfriend—not that I have one—diverting me from what I really wanted to do.” That’s been Tessa’s record, despite what she says now. Her senior year of high school, she and her then-boyfriend got busted at Burger King at ten in the morning by the principal’s husband. He didn’t buy their story that they were eating egg and cheese sandwiches as research for a class project. In fact, Tessa missed turning a class project because she was at Burger King.
Maybe she’s finally learned from her mistakes?
“The thing is, I know that yoga teacher training isn’t the expected thing for an accounting major to pursue, Matt or no Matt. But sometimes, you know a decision is the right one.”
“Then do it,” I tell her. Because really, what’s her choice? She either does it or not. Griping to me might make her feel better, but it doesn’t solve her problem.
My three-word recommendation is met with a dramatic sigh. Five bucks says she’s sitting on the beat-up orange sofa in her dorm suite, holding her coffee mug and rolling her eyes at me. “I can’t until Mom and Dad see this from my point of view. They’re all hot to pay for college but won’t pay for this. I can’t convince them that it’s all education. The yoga teacher training and the accounting degree complement each other. I mean, how can someone run a yoga studio if they can’t manage the business side of things? And it gives me a backup plan. If I end up being a terrible yoga teacher, I can still get a straight-up accounting job. By the same token, if I discover that I’m a great teacher but lousy at running a business, I could teach at someone else’s studio. This is smart. And it’s what I really want, even if—”
“Tessa,” I interrupt. “If you
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