Can True Love Survive High School? by Natalie Standiford Read Free Book Online

thing about loving a teacher. You longed, you yearned, but for what exactly? It was so unlikely you'd get anywhere with him that you didn't have to think that far ahead.
    “You're going to be his girlfriend,” Ramona finally announced.
    And that was what Lina wanted. But somehow she found it hard to picture.
    “We'll start slow,” Ramona said. “What we want, by, say, the end of the month, is for him to think of you as different from the other students. Special.”
    Secretly, Lina hoped he already felt this way. “That's not enough.”
    “Okay. The two of you have to be somewhere alone together. Not school-related. And it has to be understood that what you're doing is not a student-teacher thing, but a guy-girl thing.”
    “It's kind of vague—”
    “I've got it. We'll send him a note from ‘a secret admirer’ and get him to meet us somewhere. You'll go up to him with a black veil over your face, so he can't see who you are, and then—”
    “Ramona—” Lina elbowed her in the ribs. A familiar figure was walking toward them down the boardwalk.
    “What? I'm on a roll here. Then, when the moment is right, you rip off the veil—”
    “Ramona! Look!” Lina nodded at the man, who was coming closer. It was him. Dan.
    Ramona clutched Lina's arm. “Oh my god! It's him!
    I conjured him with my psychic brain waves! I knew I had powers!”
    “Ow—Ramona, your claws are digging into my skin.” Lina peeled Ramona's hand off her arm.
    “This is a sign,” Ramona whispered. “This is our moment. We've got to act NOW!”
    “How? What are we going to do?”
    “Just go!” Ramona yanked Lina to her feet. Dan had nearly reached them.
    “Ramona, stop it!” Lina whispered. “I thought you had to go home and cast a spell on some real estate.”
    “That can wait.”
    “At least tell me what the plan is!”
    Ramona said nothing. She pushed Lina into Dan's path. He couldn't help but notice her—she was blocking his way.
    “Hi, girls,” he said mildly.
    Lina stared at his thin frame, clad as usual in a vintage suit. That day he wore a particularly cool skinny tie, gray-green with a single horizontal red stripe across the middle. It was amazing that after all she'd been through with him—the pseudonymous e-mails, the aborted secret lunch in the city, months of sitting in class listening to him stammer out educational information about sex and relationships, even the occasional private student-teacher conference—in spite of all that, she still melted at the sight of him, still got tongue-tied. At that moment, her tongue felt as if it had swollen to the size of a Mallomar. It filled her mouth uncomfortably and refused to move.
    “Hi, Dan,” Ramona said. RSAGE was the kind of school where you could call your teachers by their first names. “It's disgustingly sunny out, isn't it? I wish it would rain again. Where are you off to?”
    “The Marina Café,” Dan said. “What are you two doing?”
    Lina had stepped out of his direct path, so he started walking again, slowly. Ramona and Lina walked along with him.
    “Just sitting on a bench discussing what a downer life is,” Ramona said.
    “Come on, Ramona,” Dan said. “Is life really so bad?”
    “If you look at it straight, without all the filters our society imposes on it—yes,” Ramona said. “Life sucks. But I don't have to tell
you
that. You're a man of the world, intelligent and all. You know the score.”
    Lina watched Dan's face. His pale eyebrows twitched slightly. He was trying not to roll his eyes at Ramona's ridiculousness. Lina was sure of it.
    “Anyway, until we're ready to slough off our mortal coils, we still have to eat,” Ramona said. “We were just saying we wanted to stop somewhere for a snack. Weren't we, Lina?”
    Lina nodded. “Um, yes.” They were getting closer to the Marina Café. Lina could see that most of the outside tables were full. A group of six or so was just settling down at a large round table on the deck.
    “Well,