The Anti-Crush by Harper West

1

Elizabeth

I turnedanother page of my MCAT study guide while jotting down some notes with my free hand.

I'd been sitting at the desk over the last week, and I must say, I'd grown very accustomed to it. I'd read through the entire book twice, and I really wanted to get through it again tonight. No, I wasn’t a nerd, but I had been studying like crazy. McKenzie was afraid for my sanity, but I couldn’t help that. Every time I went through the book, I found another sentence or paragraph that I needed to memorize. At that rate, I was going to end up copying the whole book before I finished.

Using a scrunchie to tie up my long brown hair, I pushed my glasses back up on my nose. I really should just get contacts, but who had the time. It was all I could do to remain hydrated.

Pursing my lips, I reached for my fourth cup of coffee for today and restarted “Hedwig's Theme” from the Harry Potter movies. I loved listening to movie scores while studying. It let me replay the scenes in my head and provided a nice distraction from the monotony that I put myself through. It was a trick I had learned in high school that had stayed with me for years. The songs had changed, but the concept stayed the same. Even now, I would be watching the movies and the song would come up and I would start to think about what I was studying when I last listened to that song.

"Eli!" McKenzie burst into the room, startling me from my thoughts. She had decided that Eli was far more trendy than Elizabeth, and thus the nickname had stuck.

"Oh my God!" I said and knocked my drink off the desk. The coffee spilled everywhere, but thankfully not onto my books.

Though McKenzie and I had been best friends for years, we couldn't possibly have been any more different. She was a hurricane mixed with a tornado. Gorgeous, outgoing, and charismatic, she seemed to get along with just about everyone she met. I, however, did not. She exuded confidence, and all kinds of people gravitated to her as if under her spell.

More than that, she was spontaneous. She simply jumped into whatever interested her at the moment, and she swiftly moved on to her next obsession, bulldozing anyone in her path with her sweet smile and engaging laugh. Her enthusiasm was infectious, and as much as I dreaded it sometimes, there was never a dull moment with her. Maybe opposites did attract after all, even in platonic cases such as ours.

"Eli, what are you doing? Why haven't you answered me? Are you almost ready?” She blanched, without stopping to breathe. “Oh God, you're not wearing that are you? Please tell me you're not wearing that. We have to leave in like three minutes." Her sentences ran together in such a rush, it was hard to keep up, and all I could do was stare at the rapidly chattering blonde.

“Leave where?” I asked, but McKenzie wasn’t really listening.

She wasn’t a bad friend, or selfish, or anything like that. McKenzie was always moving ten times faster than the world around her, and at times I wondered how her body kept up with her brain and vice versa. She was tall, slim, and basically perfect—a stark contrast to me. At least, in my mind. I glanced down at the black heels that elongated her legs, then back to my faded Converse.

"Well?" she demanded, as she turned toward the mirror in a sleek orange dress that I would never be caught dead in.

"Um, you look nice," I said as she began to apply more red lipstick. I didn’t know why she bothered. She already had perfect hair and make-up; the extra sheen on her already plump lips was unnecessary.

"You should definitely change. You need something dressier, more attractive... But still in your comfort zone, so you know, not showing too much skin. I know how you hate that." McKenzie never looked up from the mirror as she talked, and I couldn’t fathom how she applied lipstick with her mouth moving that fast.

"Something like what you're wearing?" I joked. "Cause my mom would kill me and call me some kind of hoochie mama."

"Your mom is uptight," she said as she turned to face me with a shrug, "But you have to find something because you're going to look like you’re from an entirely different world with your oversized college sweatshirt and sweatpants.”

I glanced down at my attire before meeting my best friend’s gaze. "I'm studying; this is what I wear when I'm studying."

"Yes, but study time is over," she said as she over walked to the closet.

"McKenzie, I seriously have no idea what you're talking about. Ready for what?" I grabbed my phone to see a dozen missed phone calls and text messages, all from McKenzie. I must have turned it on silent instead of vibrate again and missed them all. It wasn’t intentional, but Freud might say there was more to it than the accident I tried to blow it off as.

"For our date! Oh my God, you aren't backing out on me now? You promised!" She pouted and stomped her foot like a toddler. "I'm not letting you sit in this dorm all night when you promised you would be my second on our double blind date!"

I closed my eyes and dropped my head as I realized what she was talking about. I had reluctantly agreed to go on a blind date with her, mainly to stop her begging and to get her to shut up. "I completely forgot about it. I have been swamped with studying, and honestly, I'm still not done, so I don't think—"

"Oh no. You're not doing this," McKenzie said as she grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me upright. "You've been studying every night this week. In fact, all you do is study. You need to give yourself a break sometimes. You can take one night off. Besides, you promised. And if you don't go, I can't go, and I really want to go." She gave me a pleading look; it was the same expression she gave everyone that got her everything her little heart ever desired. No one ever said no to McKenzie—including me.

I groaned and lowered my head to my desk. I knew I should be studying, and, honestly, I wanted to study more than I wanted to go meet some random guys. But Kenz was right, too. I probably needed to get out of this room for a bit. My mind could use a bit of a break.

"Okay fine, but," I said as she started to squeal with excitement. “But, we are leaving by midnight. I have got to finish this paper tonight before I go to sleep."

"Okay, Cinderella," she said with an excited laugh. "Now, about that outfit."

* * *

We walkedinto the dark Italian restaurant and toward the hostess stand. I was very aware of the people who stared in our direction. They weren't staring at me, though.

McKenzie's orange dress would make anyone else look like a giant traffic cone, but on her, it had that “straight off the runway” feel. She could pull off just about any fashion risk. Maybe even set new trends. I, on the other hand, had opted for a simple, pale blue shift dress. I hated calling attention to my athletic build, so the looser fit made me feel better. While my best friend enjoyed having people take notice, I preferred to blend in with the wallpaper.

"Hi, we have a reservation for four under Tanner," McKenzie said cheerfully. She seemed to be oblivious to the stares. "They may be here already, but I'm not sure."

“Uh, yeah, no," the hostess said as she looked McKenzie up and down with a less-than-friendly appraisal. She was fully made up, and although clearly younger than McKenzie and me, the hostess was apparently bothered that the attention shift and needed to exert a bit of power. "No one is here yet, and we need your whole party present to seat you, so you'll need to let me know when that happens."

A man in a suit walked over just as McKenzie said, "Oh, I was hoping to sit down and order a drink while we waited for them to get here."

“Yeah, unfortunately—” But her words were cut off by whoever this new guy was.

"Of course, we can go ahead and seat you," he smiled. "Jessica, can you please take the lovely ladies to table eighteen?"

The hostess—Jessica—seemed annoyed, but apparently couldn't fight back against this guy, so she took the menus and led the way. Giving one final irritated look at McKenzie, she placed our menus on a private table and stalked off.

“Well, she was bitchy for no reason,” McKenzie said as she picked up the menu and started perusing the cocktail choices.

I wasn’t surprised by the whole scene. McKenzie tended to have that effect on other beautiful women without even realizing it. I didn’t know why, but it seemed that there was always some secret competition going on that average girls like me were never privy to, and the beautiful girls didn’t want to participate in, even though they were the ones doing the judging. I’d never understand it. To be honest, I’m not sure I would’ve understood even if I were privy to it. I hated the way some women made everything in life a competition. You can still rise while lifting others up, ladies.

"What time was the reservation for?" I asked, glancing at my watch.

"Seven o’clock, I think," she said. "Why? What time is it?"

"7:08." It wasn’t an terrible amount of time for someone to be late, but all I could think about was the paper I needed to finish writing before I went to bed, the next round of reading on the MCAT study guide, and the fact that I had other things I needed to be doing. I just wanted to leave, but I promised McKenzie that I would go through with this.

"Hey, look," McKenzie said as the hostess guided a tall guy with short brown hair toward our table. His baby face made him look younger than he probably was, but he was attractive in spite of it.

When he reached our table, he smiled. "Um, hi, I'm Tanner. Are either of you McKenzie?"

"That would be me," McKenzie replied and gave a little wave. "Are you alone?" she asked, as she glanced behind him and then at the door.

"Yes. I mean, no. Nathan is on his way, he just got held up. He’ll be here in just a few minutes, though.” He finally looked at me and extended his hand. “Sorry. And you are?”

"Elizabeth," I said and shook his outstretched hand. "Nice to meet you."

"Nathan and I have both been looking forward to this. I'm just glad we could all get our schedules to work out; it's a stressful time with exams," he said as he slid into the booth next to McKenzie.

"Tell me about it. This is the toughest time of the semester," she said, and I wondered where that came from. McKenzie was definitely not the die-hard student she was making herself out to be. But Tanner bought into her line, and they dove straight into small talk about school while I sat back and tried to get comfortable. There was definitely immediate chemistry between them. It was something I’d always envied about Kenzie. She effortlessly bonded with people—men and women—but I loved seeing her happy, This guy had already brought out her true laugh—not the giggle that she used to placate guys, but the genuine one that told me they’d connected.

I didn’t want to interrupt them getting to know each other, but I wasn’t exactly caught up in the décor, either. Any other time, Kenzie and I would have found a way to entertain each other, making up stories about the people around us and what they were doing here. But as my mind wanted to turn this into a mafia-fiction saga starring two thugs at table seven across the way, the couple in front of me kept throwing that dynamic off. The dark green walls were accented with thick red curtains covering the top portion of each window. The tables were dressed with white linens and topped with candles that were emitting most of the light in the room. It was quite romantic and the perfect place for young love to blossom, and thus the tale of two Sopranos morphed into new adult romance, staring my best friend and her date across the table.

I wasn’t interested in anything remotely close to love or a relationship, but I didn’t mind casting Kenzie and Tanner in leading roles to entertain myself for the time being. I had plans, and achieving them required an intense focus most people didn’t possess. Though, clearly, I didn’t possess it right now, either, since I was writing Kenzie’s wedding vows and scripting her love-at-first-sight plot.

School had always been my first love anyhow—the daydreaming was just a pastime I had cooked up with McKenzie to elicit giggles in the quad or wherever else we found ourselves bored and people watching. My mind volleyed between the couple before me and my ever-growing to-do list back home. Maybe I could mix up my studying locations one of these days and come here for pasta and light MCAT prep? That reminded me, I had a paper on molecular biology that I needed to finish and had spent the day studying the MCAT instead of writing, a decision I was now regretting horribly. Great. More work.

As I tried not to stare at Kenzie and Tanner or look too out of place, clearly a third wheel on a romantic date, I silently prayed this other guy wouldn’t show. If he were MIA, then I could excuse myself from the rest of the date and get back to the dorm early. That would leave McKenzie and Tanner to get to know each other better without me tagging along and let me get back to work. They seemed to be getting cozy, and at any minute, the waitress was going to come by and ask for our order. It would remind them that they weren’t alone or worse, I’d sneeze or cough, interrupting their non-stop banter. My casual dismissal would be a win-win for everyone. I glanced at my phone. Okay, fifteen more minutes then I could bail. That was more than enough time to seem patient without looking like I was a flakey friend or becoming the trike to their bike.

"What do you think, Elizabeth?" McKenzie asked.

"I'm sorry, what?" I said, bringing my thoughts back to the conversation.

"What do you think about athletes?" she asked. "Have you dated any in the past?"

"Oh, uh… no, not really. I'm not against it or anything, I just haven't really had the opportunity." I chose my words carefully. I didn't want to let on that I hadn't really dated many athletic guys in the past because I hadn't really dated at all. Dating took a backseat to my education, and when you were trying to get into med school, everything took a backseat to the MCATs. I'd hung out with a few guys, sure, but nothing ever became serious or official.

"Oh well, Nathan was fairly athletic in high school but has been trying to focus more on academics lately. We’re both pre-law, so we're studying a lot and have a hard time getting out to meet people," Tanner said, gazing at McKenzie like he wanted to enjoy her for dinner instead of an entrée. "He’s a great guy and a great friend. If he could just get here…" he trailed off as he stared toward the entrance.

As if on cue, the door opened, and in walked a tall, handsome man with blond hair styled into a faux-hawk that was painfully familiar. As he strode closer, the athletic build, high cheekbones, and full lips came into focus and the horrible picture became more clear. God, I wished it were anyone but the man I'd nearly forgotten—or better yet, prayed I’d never remember.

"Hey, man. Sorry I'm late," he looked over his shoulder at the hostess who ogled him as she walked back to the front.

The world faded away as a wave of memories came flooding back in an instant. I knew him all too well.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Nathan—as in Nathan Phillips.

He was the golden boy”of Adams High School. My high school. Nathan was the epitome of a popular jock—king shit on turd hill. He had been the star quarterback and was offered a full ride to college, where he carried out his legacy and became the all-star college quarterback. But none of that mattered to me.

The part of Nathan that made my blood run cold was how he had treated me in high school. He and his friends made fun of me mercilessly and caused more than one night of crying myself to sleep. That group of football jocks was the reason I had wanted to run away from high school and never look back. They’d made my teenage years a living hell, and I didn’t care to relive or remember a single minute of it.

"Hi, I'm Nathan," he said, staring at McKenzie as he shook her hand.

I used my hair to hide my face and raised the menu between us. I had no idea what I was trying to accomplish, but I was hoping to buy time to figure out exactly how I was going to deal with him. Maybe I could still make a run for it, push him out of the way, knock him over, tackle him as I made a break for the front door. And by the time anyone realized what had happened, I’d be in the parking lot and good as gone.

"It's so nice to meet you. I'm McKenzie, and this…” she puts her hand out toward me, "is-"

"Elizabeth," he said, breathless, as I lowered the menu and peered up at his face.

We stared hard at each other for a long second. I assumed this was when his memories came flooding back like mine had a moment before. I was certain he was thinking of all the negative things that had taken place between us not that many years ago.

Though part of me hoped he noticed the changes in me.

After high school, I had adopted a better fitness routine, lost some weight, and toned up a bit. It was hard to see most of this from where he was standing, but my face was probably a bit slimmer as well. I had worked hard to make myself as proud of my outside as I was of the inside.

"Do you guys know each other or something?" McKenzie asked, looking back and forth between Nathan and me.

The tension was almost palpable and neither of us spoke. I wasn't sure how we were going to explain this one, much less sit down and have a meal together.

"Yeah, actually. We, uh… we went to the same high school," Nathan finally said, his eyes still on me.

I shifted to make room for him in the booth next to me, seeing no other alternative since McKenzie and Tanner were sitting together on the other side. He slid in, and I practically plastered myself to the wall so I could avoid touching him, sharing space with him, or even breathing the same air. He seemed to have the same idea as he sat as close to the edge as possible, leaving a significant gap in between us.

"That is so great!" McKenzie clapped her hands with glee. She seemed oblivious to the awkwardness that hung heavily in the air. Despite being a social butterfly, McKenzie often missed subtle social cues like this.

"Oh yeah, so great," I said sarcastically as I looked back at the menu and planned to indulge in carbs for the first time in many years.