I came to the conclusion, as I was running for an extra hour after track practice one day, that my luck is the worst of any poor teenage girl in this school.  Not only was Natalie extra nice – making it incredibly hard for me to despise her – but Ji Ho had a couple of classes with her – making it incredibly easy for him to see just how nice she is.

                The cramp in my side pinched the air out of my lungs.

                So I ran faster.

                She’s so cool she actually lasted longer than a week.  Longer than a month!  Four weeks and five days to be exact.  Not like I was counting or anything.  The only thing that kept me from running screaming through the halls was that they weren’t official yet. 

                He just really liked her and liked hanging out with her.  She must have a damaged frontal lobe or something because she didn’t immediately fall madly in love with him.  So he just continued to patiently charm her.  And slow torture me.

                If this were a romance novel – the untrashy kind – set a century or two ago, I’m pretty sure he’d be courting her.  Making her the governess and me, the lame maid with a bum leg.

                Maybe I’m just grumpy because this Natalie girl is trying to take my friend.  Well, it won’t work, sweetheart.  Ugh, ok, maybe a little.  It’s not that Ji Ho stopped hanging out with me or something drastic like that, but he didn’t sleep over much anymore.  Maybe because he’s trying to do right by Natalie.

                Natalie.  What’s going on here?  What happened to the good old fashioned racist white people?  Why was she becoming such good friends with Ji Ho?  Ugh.

                What a dumb name.  Natalie.  I growled as I turned the corner of the track.  The arches of my feet were starting to sting.  Who am I kidding?  At least Natalie is a girl’s name.  What the hell kind of name is Jordan?  I’m pretty sure that was the name of a member in that New Kids on the Block band back in the 90s.  What a dumb name.  Jordan.

                It was a Friday.  I could run here for 48 hours and no one would notice.  My parents might come looking for me, actually.  If I’m going to miss dinner, I have to call.  I could take a break, call and tell them I’m going to spend the weekend at Amelia’s house.  And then I’d be free to run here until my lungs pop. 

                If only the muscle in my left leg hadn’t spazzed out making me fall to the paved track, tumbling a few feet into the fake grass surrounding the track like a tumbleweed.  Oh, ok, I’ll just rest here a minute, I thought casually as I curled into a ball, clutching at my leg.  Tears of pain streamed down my face.  How can I blame this on Natalie?

                “Are you insane?!” an angry voice scolded me.  I hacked and flopped onto my back, chest still heaving as I tried to in enough air to keep from dying.  I squinted in the sun to see who was yelling at me.

                “Ji Ho,” I panted.  “What are you doing here?”

                “Looking for your crazy ,” he muttered, sitting down and pulling my upper half into his lap.  He pushed my fluffy, frizzed out ponytail out of the way and began wiping the tears off my face.  I tried to roll out of his lap, but he grabbed my ear.

                “Ow…” I mumbled, collapsing back into his lap.

                “Good,” he sneered.  “How long were you running for?  Practice was over almost an hour ago.”

                “Oh?” I gasped, trying to sound nonchalant.  He put his hand over my heart for a second before pinching me in the side causing me to groan painfully.

                “Your heart feels like it’s going to explode.  Why did you stay after to run for so long?” he asked, somewhat angrily.

                Symbolism, I thought suddenly, proud I was paying attention in my English class.  I was symbolically running away from you and Natalie.

                “I don’t know.  I was working on my speed?” I guessed, realizing I was beginning to sound a little less like a dog lying out on a hot summer day.

                “You’re nuts,” he chided.  I let my head fall to the side onto his arm. “And all sweaty.  You smell.  Let’s go.  I came to find you to see if you wanted to go to the movies.”

                I thought about sitting up, but I liked feeling him near me.  Instead, I shifted my weight and hugged his leg.  “Yeah…” I answered slowly, my cheek on his knee.  “I’ll just meet you guys there.  I need to go home to shower and change.”

                “What guys?” he asked, running his fingers through my tangled hair.  “It’s just you and me, but you can invite some of the others if you want.”

                “…no, it’s ok.  I just thought Natalie or whoever would be coming.”

                “Oh, I didn’t think to invite her.  It’s been a while since me and you went to the movies, so I just thought-”

                “Yeah, no.  I mean yeah, it’s…let’s go.”  You’re a smooth talker, Jordan.

                We saw some crazy slasher, serial killer thriller imported from the States.  Ji Ho cracked up throughout the entire 97 minutes of blood and guts, but I was far too nauseated to laugh as much.

                Heading back to the subway, he was still laughing, reliving every gory moment.  I linked my arm with his because he tends to walk faster than me and if I had to stop to puke, I didn’t want him trucking on without me.  I let go once we got down to the platform waiting for the train so that I could pull my hair back.

                He watched me do it.  Smiling, he said, “I like your hair like that.”  He proceeded to pat the messy bun of hair sitting on top of my head.

                I swatted his hand away.  “I don’t ever know what else to do with this mess of curls.”

                He kept trying to dodge my hand to get his on my hair again.  “No, I mean, you’ve got great hair, but it’s out of your face like that,” he said, side stepping out of my reach.  Bobbing and weaving in a circle around me, he was still stretching for my hair.

                I caught one of his wrists, but he twisted around, grabbing my other hand and locking my own arms around myself.

                He cracked himself up as he spun me around.  He let go of my hands and draped an arm over my shoulders, standing casually as if we hadn’t just nearly gotten into an international scrap match.

                The automated voice came from above telling us in Korean and English that the train would be arriving soon.

                That was when I noticed the thin, pretty Korean girl in the baby doll tee shirt, mini skirt, and heels standing with her boyfriend a little ways away from us.  I’d seen her when we walked in, but I’d managed to ignore her.

                But now, I could feel her watching us.  The scrawny white girl with too much hair in clothes that looked like they’d been picked off the bedroom floor of a teenage boy.  Then the tall, built, attractive Korean guy with large brown eyes and spiky hair.  How odd.

               I watched the girl lean over and whisper to her boyfriend.  He laughed and nodded, also staring at us.

               If Ji Ho were here with Natalie, that Korean girl would be gawking out of jealousy not out of laughter.  She would have leaned over and asked her boyfriend if he thought the beauty with long golden hair was pretty and not if he saw the funny looking red head.

                Trying to avoid the girl’s scrutinizing eyes, I self consciously inched away from Ji Ho’s arm.  He looked to where I was looking, but didn’t seem to even notice we were being watched.

                “You ok?” he asked, still holding his arm out from me to come back under.

                The train pulled up.  I shook my head and watched as the girl and her boyfriend entered another car of the train.  I smiled up at Ji Ho and grabbed his hand.  “I’m ok, are you ok?”  He shook his head and laughed, but he let me pull him onto the train behind me.

                My stop was before his.  A stop before mine, I turned to him and asked, “Are you going home or are you going to hang out more with me?  Do you have plans?”

                “No plans,” he shrugged.  “I’ll go with you.”  I managed to look indifferent even though I was dancing on the inside.

                As we approached my building, I told him my window was open so he went around the side to scale the wall to my bedroom window.  My parents always waited up for me when I went out.

                I said goodnight to them as naturally as I could and then hurried up to my room.  Closing the door, I turned and faced my room.  I arched an eyebrow.

                It was empty.  “Ji Ho, where…?” I trailed off looking around.

                He sprung up out of nowhere and pounced on my bed.  A high pitched, shrieking sound that didn’t even sound human came out of me.

                Crap.  “Jo, honey, are you alright?” my dad called.  I heard his footsteps on the stairs.

                I sprinted over to Ji Ho, curled up into a ball on my bed, shaking from holding in his laughter.  “I’m ok, Dad!  It’s just a bug!”  I pounded on Ji Ho’s back once with one of my sneakers.  He gasped and coughed once into my comforter.  “Got it!”

                The footsteps stopped and I heard my dad chuckle.  “If the neighbors call the police, I’m going to tell them it was a killer bug.”

                “With big eyes!” I called back, winding up to hit Ji Ho again.

                As soon as the footsteps faded back down the stairs, I threw my shoes in the direction of my closet and glared at Ji Ho.  “I’m sorry,” he gasped still laughing.  “But the look on your face…”  He grabbed one of my pillows to cover his face as he cracked up all over again.

                Crawling on my knees onto my bed, I held the pillow down with both my hands.  Ji Ho growled and curled away.  Somehow he managed to switch positions with me, using the pillow to pin my arms against my body.  At this point, we were both laughing so hard, neither of us could breathe.  I won and was released, but by default.  He grew weak from trying to keep his laughter quiet and ending up collapsing next to me on his back.

                We stared up at the ceiling.  I hugged the pillow close to me and sighed.

                “Ah,” he sounded.  “My stomach hurts.”

                I giggled again.  “It’s been a while since I laughed like that with you.”  Or at least some weeks anyway.  Ugh.  Natalie.

                “Yeah, I guess we’ve always been in a group lately.  It’s been a while since it was just me and you.”

                I turned my head and clutched the pillow, giving him my best puppy dog look.  “I’ve been replaced, haven’t I?”