It Had to Be You Read online

  “What?”

  “That’s why Kyle hasn’t been around!” Why hadn’t I realized it sooner? “Because of my stupid brothers! He probably thinks if they see us together, they’ll start teasing us. He said their teasing didn’t bother him, but maybe it did!”

  “So I guess that means you don’t want to double-date with Aaron,” Caitlyn said glumly.

  “Double-dating with Aaron would be a disaster,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t go to the fair with him. If you like Aaron, you should just tell him.”

  Caitlyn gave me a horrified look. “I can’t!”

  “Then he’s never going to know you like him.” An idea popped into my head. “You know, Caitlyn. Sometimes you have to sink or swim.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  I grabbed her by the hand and dragged her out of my bedroom. “Come on!”

  “Where are we going?”

  “To the family room,” I said. “We’ll figure out what I’m going to wear later. Right now, we’re going to let Aaron know that you like him!”

  Getting Caitlyn downstairs was a battle. As soon as she heard that I planned to tell Aaron that she had a crush on him, she grabbed on to the banister at the top of the stairs and wouldn’t let go. Finally, I agreed that I wouldn’t say anything to Aaron if she agreed to come with me to the family room.

  “You like being around him, right?”

  “Yes,” she admitted, still refusing to let go of the banister.

  “Then we’ll hang out with him. See what he’s watching on TV. Maybe it’ll give the two of you something to talk about. And that could lead to other topics. Who knows? You both might have a lot in common.”

  Caitlyn eyed me suspiciously. “You promise not to tell him I like him?”

  I sighed. “I promise,” I said, crossing my heart. Of course I wasn’t going to say anything to Aaron. I wouldn’t be that mean! But I was hoping Caitlyn would think I would and tell him herself. “But if you like him, I want to try to help him realize that someone special is right under his nose. Is that okay?”

  “Yes,” she said, letting go of the banister. “But remember! You can’t tell him I like him!”

  “My lips are sealed!”

  When we arrived in the family room, all my thoughts of playing matchmaker for Caitlyn disappeared when I saw who was sitting on the couch with my brothers.

  Kyle.

  I was speechless.

  So much for my theory that he was afraid of my brothers teasing him! He and Aaron and Michael were talking nonstop, laughing and playfully shoving one another.

  At first I just stood there, not knowing what to say. Then Caitlyn elbowed me in the side and I found my voice.

  “Kyle!” I exclaimed, giving him a smile. “What are you doing here?”

  “I ran into Aaron when I was riding my bike and he invited me over.”

  “We’re going to watch some movies,” Michael said, slipping a disk into the DVD player.

  “What are you going to watch?” Caitlyn asked.

  “Horror movies,” Aaron said.

  Caitlyn squealed. “Ick! I hate horror movies.”

  So did I. All that blood. All that screaming. And never knowing when the killer was going to jump out and scare you! I’ll take a nice romantic comedy like Clueless or Legally Blond any day.

  “No one says you have to stay and watch,” Aaron said, reaching into a bowl of popcorn, his eyes glued to the TV screen.

  “Don’t hog it all!” Michael shouted, grabbing the bowl out of his hands and lying down on the rug.

  “Emma and I didn’t have any plans,” Caitlyn said, taking Michael’s empty seat next to Aaron. “We’ll stay. Okay with you, Em?”

  Even though I hated horror movies, this was a chance to spend some time with Kyle and I wasn’t going to pass it up!

  “Sure,” I said. “Caitlyn, this is Kyle, our new neighbor,” I introduced, pretending she didn’t know who he was. “Kyle, this is my best friend, Caitlyn.”

  “Caitlyn practically lives here,” Aaron said as the movie started and creepy horror music filled the room. “It’s like having two sisters.”

  Caitlyn gave me a panicked look. That was so not what she wanted to hear!

  I shrugged. My big brother was clueless. Unless someone told him that Caitlyn liked him, he wasn’t going to think of her as possible girlfriend material.

  “Hey, Em, turn off the light, would you?”

  Michael asked.

  I turned off the overhead light and took the empty seat next to Kyle. It wasn’t a tight fit, but I was sitting close enough next to him that our arms were touching. It was like static electricity! I actually shivered! And when I did, our arms bumped against each other some more. I started pondering how I could “accidentally” brush my arm against his again. Maybe…

  Hey!

  Wait a minute!

  Kyle had scootched away from me!

  We’d been sitting elbow to elbow and now there was a space between us!

  I looked across at Caitlyn, who was purposely not looking at the TV screen. I didn’t blame her. A hockey mask–wearing maniac was waving a bloody chain saw in the air. Ugh!

  “I’m going to get a soda,” I said. “Anyone want anything?”

  “Scared already, Em?” Aaron teased. “Better watch out or the boogeyman is gonna getcha!”

  I rolled my eyes. “Real mature, Aaron.”

  I headed into the kitchen and Caitlyn quickly followed.

  “What was up with the scootch?” Caitlyn asked before I could say anything.

  “You saw it too!” I gasped, opening up a can of root beer and taking a sip. “Then it wasn’t my imagination!”

  Caitlyn shook her head. “Nope.”

  “Is it my breath?” I asked, breathing into the palm of my hand. “We had hamburgers for dinner tonight but mine didn’t have any onions.”

  “Let me get a whiff,” Caitlyn said, sticking her face in front of my mouth and sniffing. “Minty fresh and a little root beery, but that’s it.”

  I sniffed under my arms, almost afraid to ask the question. “Do I have BO?”

  Caitlyn walked around me, sniffing closely. “All I smell is Coast soap, Downy fabric softener, and Sarah Jessica Parker’s Lovely perfume.”

  “Then what’s the problem?” I asked.

  Caitlyn shrugged. “He’s a guy. Who can figure them out?”

  I should, I thought to myself in frustration. After all, I’m Dear Daisy!

  Come on, Emma! I scolded myself. Think! Why would Kyle scootch away from you?

  What possible reason could there be?

  Unless…

  Unless he didn’t want my brothers to see how close we were sitting together. That could be why he’d scootched….

  “Should we head back out there?” Caitlyn asked, shivering as we heard a scream come from the TV.

  “No way,” I said, starting to open up the kitchen cabinets, looking for the ingredients to make chocolate chip cookies.

  By the time the cookies were ready, the movie was over. Caitlyn and I both went out to the family room with a big heaping plate of cookies.

  “Anyone in the mood for cookies?” I asked.

  Aaron and Michael instantly grabbed a handful of cookies from Caitlyn’s plate. No surprise there. They acted like they hadn’t eaten in weeks.

  “How about you, Kyle?” I asked, holding out my plate to him.

  “No thanks.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How was the movie?”

  “Okay.”

  “Were you scared? Even though I know it’s all fake, I still get scared.”

  “No.”

  “I haven’t seen you all week,” I said. “Where’ve you been?”

  “Around.”

  I wanted to scream! What was with the one-word answers? It was like Kyle didn’t want to talk to me. Had I done something to offend him?

  “Hey, Emma, do you mind if we talk
alone?” he asked.

  I scolded myself for once again jumping to conclusions. He was shy. That’s all it was! He didn’t want everyone else hearing what he had to say to me. Luckily, my brothers had started playing a video game. “Sure.”

  “Why don’t we go out on the front porch?” he suggested.

  Oooh! He wanted privacy!

  Privacy meant romance!

  Caitlyn heard Kyle ask me to go out on the front porch and clapped her hands happily as I followed him out of the family room.

  We went outside and I sat next to Kyle on our hanging porch swing, which was made of white wicker. The smell of freshly cut grass was still thick in the air from when Aaron had mowed the lawn earlier that night, along with the scent of my mother’s blooming roses in the front yard. There was a slight breeze and a full moon up in the sky. It was the perfect summer night. I felt this sudden surge of happiness. Anything seemed possible. It was summer—the time for romance!

  I wondered what Kyle wanted to talk to me about. He looked so serious! Like he didn’t know what he was supposed to do next. He was sitting at the far end of the swing. All stiff. Why didn’t he have his arm casually tossed on the back of the swing? That way when I sat next to him, he could then “casually” move his arm from the back of the swing to my shoulders.

  Unless…

  Maybe he was going to take me into his arms.

  Maybe he was going to give me my first kiss!

  I decided to sit next to him and see what would happen. I kept waiting for him to make a move, but he didn’t. We sat next to each other in silence until finally I turned to him and asked, “What did you want to talk to me about?”

  “I’m sorry this is so last minute but I can’t take you to the county fair tomorrow,” he said, not looking directly at me. It was like he was nervous. He was chewing his lower lip and his eyes kept wandering around, looking at anything but me. Almost like he didn’t want to face me. “Something’s suddenly come up.”

  My mouth dropped open. Those were the last words I’d been expecting to hear.

  I wanted to say something, but couldn’t. I didn’t know what to say.

  “Emma? Are you okay?”

  No, I was not okay. I was majorly disappointed! But it was my own fault. I’d built up a fantasy in my head, thinking that Kyle and I would go to the fair together and somehow, some way, our afternoon out as friends would turn into a romantic date.

  I finally found my voice.

  “It’s no big deal,” I said, trying to sound cheery. Calm. Not upset. Trying to sound like it didn’t bother me. But it did, all right. “These things happen. We’ll hang out together another time.”

  “Absolutely,” Kyle agreed, suddenly looking relieved. Like a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders. “Because I owe you for helping me out.”

  He owed me? Owed me?! That didn’t sound the least bit romantic!

  “I better get home,” Kyle said, getting off the swing. “I’ll see you around.”

  “See ya,” I said, watching as he walked across our front lawn to his house.

  When I went back inside, I found Caitlyn waiting by the front door. She instantly pounced on me, grabbing my arm and dragging me upstairs to my room.

  “Spill, spill, spill!” she cried once my bedroom door was closed, the better to keep out eavesdropping brothers. “My love life might be fizzling but yours is sizzling!”

  “Mine’s fizzling too,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Kyle can’t take me to the fair tomorrow,” I announced. I felt completely defeated.

  Shock washed over Caitlyn’s face. “He broke your date?”

  “It wasn’t a date,” I reminded her miserably.

  “What happened?”

  “He said something suddenly came up.”

  “What was the something that came up?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t ask.”

  “You didn’t ask?”

  “No, I didn’t!” I snapped, letting out all the feelings I’d been keeping bottled up inside. “He caught me completely off guard. The last thing I thought he was going to say was that he couldn’t take me to the fair. I was expecting a kiss. Not a kiss-off!”

  “Well, it really wasn’t a date,” Caitlyn said.

  I knew she was trying to make me feel better. Even though it hadn’t officially been a date, I’d been thinking of it as one. Part of me wanted to cry, and part of me just felt so stupid!

  “Are you disappointed?” she asked.

  “Yes. No. I don’t know. I haven’t felt this way since that crazy crush on Jackson Moore in seventh grade. But this felt different.”

  “How?”

  “I can’t explain it. I guess there was actually hope that he’d like me back…I mean, it’s not just that he’s cute. He’s so sweet with his family! Plus, he’s smart and wants to be an artist. I don’t know, it’s more than that. Like there’s something in the air between us. But I just can’t tell how he feels!”

  Caitlyn snapped her fingers. “I know what you should do!”

  “What?”

  “You should send an email to Dear Daisy.”

  I gulped. “Dear Daisy?”

  “She’s always giving out advice when people write in to her about their love problems.”

  “I don’t know, Caitlyn.”

  I couldn’t tell Caitlyn that Daisy wouldn’t be able to help me because I was Daisy. But she could see that I was upset and she wanted to help me feel better. I couldn’t deny her that.

  “What do you have to lose?” she asked.

  I sighed. “Okay, I’ll send an email to Daisy.”

  With Caitlyn looking over my shoulder, I typed out an email to Daisy. I decided to keep it short and sweet.

  Dear Daisy: There’s this boy that I like a lot but I don’t know if he likes me. Any advice?

  “She’ll tell you what to do,” Caitlyn stated confidently after I’d sent the email. “She’s such a love expert. She probably has guys calling her all the time!”

  Yeah, right! I thought.

  Chapter Nine

  “Let’s check to see if Daisy wrote back to you!”

  I groaned, burying my head under my pillow as bright morning sunshine filled my bedroom. I am not a morning person. Caitlyn, on the other hand, always wakes up early, no matter what time she goes to bed. Last night after we emailed Daisy, we stayed in my room and watched a My Super Sweet Sixteen marathon on MTV, screaming at the TV the entire time because we hated every girl in every episode. Talk about selfish monsters! When we couldn’t stand watching them anymore, we listened to CDs while flipping through magazines, talking about when we would turn sixteen and what kind of parties we wanted to have. We finally went to sleep at three A.M.

  I snuck a peek at my clock radio. It was nine A.M.

  “Caitlyn, it’s too early to get up,” I said, pulling the sheets over my head. I needed at least two more hours of beauty sleep!

  “It is not!” she insisted, pulling the sheets off me. “We’ve got a lot to do today!”

  “Like what?” I grumbled. “I’m dateless, remember? Not that I really had a date to begin with.”

  “That doesn’t mean we can’t still go to the fair and have a good time.”

  “I suppose.”

  “So Kyle’s not interested. Fine. His loss. That doesn’t mean some other cute guy isn’t going to want to go out with you.”

  But I don’t want to go out with some other guy. I want to go out with Kyle!

  I opened up one eye, realizing I could stay in bed feeling sorry for myself or I could follow Caitlyn’s advice. “What time do you want to go?”

  “That’s the spirit!” Caitlyn pulled me out of bed. “But first let’s check your email.”

  I knew there wouldn’t be an email waiting from Daisy, but I couldn’t tell Caitlyn that it was because I was Daisy and I hadn’t written to myself. When we checked my email account, the email Caitlyn was expecting wasn’t there.
<
br />   “She didn’t write back,” Caitlyn said with disappointment.

  “Maybe she hasn’t checked her email yet. Or she could be away.”

  “I guess.”

  “Why don’t you take a shower first?” I suggested.

  “Are you sure it’s safe for me to use the bathroom?” Caitlyn asked, sticking her head out into the hallway and looking to the left and right. “I’m not going to run into Aaron, am I?”

  “Aaron doesn’t get up until at least twelve on a Saturday. You’re safe. Trust me.”

  “Okay,” Caitlyn said, tiptoeing out of my bedroom and past Aaron’s closed door.

  After Caitlyn left I decided to log on to Daisy’s account. I had a plan. I was going to send an email to myself and then tell Caitlyn that “Daisy” had written back.

  But my plan was forgotten when I logged on to Daisy’s account and saw that in addition to the email I had sent last night, there was another one waiting.

  And it was from Romeo!

  I instantly opened it up, wondering what he had to say.

  Dear Daisy: Well, I followed your advice. But guess what? I can’t stop thinking about this girl. That must mean something, right? What should I do, Daisy? Make a move or just move on? Romeo

  I could hear the shower running in the background. I had some time, but not much. Caitlyn would be back soon. My fingers flew over my keyboard.

  Dear Romeo: Everyone thinks I have the answers when it comes to love, but I really don’t. The advice I gave you last time was wrong. Obviously it’s not working if you’re still into this girl. I don’t know you and I don’t know her. But maybe there’s a reason she’s acting so crazy. If you really like her, you should go after her. Give her another chance. Sometimes, when it comes to love, you have to fight for it. xoxox, Daisy

  After I sent the email and logged off, I felt like a huge load had been lifted off my shoulders. Suddenly, I no longer felt sorry for myself. I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t figure things out when it came to love. But hopefully I’d helped Romeo straighten out his love life. And that gave me a good feeling.

  What didn’t give me a good feeling was all the bright sunshine flooding into my bedroom. It was too intense and my room was getting hot. I needed to pull down the shades. As I walked over to the window, I caught a glimpse of Kyle outside of his house. I was going to call out a hello when I noticed that he wasn’t alone.