Crushing On The Wrong Joshua (Crushing on You 3)

“I don't want to talk about it,” Amber said.

“Fine, but if you want to spill it later you know where to find me,” Tamara said.

“Let's just get to class,” Amber sighed.

Drama was usually one of her favorite classes, but today she couldn't concentrate on the monologue she was supposed to be memorizing.

“I'm supposed to be moving on and not thinking about Joshua Nelson,” Amber said to herself staring at her monologue with unseeing eyes, “I shouldn't be cold towards the other Joshua just because he isn't as great as Joshua Nelson.”

Amber spent the rest of the day debating whether she would go to the library or not. When the last bell of the day rang Amber ducked into the bathroom and examined her reflection. The girl that looked back at her had her green eyes, but there was something different about her.

“I'm beginning to look older,” Amber whispered, her words echoed around the empty bathroom, “Like an adult. Like my mother. What would you tell me to do, Mom?”

Amber waited in silence for an answer she knew would never come.

“Is it okay that I like him? Will it be like Joshua Nelson in the end? He'll find out how boring I am and ignore me? That's why he never noticed me, I was always too boring,” Amber sighed, “Maybe I shouldn't go to the library. He'll give up on me eventually. Greg had.”

Amber leaned her head against the mirror and squeezed her eyes shut. She breathed deeply. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

“If I skip going there two days in a row day will get suspicious,” she groaned to her reflection, “So to the library I go.”

Giving into the inevitable Amber left the bathroom and headed out the big double doors. The air was becoming cooler as autumn wrapped its arms around the Earth. A strong wind blew, knocking red, orange, and gold leaves from the trees. Amber watched as they drifted to the ground. The outside of the school was eerily quiet without her classmates laughing and talking. A few stragglers sat reading or texting. Amber embraced the silence as she reached out to pluck a bright gold leaf from the air before it hit the ground.

HONK! HONK!

Amber dropped the leaf and looked up. Her dad's truck was parked in the loading and unloading zone and he looked impatient.

“What took you so long?” he asked, when she climbed into the truck.

“I was in the bathroom,” Amber said.

“Well, I have a dinner meeting in less than an hour. Am I taking you to the library or am I taking you home?” he asked.

“The library please,” Amber said before she could chicken out.

“Sure, kiddo,” he said.

Amber watched out the window as buildings and trees morphed into blurred monsters. She looked down at the road watching the slate gray blur move the truck along until it came to a stop in the library parking lot. For a moment Amber didn't move.

“Get a move on, Amber!” her father said, “I'm already running late.”

“Sorry, Dad,” she mumbled, “I'll see you later.”

“Behave,” he said and pulled away.

Amber watched until his tail lights faded away. The library had morphed from place of refuge to a place of the forbidden and unknown. Its shell looked the same, but Amber knew something had changed. It just wasn't the same. Inside she'd find Joshua Kirk and he'd talk to her.

“Let's just get this over with,” Amber sighed and pushed open the heavy door, “When are they going to install automatic doors? They're so behind the times, geez.”

Amber turned in the last of the books that had taken up the space on her bedside nightstand before beginning to wander the bookshelves, keeping on the lookout for Joshua. An elderly woman wearing a flowered dress sat in an armchair reading a smutty romance novel. A businessman was typing rapidly at his laptop, looking both worried and excited.

“Are these people always here?” Amber pondered silently.

A mother sat at a short table with her twin toddlers. Amber smiled as the mother ran her hair over one of the boys' blonde hair.

“Hopefully they stay together forever,” Amber whispered under her breath and renewed her search for reading material.

She turned the corner down another aisle of books and blinked. At the far end Joshua Kirk stood leaning against the shelves, his elbow resting in front of the paperbacks. His other hand held a science fiction paperback from the seventies. Amber read it a year ago, but the ending hadn't made sense.