Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.
—Unknown

Saturday, May 16, 5:02 p.m.
Home from state competition
Feeling mixed

When I was with Leo yesterday celebrating Gaga’s birthday, I felt happier than I had in a long time. As I went to bed, I felt certain the dark cloud that had been hanging over me had lifted, but I was wrong.

This morning, I left on a 5:30 a.m. bus with the dance team to go to the state competition in Birmingham. Even though we left at an hour when no one should be awake, everyone was super pumped on the ride there.

The team high continued all day while we waited for our turn to perform, and then while the other teams performed, and especially when the results were announced and we learned the Faraway team came in first place.

Everyone on my team was cheering and going wild.

I acted like I was excited too—but it was just acting. I wanted to seem happy we’d won, and I was. But when we heard we’d won, my first thought was that I wouldn’t be able to share the good news with Gaga. I felt like I had a secret I couldn’t share with my teammates.

What would I have said?

6:10 p.m.
Talked to Billy

OMG! Billy just called and I can’t believe what he told me.

“Sophie and I hung out this afternoon, and she invited me to spend the summer with her in New York City.”

“WHAT?” Sophie hadn’t mentioned a thing about this to me, and I honestly wasn’t even sure what it meant.

“You heard me,” said Billy.

“Huh? She wants you to come to New York for the summer?” I asked.

“Yeah. Sophie told me she’d been thinking about it and that she’d come up with a way for us to spend the summer together.” Billy paused. “She’s going to an arts day camp and said I could find something to do in the city too—like go to a camp, get a job, or volunteer somewhere. She told me I could even go to a student-government camp and learn how to better represent my school. She said there are tons of things to pick from, and that I could stay at her mom’s or her dad’s apartment.”

I was shocked to hear she’d suggested all this. I could tell Billy was too. He kept talking. “She said this way, we wouldn’t have to break up, and that it would be the first step in having a long-distance relationship.”

I took a deep breath. Sophie is normally so reasonable, but this sounded crazy. “What did you tell her?” I asked Billy.

“First, I told her I was already planning to go back to Camp Silver Shores.”

That made sense. It was the truth. “Did she understand?”

“Not really,” said Billy. “She said that given the circumstances of her having to move back to New York City because her parents are getting divorced and both wanting custody of her, she hoped I’d be understanding and think about changing my plans.”

That sounded like something Sophie might say. Especially lately. “What did you say to that?” I asked.

“I told her my parents would never let me do that.”

That was also the truth. “That was a good thing to say,” I told Billy.

“It didn’t help,” he said. “She told me I didn’t have to give her an answer today. She said take some time to think about it, and that I should try to think outside the box.”

“Not ‘think outside the bun’?” I couldn’t help being a little sarcastic. Billy laughed. He knew the Taco Bell commercial too.

“Is there any part of you that wants to do it?” I asked Billy. He’s really into Sophie, so I thought it was a question worth considering.

But apparently Billy didn’t need any time to formulate his answer. “No,” he said. “I don’t want to go to New York for the summer. I want to go to camp. But I also don’t want to hurt Sophie’s feelings. She’s going through a lot.”

I’ve known Billy a long time. The thing he hates most is confrontation, which is why I knew the only thing he’d done today was avoid one.

11:17 p.m.
#bestnightever

At the risk of sounding overly dramatic, I want to say that as sad as I was at the state meet all day is as ecstatic as I am right now. I’m literally bursting with happiness. I know that sounds like someone else found my journal and is writing in it, but it’s true.

What happened tonight was AMAZING!

I went to see a movie with Leo, and as we walked back to my house together, he was very quiet. At first, I wondered if there was a problem. “Is something wrong?”

“There’s something I want to talk to you about,” said Leo.

“What?” I asked.

When he said he wanted to be sitting down when we talked, my mind started to race. As we looked for a bench, I did a mental review of our night to try and figure out what I might have said or done wrong.

Then I started thinking that the problem might be bigger than something that happened tonight. I was scared he was going to say that ever since he came home, I’ve been in a dark place, and that it’s been kind of a bummer. I didn’t really think he’d say that, but it was true, so I kind of got why he might.

As we sat, Leo looked pale and I noticed beads of sweat on his forehead. He was clearly nervous. “If you have something to say, just say it,” I said.

“Actually, there’s something I want to do,” said Leo. Then he leaned over and kissed me. I’d kissed him before, when he told me he didn’t know how, but this kiss felt different. When Leo pulled back, he looked at me. He still looked kind of nervous, but not as much as he had before we kissed. “I have something for you,” he said, then he reached into his back pocket and showed me a piece of paper.

When I read it, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was the definition of the word girlfriend, complete with synonyms!

girl·friend: 1 
/ ΄gərlͺfrend/ 

noun

a female companion with whom a person has a romantic relationship.

“April, I’ve never had a girlfriend,” said Leo. He looked at me and took my hand in his. “Will you be my first?”

“Yes,” I said happily. “I’d love to be your girlfriend.”

Then we kissed again. It was our first official kiss as boyfriend and girlfriend and it was perfect. Leo wrapped his arms around my waist as my hands settled on the back of his neck. We kissed like that for a long time, until he walked me home. When we got to my house, he kissed me good night. “Day one of being boyfriend and girlfriend has been great,” Leo said.

I laughed and told him I thought so too.

Part of me worried that kissing Leo as his girlfriend would be awkward, but it wasn’t.

When Billy asked me out, we’d been friends for so long, and even though the idea of having a boyfriend was exciting, it was weird to be more than friends with him.

Then when Matt asked me out, I was excited, but I knew my family wouldn’t be. I never felt like I knew who he was or how he felt about me. And whenever we made out, I always had an unsettling feeling that he wanted to go further than I did.

But now, there’s Leo. I’m excited we have a whole, hot summer to hang out and have fun. I might sound like Goldilocks when she sat in Baby Bear’s chair and ate his porridge and slept in his bed . . . but going out with Leo feels just right.