“I’ll go talk to him tomorrow, I’m sure of it. I’ll look my best and go talk to him,” Luna thought to herself every day. Every day was the same, she never had the courage and never knew what to say to Chance. 

She kept on motivating herself to talk to him the next day, but always procrastinates it again. She was afraid that she might mention the wrong thing or use the wrong word and mess things up, or make things awkward.

Luna tried to attract Chance to talk to her, but she didn’t know how. She prayed every night for an opportunity where she could work together with Chance and get to know him well, perhaps an event where the different grades are joined together and that they had to choose a partner from a different grade, it was highly improbable, but there was a possibility.

Luna didn’t seem shy while texting Chance, but she’s afraid that her mind would go blank and she would become too nervous in front of him. She tried to text Chance at every opportunity and tried to make the topic intriguing. 

Luna had read an article that said according to psychologists, the more you see someone, the more you would like them. So, Luna tried to walk in front of Chance when she sees him and make him see her face more often.

The methods didn’t seem to work though, and Luna doesn’t seem to be making any progress. If only, if only she could read Chance’s mind and see what he actually feels about her, if only she could somehow know Chance’s thoughts.

Brooklyn was in the same class as Chance, but she doesn’t seem to be trying to help Luna, it only makes Luna wonder whether Chance sees her as just “Brooklyn’s sister” or who she actually is.

Luna has read every how-to article and watched every video on how to get closer to a boy, but none of them helped. Some said that she should join the same club as him, but they were in different schools; other tips such as getting close to his friends or finding ways to meet up with him alone seemed impossible.

If only she had Brooklyn’s beauty, then with a wink, she could easily get the boys into her hand, but her sister have always been better, whether in academics, sports, or looks. However, Luna wasn’t Brooklyn and she never would be, with Brooklyn beside her, Luna could never stand out.

Luna often wondered if she actually has something better than her sister, but no, Brooklyn isn’t perfect, but she was Luna’s unattainable goal. Brooklyn has always been the popular girl, always hanging out with the pretty girls and after transferring to Eastwood High, she had gained so many friends in such a short period of time.

Luna also had a lot of friends, but she didn’t have the “popular girl” vibe. Her classmates all liked her, but Luna never shone in the crowd, she was just like everyone else, with nothing special.

Luna have questioned over and over if Chance liked Brooklyn, but she could never know. Perhaps Chance thought that Luna was silly, but there was no way of knowing his thoughts.

Eastwood Middle was right beside Eastwood High, and occasionally, Luna could see the high school students playing soccer on the soccer field. However, during regular school days, the middle school and high school students shouldn’t be meeting each other.

Over the next few days at school, Luna kept an eye on the basketball court beside the school building where the high school students would hang out and play. Most of the days, Chance would play a few matches with his friends, but Luna only hid behind the fences, for the fact that she was alone and would seem uncool to Chance if she shows herself to him. Luna didn’t tell any of her friends about Chance, so it would be weird if she asks them to watch Chance play basketball with her.

Chance was a competent basketball player, even though Luna didn’t know anything about basketball, Chance’s swift and elegant movements seem experienced and refined and wouldn’t stop replaying in her mind.

If she knew that Chance would be classmates with Brooklyn, she wouldn’t have sent those pictures of Brooklyn to him. She could’ve just known him through her sister. Luna wished so many times that she haven’t lied about herself, lied that she was Brooklyn.

It was another recess, while her friends were playing tag or chatting under the trees, Luna went to watch Chance play in the basketball court. Only this time, when she approached the fence, Chance had spotted her.

It was a nightmare, when Chance’s eyes stared into Luna’s, she felt a chill down her spine, what would he think of her? But Chance only tilted his head slightly, then returned to play with his friends.

As soon as Chance turned away from her, Luna turned around and retraced her path. She fled as far away from the basketball court as possible. There on the bench, she spotted Audrey and Vivian chatting freely. 

Luna took a seat beside them, “Hi,”

“Oh, hi, Luna!” Audrey smiled, “We were just talking about Selena and Tommy, did you hear the news?”

“Wait, what? Selena and Tommy?” Luna gasped, they have always hated each other, how could this be?

Audrey said, “I didn’t believe it at first either, but they somehow got together, Connie told me that Iris told her that she saw them hugging in the bathroom,” she let out a breath after the long sentence, “Not in the bathroom, obviously, but you know, at the back side of the sink.”

“Hey, Serena’s got like 20 ex-boyfriends, right?” Vivian laughed, “I mean, at the first week of this year, she was with the new student, the one in Year 8.”

“Steve,” Luna said.

“To be honest I don’t think that Serena’s very pretty,” Audrey pointed out, “I really don’t know what she has that makes all the boys fall for her.”

Vivian added, “And she’s not super popular either, not that kind of ‘popular girl.’”

“You know what I think?” Luna asked as a smile began to form, “I think she’s just saving ‘I love you’ to every single boy and a lot of boys want a girlfriend so they’ll just be together.”

“But doesn’t she feel awkward when she gets rejected?” Audrey started smiling too.

“I guess that’s just her personality,” Audrey said.

“So that’s why she breaks up with every one of her boyfriends so quickly.”

“Yeah, so she never really loved any of them, I guess she just thinks that it’s fun,” Luna said.

Why does Serena deserve so many boys’ hearts, while Luna has never had a boyfriend. She was already 12, and not a child anymore.

Luna wasn’t worse than her, she just lacked the assertiveness and nerve that Serena had too much of.

If only she could be like Serena, she wouldn’t have missed out all her opportunities. Luna has had crushes on countless boys, but she always kept them to herself and never acted on them. Until they depart from her life.

Luna felt that she was never ready for love, and kept on waiting for the right moment, the right moment that never came. She didn’t want Chance to be the same, she wanted progress between them, but just didn’t know how.

At least she told someone about her feelings, someone she could trust. That someone was also closer to Chance than she was, so perhaps, this time, the crush is different.

That night, after getting back home from school, Luna Googled what it means if a boy tilts his head to you, but all the articles she had saw were discussing what it meant if a boy tilts his head toward you while taking a photo, so there was nothing relatable to her.

However, the articles said that tilting his head toward you while taking a photo meant yearning, and she had a belief that it was about the same for what Chance had did.

So perhaps Chance also likes Luna, but it was still hard for her to strike up a conversation with him. Just like every other time Luna planned to talk to her crush, she would let the opportunity fly away until it’s too late.

Luna stared at herself in the bathroom mirror a sighed, “not bad,” she said to herself. But is this enough to attract Chance?

She rolled her eyes to all four directions, clockwise, and counter-clockwise, according to Youtube videos, this would make her eyes more sparkling. Then, she did some massage on her nose and face according to a few other Youtubevideos, hoping that these methods could work and transform her into a more attractive girl.

After about 8 minutes of squeezing her face around, Luna was satisfied with the view in the mirror and smiled at herself. She posed a few times, then pretended to be taking a mirror selfie. To judge herself without prejudice, Luna had some charm in herself.

She lifted up her shirt and sucked her tummy in, even though she does’t have abs, but Luna seems rather skinny. Taking one last look at herself while turning off the lights, Luna exited the batahroom and tucked herself into bed.

She could slightly hear Brooklyn in her room, typing on her laptop keyboard, but she didn’t mind much and flowed into the world of dreams.

The next day was another school day, the same classes all over again. Her only motivation for going to school was getting to see Chance, so she was longing for recess before school even started.

During class, Luna paid no attention to the literary works, the calculation of force, or whatsoever, until it was the class before recess.

These 40 minutes were the longest in the school day, Luna watched the clock at the right corner of the classroom, beside the door. It read 11:50.

She stared at the hands of the clock spinning around, making an unnoticeable tick-tock sound. As Luna watched, the second hand took 2 full turns before she got bored.

Luna decided to lie down on her history textbook and take a slight nap. She wiggled around in her chair a bit to be comfortable and closed her eyes.

“Luna, what do you think?” Mrs. Quinn’s voice broke into her head.

“Oh,” Luna shot up straight in her seat, Mrs. Quinn has wrote three questions on the whiteboard, and has written a response for the first one.

The second question was “Why and where did the earliest societies develop?”

Luna quickly snapped into class mode,”Umm, so I think that the earliest societies developed beside rivers or other water sources because water is really critical to the survival of ancient people.”

“Yes, that is a decent point, Luna,” Mrs. Quinn doesn’t seem to be satisfied and her eyes narrowed.

Luna took another glance at the clock, it read 12:15, there was still a quarter left until recess.

In her mind, Luna has already pictured Chance’s elegant figure at the basketball court.

After daydreaming and dozing off for another 15 minutes, the bell finally rang.

Luna returned to her classroom and waited for Ms. Shulte to take her class to recess.

Luna sat at the edge of her desk and chatted with her friends for a few minutes while waiting for Ms. Shulte, and very soon, she arrived.

“Hi kids, I’m sorry, but the weather forecast said that it’s going to rain at 12:00, but it’s not really accurate, so it’s probably going to start raining in a few minutes,” she announced.

Audrey suggested, “Can we watch a movie?”

“That was exactly what I was planning to do,” Mrs. Shulte grabbed her laptop and plugged in the power line, connecting it to the projector at the front of the classroom, “I have ‘The Night at the Museum,’ ‘Soul’, and a lot of TV shows.”

“Oh! I love ‘The Night at the Museum!’” Tommy almost jumped up with enthusiasm.

“Sure, so does everyone agree to watch this one?”

Most of the students in Luna’s class nodded and urged Tommy not to spoil.

However, Luna’s heart sank, she had just lost the only exciting opportunity in her school day.