"Jon!"
The boy flinched instinctively at the sound of his name.
"Jon, over here!"
He tensed his muscles, but turned nonetheless. Biff. Biff Meadows. Star quarterback and all-around mean dude, was calling his name for some ungodly reason.
What Jon saw wasn't quite what he was expecting. Gone was the stern, patronizing look that Biff always wore. Gone was the posturing stance. In their place were a face and body that felt a lot more casual in appearance. More relaxed. And a little expectant.
Then Biff's eyebrows raised in realization, and the football player brought a hand to cup over half his mouth and whispered, "I'm not Biff."
Jon's eyebrows mirrored the expression they'd just seen. "Karyn?"
"Shhh!" Karyn hushed with Biff's mouth. "I don't know what's going on, but it's probably a good idea not to let anyone else know."
Jon looked around quickly. He was near the front entrance of the school, and there were other students everywhere. But four years of trying to avoid people in the building had taught him the best hiding spots for every area of the school.
"Behind the utility shed." Jon hitched his thumb in the direction of the football field, and the shed that stood just beside the bleachers.
"Alright, you go," Karyn make a hand gesture towards the shed. "I'll follow in, like, a minute just so it doesn't look weird."
Jon nodded and left, and Karyn did her best to make her new 6'2" frame seem inconspicuous, even as she tried some breathing exercises to calm herself down.
In through the nose. Out through the mouth. In through the nose. Out through the--
Contact. Someone small had pressed their body against Karyn's back, breaking her concentration. She looked down to see two lithe arms wrapping themselves around her middle, pink nail polish glittering in the sun.
"Guess who," came a sing-song from behind her that made her blood run cold.
"Sarah?" Karyn's voice was unsteady as she raised her arms like one might do while wading through a pool of mud.
"Got it on the first guess, you clever boy." Sarah slunk around under one of those great forearms trained to throw a football fifty yards and presented herself to her apparent boyfriend.
Clever boy.
The compliment echoed itself in Karyn's head. And the chill that she was still feeling found itself competing with something else. A tingle that started low in her body, which she had never felt before, but which nevertheless felt good.
Karyn's conscious mind re-asserted itself. This was Sarah McMillan. She hated Sarah McMillan. She needed to make up an excuse to get away, find Jon, and--
"Are you okay?" Sarah's face flipped like a switch from teasing to concern, a small pout forming on her lips that suddenly became all Karyn could think to look at.
"How are you so beautiful?" The words left Karyn's lips before she consciously knew she was thinking them, her muscles slowly un-tensing.
The teasing smile returned to Sarah's face, as she mistook Karyn's genuine befuddlement for flirting. "Aw, babe, you're sweet. But I have to get over to the gym early, so I gotta run. I just wanted to say good morning to my favorite guy."
Sarah leaned in for a quick hug, and Karyn found her arms instinctively wrapping around the cheerleader who was a full foot shorter than Karyn's new frame.
Then with wink and a flutter of her ponytail, she was gone. And Karyn found herself standing alone in the crowd, learning what it felt like to have an unwanted boner.
