Title: Kismet: Tales from a Dating AppSeries: ANWA Anthologies #4
Published by: American Night Writers Association
Release Date: 09/07/2021
Contributors: DeAnn Ogden Huff and 15 other ANWA Authors
Genre: Romance
Pages: 658
ISBN13: B09CGBNLS9
Sixteen couples. One dating app. Endless possibilities.
(I have a short story "Evan-tually" in this 2021 ANWA Anthology.)
Evan-tually
By DeAnn Ogden Huff
Chapter 1
High School, 2009
“It’s not you, it’s me.” It was the biggest lie I’d ever told. Because it was him. It was definitely him.
Evan squinted at me and pushed his too big glasses back onto the bridge of his nose. “Are you sure?” He shook his head once, as if my words didn’t make sense. “But we’re almost a perfect match.”
Two of my cheerleader friends behind me twittered with suppressed laughter, and the JV football player next to them didn’t even try to hold back. My face heated as the giggles and whispers started.
Evan glanced behind me and frowned, his thin, zit-marked face flushing. He pulled his eyes back to me. “I like you, Amanda,” he whispered too loudly. “We’d be good together.” He waved a printed page at me, his proof that he was probably right.
I didn’t care. My humiliation was complete. Not only had the nerdy, new kid in our sophomore class just asked me to Homecoming, but he did it in front of my very new, very popular friends. I clenched my textbooks tighter, shielding myself, and stood taller. I wasn’t going to let one defective dating questionnaire dictate who I dated and I certainly wasn’t going to let one misguided boy ruin everything I’d worked so hard for.
“I said ‘No,’ Evan. Just leave before you embarrass us both.”
Until that moment, my sophomore year was one for the record books. I’d moved to Greenway High School at the end of last year, and I’d never quite fit in with any of the existing freshman cliques. But I’d made the Junior Varsity cheer squad at the beginning of this school year and was easing my way into the popular crowd. I sat with cheerleaders at lunchtime and didn’t only dream of crashing the popular parties. But this was all new enough that I still felt like I was on “popular probation.” One uncool move and I’d be sitting alone at lunch again.
Evan’s face fell, and he released his grip on the paper he held out to me. It fluttered to the ground and landed on one of my white sneakers, covering my green and gold laces.
But then his eyes narrowed and his lips pulled into a tight line. “Your loss,” he huffed and he turned and stomped away. His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides, something I’d seen him do once before when a guy in English had harassed him.
The giggles increased to outright laughter and I pasted on a fake smile as I turned to face my friends. Jake, the football player, was doubled over in laughter, slapping his leg. Trina and Cloe clutched each other as they fought back the same reaction. Trina covered her mouth to hide her grin, but her eyes danced with amusement. Cloe glanced away, apparently embarrassed for me.
I rolled my eyes to show them I wasn’t bothered by the confrontation with Evan and to hide the fact that I felt sick to my stomach. Evan was a nice kid. It wasn’t his fault that he’d moved to our school a month after our sophomore year started. It didn’t help that he was “awkward” personified.
Yet I hadn’t minded our short conversation in English class last week. Despite the fact that he was quiet, he was really smart. I’d liked talking to an intelligent guy … until he ambushed me after school, on my way to cheer practice. He was quiet enough that I didn’t understand how he could have worked up enough nerve to ask me to Homecoming.
No. I did understand. It was that stupid dating questionnaire that student council members, Kyle Kisner and Ashley Emmett, created to promote the Homecoming theme, “Love is our Destiny.” Ashley wrote the questions, and we’d all filled out the questionnaires last week. They’d used a computer program that Kyle had written to “match” us with a person who could be our possible “destiny.”
In home room today, student council members had passed out the results sheets. Evan Miller’s name was at the top of mine, a good 30% higher than my second match, Tom Hartley, some junior I’d never met. After one look, I shoved my paper deep in my backpack and then laughed it off whenever anyone asked about it. My avoidance worked until Evan caught me just after I’d met up with my friends.
Trina sighed. Loudly. “So Evan thinks he’s your destiny now?”
Cloe scoffed, but then looked down at the paper at my feet. “Yeah, but did you see their results? Amanda’s name is at the top of his paper! 93%?!”
“Amanda and Evan, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G,” Jake sang. Trina’s eyes widened.
I punched Jake—hard—and tried to laugh it off. But my brain spun fast, looking for an explanation that didn’t send me back to eating lunch alone. In a moment of teenage brilliance, I found it.
I smiled mischievously. “That’s what I get for lying on my questionnaire.”
“You lied?” Cloe shrieked. Trina gasped and covered her mouth again.
“You dawg!” Jake lifted his hand to give me a high five, which I hesitantly returned. “I didn’t think you had it in you. I thought you were all religious and stuff.”
I fought to keep my expression serene, but inside I was dying.
Jake was right.
I was religious. And stuff.
And I’d just lied. Again.
And this time I’d lied about lying.
I groaned inside. I was going to H-E-L-L. I was so religious that I couldn’t even say the word in my mind. I had to spell it.
To make matters worse, there was a pretty good chance that Evan was religious too. In fact, a few weeks ago he’d showed up at my church youth group. He’d come with another member of my church, a kid I’d known all my life. Afterwards, I’d passed Evan talking with the missionaries. I’d heard later that they thought he was a “golden contact.”
Every Sunday School lesson I’d ever heard bounced around in my head and clanged warning bells in my conscience. I knew what I was doing was wrong.
With my inner voice screaming at me, I almost turned around and chased after Evan to apologize. Maybe Trina and Cloe saw the guilty look in my eyes or caught my head turning because they nodded to each other and they each took one of my arms. With our elbows locked in a show of solidarity, the girls marched me across campus to cheer practice.
And I (almost) never looked back.
Also in this series:
