I was in denial about it at first. My friends kept insisting that she was obsessed with me, I thought they were just teasing and told them we were just good friends. 'Riiiiight, good friends,' they would say, chuckling childishly.

One day, after school, Mandy was over at mine. She was asking me about my day as I was getting leftover food from the fridge for us to eat, and I happened to bring up the fact that Eleanor Peters had asked me out and that I had said yes.

She seemed fine at first, she teased me a little, but then she went silent and got really moody with me for the rest of the evening. Then she went home earlier than usual, claiming that she had homework to do.

After that, I started noticing small things here and there, like how I caught her staring at me from time to time, and when I did she'd blush and look away. She would always check up on me or want to know what I'm up to, I just thought she was being a good friend but I had a lot of other good friends that didn't have to see or talk to me every day. She would even cancel dates to just come and hang with me, and Mandy loves going on dates, at least she used to. In fact, I think she stopped dating altogether, I just thought it was because she had a lot of stuff going on with her family at the time.

The way she reacted when I started dating Eleanor Peters made it the clearest.