it's rude to look away from a person when they're talking to you.

in your case, though, i can't help it.

every time i (subconsciously) look at you,

and you stare back at me,

i have to look away.

because i'm afraid that if i keep looking at you,

the butterflies in my stomach will just get worse.

✕

"Ha! You're going to be shorter than me now!" Jasper exclaimed as he stood next to Minhee, comparing heights. 

"Hell no. You're like 2 inches shorter than me, Jasper. You'll never be as tall as I will."

"I grew 4 inches over the summer! At least I'm growing," he replied.

"Mae's growing too, Jasper, unless if you weren't talking about her," Minhee said. Mae turned towards Brooklyn and Moni, no longer facing the bickering of Jasper and Minhee.

"He grew so much..."

"Yeah I know. Last year he was shorter than me, because I'm like 5 foot 2 and now he's taller than me..." Moni murmured.

"Same with me. I'm around 5 foot 3 and he's just gotten so much taller over the summer and I can't believe he's close to Minhee's height," Brooklyn said in agreement.

"And I'm still 4 foot 11," Mae mumbled softly, "he's too tall for me now, I think."

"What do you mean, Mae?" Ryan asked, overhearing their conversation.

"Well I mean, I'm 4 foot 11 and he's like 5 foot 4...I don't think it makes sense for you guys to ship me with him either. Like the only reason all of you shipped me with him was because he was short like me. You can stop shipping us if you want to."

"But you still like him, don't you?" Brooklyn asked.

"Yeah."

"Then we're still going to ship it," Moni responded with a shrug.

"Also, it's not necessarily true that guys have a preference to height. If anything, I think they would like shorter girls better. I mean, if the girl is much shorter than the guy, he can hug her and maybe he'll feel like he's protecting someone...he'll like hugging a girl who's really short. Then again, short girls are cute in their own way," Ryan said as he backhugged Moni. A smile lit up Mae's face. Mae was the one who liked him and she lost a lot of hope but it seemed like her friends were more positive about this than she was. 

Not that she had a chance anyways. She turned to look at Minhee and Jasper, who were now bantering about useless things (for example, how she didn't know how to FOIL on the math test) and she couldn't help but feel a tiny bit of jealousy. 

"I just wish I could grow some more. So I wouldn't always be awkward around him..."

 ✕

yeah, pretty much. jasper definitely grew over the summer; it was only recently that he compared heights with minhee and she sort of gave me the idea to write a chapter on it. it didn't end up the way i wanted it to, but yeah.

i've put a lot of trust in a lot of people, recently. i told ryan about this as well and he's being more positive about it than i am. then again, he got lucky (no malice intended). i was texting him about it last night and he said "how do you know he doesn't like you" and i think that he has a lot of hope for me and jasper even though i lost all of it.

also, ian's a douche. and harris said ian was a douche. and like if you get to know harris he isn't that bad of a person—he most likely didn't know what he was saying when he had said that about minhee and i think we're okay with it now.

yeah, that's that.

lots of love,

daze