I knew I shouldn't have said yes. I knew it. But I had been the typical lovestruck teenage girl and said, "Yeah, sure, of course I'll carry your billion-ton stack of books down six flights of stairs to the library, Carter! No problem!" Well, maybe not in that particular tone, but it was close enough. I blew my bangs out of my eyes and repositioned the dead weight in my arms.
Why did I have to be so stupid? Even though my hair was deep black, it seemed like it should have been blonde. I knew he would never like me. Carter Langston was not necessarily the coolest or most popular guy in high school, but he was pretty damn close. Everyone knew his name. But no one seemed to pay attention to the way his blue eyes sparkle when he laughs, or the way his smiles are always crooked, especially when he's in a good mood.
Of course, I'd had lots more time than all of the other girls to notice because Carter and I had been best friends since the fourth grade. And friends we would remain. Even though most of the time I was there for him more than his girlfriends were, and I was always the one who sat with him while he mourned the relationship-gone-bust that month. He always put everything he had into his little floozies, and every time, they left him for whoever they had been cheating on him with for three-quarters of their companionship. The rediculous thing is that he'd actually taken back more ex-girlfriends than I can count. Numerous times.
Anyways, back to trudging down one hundred forty seven stairs with nineteen books of various topics cradled in my arms. And I'm not the most graceful person in the world. Of course, I wouldn't consider myself a clutz either, but everyone trips now and again.
Not to mention the terrible, horrible pain. Every step was torture on my back. I didn't even have the railing for support because there was no railing. The school was too cheap to install one, even though it was a safety hazard. They probably wouldn't until someone actually did fall off. Which was never going to happen because everyone walked on the opposite side of the stairs.
I couldn't see anything past my book mountain, and I was feeling my
