“Dash is for sure straight!" Boomer announced. "He has a super-pretty ex-girlfriend named Sofia, who I think he still has a thing for, and also, in seventh grade, there was a game of spin the bottle and it was my turn and I spun and it landed at Dash, but he wouldn't let me kiss him.”

“Dash is getting very frisky in here with me, Mark." What I wanted to say was I wish Dash was getting frisky in here with me. Dash raised an eyebrow at me again."No he's not," Mark said."How do you know?""Because if he was, you wouldn't be calling me to rescue you right now, Googly Eyes.”

“Yes," I said. "My name is seven-five-nine-nine-three-nine-ex-dash-one. Junior.”

“A misunderstanding?" Elizabeth echoed. "With an anvil?""Oh, stop," Harriet admonished her. "I think he looks very dashing.""As if he dashed into an anvil.”

“Caeden grabbed my hand and grinned like a little boy in a candy shop. “Carnival time!” He drug me from the car and then behind him as he headed to a ring toss game. “I think I need to win my girl a prize,” he said.I laughed.“What?” he shrugged. “It’s like a rite of passage. Every boyfriend has to win his girlfriend a prize,” he winked, turning my stomach to jelly.”

“Someday many years from now in the faraway future, I will look back and say, “That year when I was in seventh grade, I knew a boy named Henderson Elliot, and what he did for me was extraordinary and who he was and how he won my heart was nothing short of incredible”