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enough, I’d go away.
    I continued. “It’s disgusting. It fills your lungs with tar and gives you stinky breath.”
    “Don’t worry, you’re not kissing me,” he answered, throwing the butt into the waiting basket and positioning himself before me.
    Whenever he looked at me with those eyes, I could feel the air catch in my throat. I almost forgot what I was about to say.
    “My friend Beth went to London last summer…”
    “Is there going to be a point to this story?” he interrupted.
    “And she saw this advertisement on the telly—you know that’s what they call television over there, right?” Again, he rolled his eyes at me. “Well, it showed a picture of this woman’s face, and all of a sudden her lips and eyes and nose turned into hot molten lava, and her skin was curdling from the heat, and she turned into this black smoldering creature, features dripping off her face like a volcano. Then the announcer came on and said, ‘Imagine if what happened on the inside, happened on the outside.’ Totally freaked Beth out. She swears she’ll never even look at a cigarette again.”
    “That’s a great story, Jessie.”
    I also knew when Jonas wanted silence and when I should back off.
    One afternoon, Jonas motioned for me outside his father’s room. I was pushing a cart back to the nurse’s station, having finished my shift.
    “Are you hungry?” he asked.
    “No.”
    “I’m going to the cafeteria. Want to sit with me?”
    “No.”
    “Okay,” he said, “I’ll see you tomorrow,” turning his back to me and walking toward the elevator. Then he called out, “Hey, Parker, don’t go bugging my dad anymore today.”
    I took offense, leaving the cart behind and catching the elevator door just as it was about to close. “What do you mean, ‘bugging him?’”
    “Exactly what I said, now let go of the door.”
    “I’m not bugging him. He loves my company.”
    “Okay, that’s great, but let go of the door.”
    “No,” I said. “Not until you explain yourself.”
    “There’s nothing to explain, alright. Forget about it, just move out of the way, okay?”
    It dawned on me that there were three sets of eyes waiting for me to let go of the door. Their impatient stares were almost as bad as Jonas’s vain attempts to get under my skin. My hands dropped, and I stepped into the unwelcome space. Nobody said a word. When the doors opened on the first floor, there was no question I’d follow Jonas into the crowded cafeteria.
    “You could have just said yes instead of pretending you meant no.”
    “You can be such a jerk sometimes,” I said.
    He ignored me, and when he walked through the lunchtime crowd in the cafeteria, he turned to me and said, “Why don’t you go grab us a table?” And because I did whatever he asked, I started to walk away in search of an open seat when I heard him call out from behind me, “What can I get you?”
    Walking the few awkward steps in his direction, I stopped right in front of him, close enough to touch, looked him in the eyes, and deadpanned, “Is this a date?”
    When I laughed, and he proceeded to stare at me, it was clear he just wasn’t getting my sense of humor.  I was pretty hungry. I might have allowed myself to eat something, if not for the small fact that my stomach was tied in knots and my throat felt dry and tight, and I wasn’t sure anything would go down because this would be our first meal together.
    That’s when “chocolate milk” popped out.
    “Chocolate milk?” he asked.
    It surprised me too, but it had always been a comfort food.
    “Whatever you say,” he said, rolling his eyes. “You do look kind of cute in that outfit.” I looked down at my clothes and was reminded that I was wearing the shapeless candy striper uniform. In one powerful yank, I freed myself from the red and white fabric and crumpled it into a ball. Jonas was watching me, and I wanted to smack the arrogant smirk right off his face. Turning, I stomped off in the other