This is NOT a YA Love Story
What happens when the Young Adult genre misinterprets a smile
I enjoyed reading YA growing up and there’s some really good ones published. But I noticed a concerning trend: authors assign motives to simple gestures like a smile. This story is a based on the question “What if a smile is just a smile and not a signal of romance?”
“Hey! Good to see you! What are you up to?”
She turned toward the voice behind her to see a guy from her afternoon math class jogging up the sidewalk, waving. She waved back.
“Hey! Going to get another library book.” She opened the library front door and smiled at the cool inside air clashing with the outside humidity.
She felt him step forward, full of a question, and she turned back, eyebrows raised. “What is it?”
Surprise. “Wait but, how did you…” He shook his head. “Anyway, do you want to go out sometime?”
Her eyes widened and she stepped back into the opened door, ready to disappear among the quiet stacks of books. This was not the question she expected.
Thankfully, he gave her space and stayed where he was, not moving closer. The library full of people at her back gave her courage and she really needed to know: “Why? What makes you think I want to?”
He backed up a step as she edged further into the doorway. “Well, we smiled at each other this past month in math class. And you kept looking up and down a lot at my face…”
“I do that to everyone, not just you.” And thought Ugh, my bad eye contact meets internet flirting advice.
“Um and you laughed at my jokes…”
She frowned. “What jo….Ohhh! Because they aren’t funny. And I mean seriously not funny, not just like cheesy or dad jokes kinda funny.” She shrugged. “I laugh at weird things.”
He blinked, nodded. “Oh. And…” He was running out of words. She kept her eyes focused on his hair, waiting for him to continue, curiosity about the next reason he could produce winning out over horrified surprise.
“Oh!” He hopped and pointed his right finger up, pulling out his best evidence. “You told me you liked my shirt yesterday and smiled right at me! And your hand brushed my arm after.”
“What the question mark…” She shook her head. “That’s just being a nice human being to another human being! Your shirt did look nice. And I’m sorry if my hand touched you. I’m still working on my hand-eye coordination.”
She paused, her agitation finally elbowing aside her curiosity. Time to go.
“I don’t like you like that. Thank you for letting me interrogate you. It was enlightening for me and hopefully for you too.” She waved goodbye, fully entered the library and closed the door.
And he stood alone on the sidewalk, staring at the door and wondering how he was supposed to know all that beforehand without her telling him.