A Smart Girl’s Struggles in a New High School YA Romance

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In my YA romance, “What Happens After You Confess Your Feelings to Someone?”, Chloe is a high school student with an intense crush on a boy at her school named Mordecai. Meanwhile, her good friend Simon has a crush on her.

But while she’s dealing with the messiness that comes with this teen love triangle, she’s still focused on school. Getting good grades is important to her, although she wouldn’t mind doing that while also earning the affection of the boy she loves.

When Studying Gets Complicated

In Chapter 6, Chloe gets to enjoy winter break of her sophomore year. But for her, winter break means lots of homework. After taking some time off to celebrate Christmas, she has to jump right into her work. Mordecai makes that challenging, though, as the following excerpt shows.

Finally, on Monday, it’s time to get to work. By avoiding IM and other distractions, I manage to study for my math test, finish my English paper, write out my French presentation, and finish the accompanying poster in three days. But on day four, I make the mistake of signing on to IM before starting my work for the day, thus derailing my progress.

Apparently, Mordecai has officially broken up with his girlfriend Tanya, and he needs someone to talk to. Of course he chooses me. Maybe he wouldn’t if I didn’t always make myself available. But I always do. We talk for hours that day, and it’s not until the next day that I finally manage to get back to my French presentation.

Even though Chloe cares about school, she also cares about Mordecai. And that means it can be really hard for her to not pay attention to him when she feels like he needs her.

Throughout the story, Mordecai finds ways to make it harder for Chloe to focus on school. He doesn’t do it on purpose, though. But when she’s dealing with her most recent heartbreak resulting from something insensitive he did or complicating her life in other ways, it can be challenging for her to focus on her studies.

Even so, one of the possible reasons she continues to be there for him despite the pain he causes is because she doesn’t want him to forget about her when she’s finally allowed to date. She starts the story as a sophomore, and her parents say she can’t date until she becomes a senior. This post explores other reasons she stays friends with Mordecai rather than keeping her distance.

A Study Buddy With a Big Crush

In addition to being good at school, Chloe is also a good tutor. And she often finds herself tutoring both Mordecai and Simon, though not at the same time.

Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 3 that shows Chloe tutoring Simon at the library one day when he’s still new in Chloe’s life. (At the start of the story, Simon is a new student at her high school.) Chloe is narrating.

Two days later, Simon accepts my offer to help him with algebra. He shows me a worksheet he got from class, and we work on it in the library after school.

“And so you can just plug the two values you got for x back into the equation,” I say. “If both sides are equal with both x values, you know you got it right.”

“And if they’re not equal?” he [Simon] wonders.

“Then if you have time, go back and try to find where you made a mistake.”

“And what if I can’t find what I did wrong?”

“Don’t think that way. Think positive. Just work through the problem from the beginning. Most likely you just added something wrong or something simple like that.”

“Yeah, either that or I had no idea what I was doing and have no hope of finding my mistake in time.”

I shake my head in feigned exasperation. When I do, I happen to glance up, and then I see him. Mordecai. Shoulder-length brown hair. Tall, but not too tall. A slight slouch. Pale skin. Gentle gray eyes. I’d know him anywhere and at any angle. He’s checking out a book at the front desk. My eyes freeze on him. I’m so unused to seeing him at school that catching him in the library at the same time I’m there throws off my world.

Simon starts calling me back to consciousness, but it’s not until he begins waving his pencil in front of my face that I remember what I had been doing.

“Chloe, you still there?” he asks.

I look at him. “Huh? Oh, yeah. I’m here,” I say. “Let’s do the next problem.”

“Who was that?”

“Who?”

“That guy you were staring at.”

I sigh and look down at the worksheet. “That was no one. Let’s just get back to math.”

This excerpt also shows the beginning of Chloe’s struggle to give Mordecai and Simon equal attention, both in person and online. When Chloe is thinking about Mordecai or interacting with him or just seeing him in person, it can be hard for her to focus on other things or other people. But she does her best.

Is She More Than Just a Tutor?

When it comes to studying, Chloe tends to keep things professional. That means she doesn’t mix studying with romance, at least not overtly. (When she’s studying with her crush, though, she can’t help but sometimes perceive some romance in those interactions.)

Because Chloe spends so much time tutoring and because neither Mordecai nor Simon has said anything about having feelings for her, she can get the impression that these friends see her as nothing more than a friend and tutor. Here’s a snippet of a conversation that Chloe has with her mom in Chapter 22 where she expresses this concern. Chloe is narrating.

[Chloe] “Mom, honestly, we’re just studying…And you don’t have to worry so much about me. Guys don’t really like me anyway. I’m too smart or something. They just see me as a study buddy.” I look down, deeply disturbed by that seeming truth.

My mom sits next to me on the bed. “Now, I know that’s not true,” she [Chloe’s mom] says. “After all, I’m a smart woman, and your father married me,” she says.

“I know.”

“But, of course, that was after we had known each other for years and graduated from college—after we had decided what path we wanted to pursue and were well on our way to pursuing it. And only then did we decide to have you.”

“I understand, Mom,” I say.

“Good.”

It’s true that Chloe’s parents have a “no dating until senior year” rule, but Chloe isn’t fully convinced that that’s the only reason for her single status.

If only she wasn’t so in denial about Simon’s feelings for her. Or if only Simon could find the courage to confess his feelings to Chloe. But will he ever confess? Or will Mordecai finally come clean about his feelings, whatever they might be?

You’ll just have to read the story to find out.

Final Thoughts

When you’re a smart girl who often tutors your male friends, it can be hard not to believe that they see you as anything more than a study buddy and a friend. This is especially true when they stay quiet about their romantic feelings, if they have any.

In my high school YA romance “What Happens After You Confess Your Feelings to Someone?”, Chloe is a studious student who wrestles with the question of whether her male friends see her as anything other than the smart girl. But if you want to discover what happens, don’t wait another second to dive into this story!

You can click here to learn more about it or here to start reading Chapter 1 on Medium. (The first three chapters are free and you don’t need an account to read them. But you’ll need a Medium account to read the rest. And you may also need to become a Medium member.)

~ Ashley C.

P.S. If you would like to sample more of my story-writing style, feel free to click here to read some stories that are currently available.