Please answer!!! I really need advice!!!!!!!!!!!!!?

My name is Lauren I'm 14 years old. There is this guy named Jake who I really like. He is in seventh grade and I'm in 8th. He is popular, outgoing, dates popular girls, but he's nice too. I'm shy awkward, kind of dorky, and clumsy. I don't have that many friends, but I have one really good friend named Cidy. My friends tell me I'm pretty sometimes. I have really thick, brown hair with short bangs and caramel highlights that is impossibe to tame even though I just got it thinned as much as possible. He lives next door to my pappy and I stay at my pappy's house a lot in the summer. I was starting to think he kind of liked me because once at a basketball game he nodded at me and it was an upwards nod and I read an article that said an upwards nod means "I like you", I was ping him in the hall and though we never tak he said "Wup.", and one day I was walking past him and he seemed as if he was trying not to look at me and got the little crooked smile I get when I p someone I like. Even if he was starting to like me, it was all ruined because on the bus (he doesn't ride my bus) my idiot neighbor yelled "Lauren likes Jake Oliver and Tyler Click (a boy I liked last year who DOES ride my bus)! Everyone stared at me and some girls started giggling. I kind of forgot about it until today when a friend of mine in seventh grade said "Do you still like Jake and Tyler?" she explained to me that everyone knew I like Jake including him. Please help I really like him. Oh and before you start telling me things my parents aren't rich I have some nice things but My dad is on a teacher's salary and my mom doesn't work and they have to support a family of four and my mom has OCD som some of our mony is wasted on her little pet peeves. and my parents only let me shower every 2 days. Thank You!!!