Speaking of Brooke, she tracks me down in the hallway after first period and plies me with questions—like she has a right to know! Why does she care anyway? She’s back with the king of the jocks, Declan McCall.
“So what really happened?” Brooke demands.
“What do you mean?”
“With you and Jared. Come on, you dumped him, right?”
“Ah…it was pretty mutual.”
“Was he an asshole to you?” She has the nerve to put an arm around me. Puh-lease. We’ve never been anywhere close to friends.
“He wasn’t an asshole to me.”
“Were you an asshole to him?”
“No.”
She grimaces. Obviously this isn’t as cut-and-dried as she’d hoped. “Then why’d you break up?”
“We grew apart.”
“Grew apart? So you don’t think, like, he’s a total loser?”
“No. I’ve got nothing bad to say about him.”
She looks crestfallen. I’m almost sorry I can’t give her a better story. Then she tosses her hair and walks off.
It would have been the perfect opportunity to get revenge on Jared, but I just couldn’t do it. If he starts trash-talking me, then I suppose I should do the same to him. But that’s not Jared. And that’s not me either. I admit that part of me would love to hurt him the way he’s hurt me, but I can’t. Sure, I could start some drama, but there wouldn’t be a point. I can’t break his heart if he’s not still in love with me.
At least the official version leaves my ego intact. It makes it seem like I was restless, like I’d had enough of one guy. But the truth is, sticking with one person suits me. When I was with Jared, I didn’t want to be with anyone else.
I see Jared a few times in the hallway. We say hi, but neither of us stops walking. It’s up to him to stop, since he’s the one who did the dumping. If I stop, I’ll just seem desperate. Why can’t he ask how I’m doing?
His eyes—God, they’re bluer than ever—aren’t warm. They’re not cold either. I’d say they’re careful. Maybe they’re even a little angry. My friends, I admit, haven’t been mature about this. They give him dirty looks or turn away. Even Viv, who’s one of the kindest people on the planet, glares at him. I’ve told them to be nice, but they don’t listen. He hurt me, and they believe he deserves to be hurt, too.
In American history class, I can’t concentrate. I keep asking myself what I did wrong. I’ll make a list…
Top Eight Reasons Jared Got Annoyed with Me
1. I play my favorite songs over and over. Which wouldn’t be so bad except:
2. I have no taste in music to begin with (in his opinion). I see nothing wrong with pop music, but he seems to think it’s an evil invention meant to enslave the human race.
3. I’m indecisive. Pizza or Chinese is a decision, for example, that takes many minutes of contemplation and perhaps a pros and cons list.
4. He says I don’t know how to stop and smell the roses, and that I’m always walking too fast and talking too fast and doing too much.
5. I have been known to complain, especially when I have a bad shift at Eddie’s (which, I admit, is practically every shift).
6. People-watching, for me, can be an afternoon’s entertainment. I can set up shop at the mall and observe them for hours. For Jared, it’s a dead bore.
7. When he gives an opinion, I get upset if it’s not what I want to hear. I take things too personally. I take any bit of criticism to heart.
8. I’m a little too focused on Glamour Girl. Yes, I have visited the Glamour Girl message boards a time or two. Is that a crime?
I read over my list. As far as I can tell, none of those reasons justify breaking up with me.
Another possibility comes to mind. Was I too clingy? We’d talked pretty much every day. But half the time he’d initiated it, so he can’t blame me for that, can he?
I know that what-ifs won’t get me anywhere. The cold, hard truth is that if Jared had wanted me to do something differently, he could have asked me. Since he didn’t, I can only assume he didn’t want to work things out.
In chemistry class, my lab partner is Evgeney Vraslov. Skinny, with curly red hair, he’s known to most people at school as “The Bulgarian Supergeek.” But most people are callous and unfair—Evgeney’s a pretty cool guy if you can decipher his thick accent. And smart as all hell, too. I just know he’s going to be the next Bill Gates and his former classmates will be kissing his ass.
I have new respect for Evgeney after seeing him do an awesome dance performance months back at the Halloween dance. And he dresses far better than he used to, thanks to the fashion advice on my website. In fact, Evgeney is one of my most loyal clients. He approaches dating like it’s a science and appears to study everything I post with the same rigor he gives a chemistry experiment. Anyway, I like chatting with him, and we’ve become friends. Whenever he decides to go to the cafeteria for lunch instead of hiding away in the computer lab, he sits with me and my friends.
When I drop my books beside him, he says, “I am sorry for your loss.” Which is what you’d say if someone died, not after a breakup. But the weird thing is, it touches a chord, and I have to bite my lip to keep it from trembling.
“Thanks, Evgeney. It’s for the best.”
He looks puzzled. “Why?”
“I don’t know. It just is.”
I admit, I’d gushed about Jared. Evgeney had asked me about our relationship and I was all too happy to tell him. It’s no wonder this new turn of events doesn’t make sense to him.
I should come clean. Since he’s all about studying relationships, I owe him the truth about mine. Evgeney’s faced a lot of rejection himself; he faces it in the hallways of our school every day because he’s different. There’s no need to put up a facade in front of him.
“Actually,” I say quietly, “it was Jared’s decision, not mine. It took me by surprise.”
He gives a sad nod. “I’m sorry.”
I can tell he means it.
By lunchtime, the breakup is old news. Everything is as it used to be, except that Jared isn’t sitting with us. He’s on the other side of the caf with Tom Leeson and Said Abdullah, two friends he jams with most Thursday nights. Jared doesn’t look my way, not even once. I’m so miserable that my stomach feels queasy. How can he ignore me like that?
It’s as if the past six months have been erased and Jared is now a stranger. The guy who claimed he couldn’t get enough of me has had enough. The guy who could hardly be near me without touching me in some way—entwining his fingers with mine, squeezing my waist—now can’t spare me a glance.
I remember the first time he kissed me. It was after school in the art room. I’d felt a hunger inside him that lit me up, scorching us both, forging our connection. Over the next months his kiss had become familiar to me, but the fire had always been there. The hunger for each other. And for me, at least, our connection had only grown stronger over time.
Looking over at him, I see him tipping his head back to drink some soda. Even the act of drinking is