I stood frozen in the middle of the hallway. I could feel the blood draining from my face, and my hands turned cold and started to shake. There was definite nausea coming on, but I told the same old lie. “I’m fine.” I forced my feet to move again. “I just, um, thought I forgot something. It’s fine. Now, what were you saying?”
Jessica nodded. “Oh, well, I’m so excited about Jake! I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’ve really, really missed him. It’ll be nice to hang out with him for a few days. Oh, and I think Tiffany is coming with him. Did I tell you they just got engaged?”
“No. That’s great… I’ve gotta get to class, Jessica.”
“Oh,… okay. Well, I’ll see you in English, Bianca.” I was halfway down the hallway before Jessica got the sentence out of her mouth.
I pushed past the stampeding students, barely hearing them as they bitched at me for stepping on their toes or ramming them with my backpack. The sounds around me slowly faded as unwanted memories flooded into my head. It was like Jessica’s words had broken the dam that held them back for so long.
“So, you’re Bianca? The freshman bitch that’s been screwing my boyfriend?”
“Your boyfriend? I haven’t been-”
“Stay the hell away from Jake.”
My face burned as the memories rushed back. My feet moved so fast I was almost sprinting toward my AP government class. As if I could outrun the thoughts. As if they wouldn’t chase me with a vengeance. But Jake Gaither would be back in Hamilton for a week. Jake Gaither was engaged to Tiffany. Jake Gaither… the boy who broke my heart.
I ran into the classroom just as the tardy bell rang. I knew Mr. Chaucer’s eyes were glaring in my direction, but I didn’t bother to look. I took my seat near the back of the room, trying desperately to focus on something else.
But not even Toby Tucker’s witty commentary on the legislative branch or the back of his adorable out-of-fashion head could tempt my thoughts away from Jake and his bride to be.
I barely heard a word Mr. Chaucer said all block, and when the bell rang, my page of notes, which should have been full of details from the lecture, consisted of only two short, barely legible sentences. God, I was going to fail this class if shit like this kept coming up.
So much drama! If I were a rich Manhattan snob, I could have been a character on Gossip Girl. (Not that I watch that trashy show… often… that my friends know about…) Why couldn’t my life be a sitcom? Then again, even the Friends crowd had issues.
I slouched toward the cafeteria, and I found Casey and Jessica waiting for me at our table. As always, Angela, Jeanine, and Jeanine’s cousin Vikki joined us. Angela was busy showing everyone her new Vans, so my sulkiness went unnoticed as I slumped into my chair.
“Cute,” Casey commented, grinning at the shoes. “Who got them for you?”
“Daddy,” Angela answered, stroking the toe of her purple shoe. “He and Mom are competing for my love now. At first it was kind of annoying, but I’ve decided to take the high road and have fun with it.” She crossed her legs and tossed back her dark hair. “I’m hoping for Prada next.”
Everyone laughed.
“I didn’t get anything cool out of my parents’ divorce,” Casey said. “My dad didn’t really care if I loved him more, I guess.”
“That’s sad, Case,” Jessica murmured.
“Oh, not really.” Casey shrugged and started picking at her orange fingernail polish. “Dad’s an ass. I was thrilled when Mom kicked him out of the house. She cries a lot less now, and when Mom’s happier, the world is happier. Sure, we don’t have as much money anymore, but it wasn’t like Dad spent his checks on us, anyway. He offered to buy Mom a car she didn’t want, but that’s about the extent of his good nature.”
“Divorces are depressing,” Jessica sighed. “I’d be heartbroken if my parents split up. Wouldn’t you, Bianca?”
I felt heat rush to my face, but Casey was switching the subject, so I pretended I hadn’t heard Jessica’s question. “Hey, Vikki, what happened on Homecoming night? You never told us how that went down.”
Jeanine giggled knowingly. “You haven’t told them yet, Vikki?”
Vikki rolled her eyes and twirled a strand of her curly strawberry-blond hair around her perfectly manicured finger. “Oh my God. Okay, so Clint is totally not speaking to me anymore, and Ross…”
Her voice drifted into the background and my mind wandered. As much as I wanted to stop thinking of Jake, I couldn’t bring myself to be interested in Vikki’s boy troubles. On any other day, I would have found mild amusement in her story, like she was my own personal soap opera, but at that moment her drama seemed so vague and unimportant. So vapid. So indulgent. So empty.
I couldn’t help feeling a little guilty for thinking this. That made me just as self-absorbed as she was. So I halfheartedly tried to listen to the woes of Vikki McPhee.
Then something she said caught my full attention.
“… but I did fool around with Wesley for a little while afterward.”
“Wesley?” I said.
Vikki beamed at me, proud of what she viewed as an achievement. Didn’t she know more than two-thirds of the girls in school had accomplished the same thing? Including me… but, of course, she didn’t know that part. “Yeah,” she said. “After the fight with Clint, I wound up out in the parking lot with Wesley. We messed around in his car for a while, but my mom called, so I had to get home before we could do anything. Sucks, right?”
“Sure.”
My eyes moved across the cafeteria, searching for a few seconds before they located the back of a curly brown head inches above those around him. He sat with a group of friends-mostly girls, naturally-at a long rectangular table on the other side of the room. He was wearing a tight black T-shirt that, while not really appropriate for the frigid temperatures of early February, showed off his perfect muscular arms. Arms that had twined around me… arms that had helped erase my stress…
“Did I tell you guys that my brother is coming to town?” Jessica asked. “He and his fiancée are visiting for the week.”
Casey’s worried eyes immediately turned on me and widened when she realized I was on my feet. “Where are you going, B?”