Part 12 (2/2)

”So,” she said, and tugged on my sleeve, ”did you talk to Jared?”

I didn't laugh. Well, not very hard. ”About?”

Her eye roll was like, duh! ”The pizza thing.”

”Did you talk to Rascal?”

She glanced down. ”Yeah, well, he's not much for working things out with Jared.”

You think? And especially not now, since he's wearing the imprint of Jared's fist on his face.

But all I did was nod.

”I was hoping that it went better with Jared, and that we could put our heads together and make this work,” she went on, good friend that she was.

But I was a gazillion years past her games. ”You really want to go to the homecoming dance, huh?”

She stared at my face for a long moment, maybe trying to figure out if I'd asked a trick question. ”Game. I said homecoming game.”

”But the dance is after the game.”

She gave me another duh look (just in case I was silly enough to believe we were really becoming friends).

”What's your dress like?”

She bit on the inside of her mouth. ”Incredible.”

Score one for Jared-he sure called this right.

”Okay, maybe you just bring Jared to our caf table today and we force them to talk.”

I nodded, as if that was an option, as if she hadn't beaten this subject beyond death. Then I arched a brow and let her have it. ”Look, I see two problems with that plan. One, I'm not Jared's girlfriend, and never was. And two, you're not Rascal's girlfriend anymore. Why would either of them listen to us?”

”Not Rascal's girlfriend? Who told you that?”

”Who do you think?”

She didn't even try. Probably too taxing on her limited gray matter. Without a breath, she replied: ”Well, whoever told you that was lying.” She examined a fingernail. ”Everything's fine.”

My tongue ran over the roof of my mouth. That figured.

Later, settling into our geometry cla.s.s, I caught Kylie's gaze in pa.s.sing. ”How's Rascal's nose?” I asked.

”Sore. How do you know about it?”

”I was there.” I pointed to the knee I'd sc.r.a.ped on the pavement, but when I looked up, she was already two seats behind and one row over, plopping her books on her desk.

”Nicolette, don't you have anything better to do with your Sundays than go to school to watch football scrimmages?”

”That's what he said? That it happened here?”

Mr. Hammond told the cla.s.s to settle down- meaning Kylie and me, I imagined, as all eyes seemed to be on us.

”He's a pretty good liar,” I said, and imitated her best eye roll.

Hammond glared my way. He had dark hair and a thick unibrow that made him look like Bert from Sesame Street. It made me, on my good days, feel sort of sorry for him. Like spending his life teaching geometry wasn't bad enough.

I opened my notebook and pulled out my homework, then found a fresh sheet and scribbled: If you want the truth, ask Jared.

I folded it up into a nice little square, waited until Hammond turned to write some useless equation on the board, and flung it on Kylie's desk.

A minute or so later, something hit my shoulder. I waited until the coast was clear, reached down, and picked up her reply.

Yeah, right. What's it like on your planet?

My heart started beating like a moth trapped under a jar. I wrote furiously.

On my planet, your boyfriend is telling people he's over you.

I threw it at her, then waited for the scoff or grunt or the flying reply.

Nothing.

Finally, I turned around.

The great Kylie Schoenbacher was acting as if she was paying attention to the teacher, but her eyes were as pink as her candy-colored lip gloss.

I s.h.i.+fted back around. Trying to feel the triumph my head told me I'd earned.

At lunch, Alison and I scarfed down chili cheese fries in the caf as I told her about the stuff with Kylie.

”I'll bet she's grilling Rascal right now. Making his life frigging miserable.”

”Way to go, Chunky,” I said, and grinned.

”You heard him call her that, too?”

”Yeah. Can you imagine?”

She shook her head and then scanned the room. I figured she was trying to find Kylie, but faces were hard to single out in the crowd-even if Kylie's was particularly well painted.

I licked some chili off a finger. ”So, you think she'll find out he was at my house yesterday?”

”Only if someone else tells her. Any witnesses?”

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