“Are you kidding? According to my father, he’s a chronic disappointment. He’s a mathlete. You’re the athlete. He’d rather read a book. You’d rather hang out with his favorite daughter.” She gives a hard wink. That, right there, is why I’ve always been put off by her father. If I had kids, there’s no way I’d berate one just because they decided to make different life choices. My stomach sinks to my feet at the thought of kids, so I change thesubject.
“So, how did it end with Justin?” There. A part of me wants to know if there’s still a snowball’s chance in hell that those two cheating, lying hearts could melt over one another and make somethinghappen.
Jen leans in with a devilish look in her eye. “With a bang.” She lets out a raucous cackle, and just as I’m about to say something, a familiar perfume swoopsbetweenus.
I look up to find my sister good and ticked. “Hey, Trix.” Crap. She’ll either blow this, make it worse, or perhaps something so inconceivably horrible I don’t have the balls to thinkabout.
“Having a good time, are we?” Her eyes grow wild as she inspects Jen who’s dabbing the corners of her eyes with her pinkies from laughing so hard at her own doubleentendre.
“Yes,” I say it defiant, glancing over at the full drink in front of Jen. “You got a problem with that?” There’s no way I’m letting my sister ruin this moment. Everything is riding on what happens next, and Trixie just isn’t a part of the plan thisafternoon.
Trixie grows pale, and for a second I almost ask her to sit down before she passes out. “Are you even sane right now?” The hurt in her voice guts me. Trix and I have never been good at keeping secrets from one another. Not to mention the fact our bullshit radar is on par twenty-four seven. If she hangs out another minute, she’ll call BS on this entirecharade.
“I’m sane. Why don’t you take off? We’ll havedinner.”
Jen kicks me from under the table. “You’re having dinner with me. I’ve been craving a fried chicken sandwich from the Chicken Bucket back home. I think a drive through Bel Terra is exactly what the doctorordered.”
I blink a smile at my sister. “Guess you lost your dinner date.” I hitch my head to the door, hoping she’ll take a fucking hint. “We’lltouchbase.”
“God,” Trix pants as if she’s about to be sick. “I think I liked the other bimbo better. You really do need to get your head checked out, and I’m talking about your wanker. This is some seriously disturbing shit going on right now.” She shakes her head at me. “Maybe don’t call me. I’ll call you.” She takes off without bothering to get her favorite drink, and I feel a little bad about that. But it warms me to the bone she likes Harper better. Ido,too.
“So let’s relive the good parts of the past.” I lift my drink and toast Jen once again. “I’ll start.” I talk and talk and talk until I can’t stand the sound of my own voice, but I know if I let her talk she will never finish her drink and all of the energy I put into this little plot would have been for not. I talk about how we met, what I thought of her in those first moments—a stark contrast to what I thought about Harper. I thought Harper couldn’t be real, and I thought Jen was the real thing. That right there, my friend, is irony. I talk about the countless football games we’ve been a part of, about prom, about the countless shopping trips I’ve accompanied her on, the time I drove her to Florida so she could get her hair cut at some fancy studio that some celebrity she idolizes once went to. In all honesty, her hair looked the same to me even if it was five hundred dollarslater.
An hour drifts by, Jen has long since finished her drink, and now I’m just buying time, shooting the breeze as if I actually had somethingtosay.
Jen talks about everything from the color of her nails to the next car she’s about to have Daddypurchase.
“You know”—she reaches over and claps my hand in hers—“when the time is right, Daddy said he’d buy us our first home. Nothing like the hovel you’re living in now. I’m talking a home we can raise our children in.” She looks down and places her hand over her stomach. “Starting withthisone.”
Crap. The world wobbles around me once again. It hasn’t stopped doing this since she let me in on her—correction—ourlittlesecret.
“I hope it’s a girl who looks exactly like you.” She sighs—momentarily forgetting the fact she has put down Trixie for years. Yes, a little girl who looks just like me would be the exact representation of my sweet sister. “I’m going to hit the little ladies’ room. Maybe we can go to the student store afterwards and pick up a little mini Whitney Briggs T-shirt?”
“Sounds like a great idea.” My gut grinds as I push the words out. “But before you go… About the baby—” I pull the box from the little brown bag I’ve hauled in with me and slide the pregnancy test across the table. The girl at the drugstore said this would read positive even if she hadn’t skipped a period yet, and according to Jen, she’s nearly skipped three. She promised me it’s mine. Not sure how she could promise me anything like that, but she shook me to my core. My head hasn’t been the same since that day. “I need you to prove ittome.”
Don’t Mess with the Girl in the RedDress
HARPER
Whitney Briggs Universityis bustling with life at this, the tail end of a long, hot, exasperating summer. School starts up in two weeks—which means if I don’t score student housing, I’ll be left to scan the outskirts of campus for an apartment, and as much as I might be afraid of heights, I dread the thought of living isolated from campus just as much. I suppose I could wrangle up a roommate on short notice, but I’m two for two as far as rotten roomies go. Knox was a great roommate until he made me feel like someone who invited herself to the party. For as much as Knox made me feel loved, he made me feel that much more horrible. It’s as if a weight—as heavy as the world—was tied around my waist and I can’t stop sinking into this dark pit. I know I’m not supposed to give other people the power over my happiness and all that other psychological bullshit, but Knox made me happier than I’ve felt in years. He filled something in me I didn’t know was missing. I thought Justin came close, but he wasn’t even in the same solarsystem.
I make my way out of the student relations center after placing myself on the waiting list for every single dormitory on campus and scan the area. I’m not even sure what I’m looking for anymore. Am I looking for Knox in hopes he’ll find me? In hopes I can steal one more look at that hotter than hell body, that face that can set off an entire angelic choir? Or am I looking for signs of Justin so I can avoid him like a kangaroo wielding achainsaw?
I strut my stuff over to Hallowed Grounds and turn a couple of heads in the process. In an impromptu moment of mild regret, I chose to don a tight little red dress as if to tell the universe you might steal my sanity, but you can’t steal my sense of style. It used to be that a bright dress had the power to cheer me up, but I’m quickly discovering that fabric-based placebo isn’t at all the panacea I thought it could be. I used to secretly love it when I got the attention of a boy. I used to let it inflate me unnaturally—inadvertently giving those boys more power than I should have. But the thought of them looking at me, gawking at me like some piece of meat almost makes me want to flip them off. What gives them the right to accost me with their eyes? Okay, so that’s probably taking things a bittoofar.
I set foot into the coffee shop, and the scent of fresh-roasted beans automatically gives me a contact high. I swear, half the time I’m coming in for a cup of coffee, it’s just to inhale all the slow-roasted goodness this place has to offer. But today, not even the scent of all things delicious has the power to cheer me up. The truth is, I miss Knox. He was the other side of my coin, me in male skin. I’m sick that we crashed and burned the way we did. I wish I never got involved with him tobeginwith.
I put in my order and head to the left, waiting with the hordes of others to pick up theirdrinks.
“Harper?” a light voice calls out from behind. “I thought thatwasyou!”
I spin to find Laney Capwell with her hair in a bun, sunglasses on, and she looks great per usual. She offers me a quick embrace as she whips herglassesoff.
She pulls back and winces at me as if she were in pain. “Knox told us whathappened.”
“Really?” I’m almost amused by this. “That’s funny because I don’t even know whathappened.”
She ticks back a notch. “He said you had a blowout. He also said it was over a misunderstanding, and that you’ve been playing hard to get in the communication department.” They call her name and she steps forward to get her drink. “Look, I gotta run, but you have to promise me you won’t let another day go by without talking to that boy. He’s just sick without you! If you let it go too long, an entire year can slip by. I should know. It happened to me.” She shakes her head with a look that screamsdon’t follow in my footsteps. “I really hope things will work out between the two of you. You were the cutest darn couple I have ever seen. I’ll be across the street at the bar if you need me. Don’t be a stranger.” She hooks me into another quick embrace and whispers, “Above all, be true to yourself. I know you’ll find your way back to one another. I canfeelit.”
