1
Even though I’m the Theatre Kid, my sister’s the dramatic one.
“Ugh,” Jasmine says as soon as she sees Nick, three lanes over in the parking lot. She rests her head against her car’s steering wheel, then jolts back up when her nose sets off the horn.
“You okay?”
Jasmine mutters something into the wheel. It’s got a pink fuzzy cover on it.
“I can’t hear you.”
She sits up, sighs, and faces me. “Sorry. It’s just hard seeing him.”
“It’s been months.”
“He broke my heart. You don’t know what it’s like.”
I’ve had my heart broken before. Maybe not as often or as hard as Jasmine, but still.
“Can you do his list again?”
“Jasmine...”
“Please?”
Nick is Jasmine’smillionthlatest ex-boyfriend. They dated all summer before Nick broke up with her because he “didn’t wantto be tied down senior year.” But now she’s stuck sitting behind him in Pre-Calculus.
I’ve repeated his list so many times I’ve basically got it memorized. Still, I reach into my backpack, pull out my black stage manager binder, and flip to the end where I keep my lists. Given how many of them there are—and how often Jasmine needs them repeated—I have to keep them close.
MAN BUN NICK’S BREAKUP LIST:
A CRUSTY SOCK IN HUMAN FORM
TOO MUCH AXE BODY SPRAY
NOT ENOUGH TO COVER THE WEIRD SMELL
SMACKS HIS LIPS AT THE BEGINNING OF EACH SENTENCE
DOESN’T LIKE PICKLES
ALWAYS LOOKS LIKE HE’S HOLDING IN A FART
BAD MAN BUN
It barely even qualifies as a bun. More like a little man garlic knot or something.
“Plus there’s the whole thing where he broke up with you,” I point out.
“Right. Right.”
“And you said you wanted to focus on yourself senior year.”
Jasmine gives me a sharp nod. She takes a deep breath, redoes her ponytail, and squares her shoulders. “Thanks, Jackson. What would I do without you?”
I slip my binder into my backpack and shrug it on, grab my shmoodies, and follow her into school.
The Riverstone High School Alumni Associationruinedrenovated the student entrance over the summer, replacing the rows of double doors set in red brick with an ugly white façade. Huge letters spellRIVERSTONEabove the doors, but they’re the same white as the wall, so you can only see them by the shadows they cast. At night, they’re lit by blue LED backlight, even though Riverstone’s school colors are purple and gold.
