Page 33 of Never Not Friends

It’s been the worst two weeks of my life, if my overflowing garbage can of tissues is any indication of how I’ve been doing. The new Emma is a mixture of tears and teenage mood swings that my parents have labeled “dramatic” and “unacceptable.” But this breakup is all their fault, so I don’t really care what they think. I wouldn’t say that to them, but I’m definitely thinking it.

This is not at all how I saw everything going.

The day after I broke up with Vinny, I went to where he stood at his locker, expecting him to walk me to my class like he always did, but he ignored me and walked away.

Ignored me.

I was so shocked. I didn’t know what to do.

I walked alone to all my classes that day, completely shattered.

He didn’t sit by me in geography, math, health, or English—don’t know how he managed that with the seating charts—and for the first time in eight months, he didn’t eat lunch with my friends and me.

Everybody at school was talking about it.

We went from spending every second together and texting each other all night long to not even speaking.

NOT. EVEN. SPEAKING.

My life as I knew it was over.

I stared out the window on the bus, trying not to cry. I came home from school that day and locked myself in my room. Well, I had to leave once and steal a roll of toilet paper from the bathroom so I could blow my nose every five minutes. But other than that, I sobbed into my pillow.

The next day, I ignored Vinny too, partly because I didn’t know what else to do, but mostly because I was so brokenhearted. I couldn’t just ask him why he was ignoring me. That would be soooo awkward. No, it was easier to ignore him back and pretend like everything was fine.

That’s the game we’ve been playing the last two weeks.

It’s been miserable.

Until his unexpected text.

My heart thuds with happiness as I read it again.

Vinny:

I’d rather be friends with you than be nothing at all.

Friends for a couple of months, until I can convince my parents to let me have a serious boyfriend again. Maybe I can even convince them by our joint sixteenth birthday party we’ve been planning for months. But until I change their minds, I’m not going to tell Vinny. I don’t want him hating my parents or him thinking that they hate him.