Taste of Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul III Read Free Page A

that Tommy called me. He wanted . . .”
    â€œHe wanted my phone number, huh? I knew it!”
    â€œWell, not exactly. He seemed kind of, well, I don’t know . . . he asked me to go see a movie tonight.” The words came out slower than imaginable. I thought I was about to be attacked by Michelle’s raging hormones any second now. “Before you get mad, I want to explain myself, and you have to believe me.”
    I was completely honest with Michelle. I explained how I liked Tommy for a long time and apologized profusely for not telling her sooner. I told her about her matchmaker disease and how I had cried the whole night before. I recited my conversation with Tommy word for word and poured out a million more apologies. The weight had been lifted off my shoulders, but I felt I had just passed it on to her. The long period of silence that followed assured me that Michelle was not going to accept my apology that quickly.
    After not being able to take the silence any more, I broke in and asked, “Are you all right? What are you thinking? Do you hate me? Do you want me to break my date? What? At least give me an idea of how you feel.”
    The heavy breathing on the other side of the phone was about to become a whimper when I heard the click . She didn’t even say a word, just hung up. I called her back fifty times that day only to hear an answering machine that demanded that I never call her again. I have never felt so torn before in my life. The first time that something exciting actually happens to me, it has to break up the only solid relationship that I have in my life. Michelle and I always thought we were above this type of situation. Our friendship was too strong to let a boy break it up. We refused to be like those other cliques of girls that backstabbed each other all the time.
    I called Tommy and explained the whole situation. He felt terrible and agreed that we could cancel our date for the night. He was disappointed but he understood. Every day for the following three weeks, I felt like I was in some never-ending chase. I would track Michelle down whenever I could and try to convince her to talk to me. I would fail each time. She would either snicker some rude comment or just shoot me down or she wouldn’t say anything at all. I never realized she had the ability to be so cruel. After the countless number of rejections, I slowly began to give up. I couldn’t keep chasing after something that she seemed to have given up on a long time ago. It was too frustrating and disappointing.
    Tommy was great throughout the whole ordeal. We continued to see each other and became extremely close. I could safely say he was my best friend. As for Michelle, her hostility toward me slowly began to wear down but we still weren’t friends. We had one of those say-hi-to-each-other-in-the-hallway relationships. The pain of ­losing her friendship never diminished either. I would find myself suddenly crying sometimes when I would think of what happened to our relationship. I wondered if she ever even missed me.
    About a week ago, eight months after everything had happened, I built up the courage to ask Michelle if she wanted to go out to lunch with me. To my ultimate surprise, she agreed. We spent most of the lunch having little chit-chat conversations about the things happening in our lives. The whole time I wanted to scream at her about how much I missed her. I wanted to go back to my house, change into our pajamas, and gossip about every little detail about every little thing that could possibly be ­gossiped about! I wanted to laugh with her and feel comfortable around her. I wanted to curl up and eat five scoops of Häagen-Dazs coffee chip ice cream while we watched our favorite movies that we’ve both seen 50 million times. Most of all, I wanted the security of knowing that I had my best friend back.
    The meaningless chit-chat continued until I reached Michelle’s house to drop