Theodora Twist Read Free Page A

do I start sweating and feeling slightly sick when his hand travels?
    Because you’re not ready, Belle and Jen tell me all the time.
    So when will I be ready? And if I’m not ready for Zach Archer, love of my life, who could I possibly ever be ready for?
    “You know who is ready?” Zach asks, those gorgeous blue eyes on mine. “Chloe Craven.”
    Did he just slap me across the face? Chloe Craven is very pretty, takes all AP classes, and has had a rep since eighth grade. This is not the point, though. The point is that Zach Archer isn’t supposed to be a jerk. He’s supposed to be my boyfriend.
    I pull my hand away. “Are you saying if I don’t have sex with you, she will?”
    “Maybe.” He lifts my chin with his finger. Suddenly his expression is all puppy dog.
    I want to tell him to give me five minutes to go online and see what Been There/Done That would advise. But I already know. I’m supposed to tell him he’s a jerk who doesn’t deserve me.
    “I—I’m . . . just not ready. I really like you, Zach. I want to be ready. But I’m just not. Yet,” I add, wishing this wasn’t so hard. “I mean, we’ve only been hanging out for two weeks, right?” I force a smile. “Hey, let’s go downstairs and see what’s on TV. Want some ice cream? We have everything for make-your-own sundaes—”
    He stands up and runs a hand through his silky brown hair. “Look, Emily, the only reason I asked you out in the first place is because I figured if you liked me as much as I heard you did, you’d have sex with me.”
    I stare at him, unable to speak, unable to think. With that one sentence, Zach Archer is no longer my boyfriend. Was never really my boyfriend. All I’ve been to Zach is an opportunity.
    “That doesn’t make me a jerk, by the way,” he adds offhandedly. “It makes me honest.”
    “Trust me,” I say, closing my eyes for a second. “It makes you a jerk.”
    “You’re a nice girl,” he says, giving my hair a playful tug. “Maybe too nice. Friends?” He extends his hand, which I don’t shake. He shrugs. “See you around school.”
    I wait until I hear him racing down the steps— probably straight to Chloe Craven’s house—before I burst into tears.
    I pick up the phone to call Belle, but I start crying, so I IM her and Jen instead.
    EmilyIsFine: He dumped me. 2 sad 2 type details. EmilyIsDefinitelyNotFine.
    JenGirl: OMG!!! RUOK? Be there in 15 minutes with ice cream.
    BelleSays: Me 2.
    Belle and Jen are in my room in less than fifteen minutes.
    “He is a jerk, right?” I say, hoping for just a moment that I might be wrong so that I can hit rewind and go back to twenty minutes ago, when Zach was here, when he was my boyfriend.
    Belle glances up from last year’s yearbook, pushing her long auburn curls out of her face. She’s drawing horns on Zach’s picture. “No, he’s not a jerk. He’s a shithead.”
    “I’m really sorry, Em,” Jen says. “I know how much you liked him.”
    I don’t want to cry again, so I head downstairs to get three Diet Cokes. I pull open the fridge and fight back tears.
    “Out of Fluff?” Stew, my stepfather, asks with an awkward smile as he comes into the kitchen. He often has on Awkward Face. It means he knows something’s wrong but doesn’t want to deal with it. (“Or he doesn’t know how to deal with it,” my mother likes to correct.) Stew and I never have all that much to say to each other, but he knows I have a thing for peanut butter and Fluff sandwiches.
    I quickly collect myself. “Ha ha,” I say. “I just thought of something sad, that’s all.”
    He reaches past me into the fridge and grabs the leftover apple pie from dinner. He flashes another awkward smile, then disappears into his study.
    I hear Sophie, my one-year-old sister, crying upstairs. Stew does not emerge from his study. I know that my mom is napping. Stew knows that my mom is napping. They both know that Sophie is teething and wakes up a few times between bedtime and the