This Is So Not Happening Read Free Page A

or—?” Annie asked.
    “He says they only did it once,” I replied quietly.
    Annie shook her head, staring off into space. “I can’t believe he cheated on you.”
    My stomach turned. “Well, not really. We weren’t together, and I was with Cooper—”
    “That’s such crap. You and Cooper didn’t have sex,” Annie interrupted.
    “So what if we had? Would we be, like, even, then?” I shot back. Why was I defending him?
    “Uh, totally,” Annie said, like the logic was so obvious. “The point is, you were with this hot guy for weeks and you guys were completely into each other, but you didn’t have sex. Why? Because you knew deep down you weren’t over Jake.”
    I knew where she was going with this and I didn’t like it. “Well, that wasn’t the only reason …,” I said, fiddling with an empty and torn sugar packet.
    “But it was the main one,” Annie said in a know-it-all voice. “Meanwhile he wasn’t even with Chloe and he didn’t think twice about hooking up with her. How could you not be more pissed?”
    “I am pissed!” I snapped. The pair of old men nursing coffees on the other side of the shop looked over, making me feel about two inches tall. I stared at the pink tabletop, my cheeks on fire. “But I don’t know. Does it matter how I feel? This has nothing to do with me.”
    “Dude. Of course it matters how you feel,” Annie said, her voice low. “And if you ever say it doesn’t, I’m gonna smack you upside the head.”
    We sat there for a long time in silence. For some reason I couldn’t make myself look her in the eye. It was like I was afraid she was ashamed of me or something.
    “Well, if you want my advice,” she said finally, breaking the silence, forcing me to lift my head. “And I’m assuming you want my advice or you wouldn’t have offered to pay me back for my coffee and Munchkins.”
    I narrowed my eyes. “I don’t remember offering to pay you back for—”
    She pushed the fresh receipt across the table. “It was implied. Anyway, what you need to do, like, yesterday, is figure out how much crap you want to deal with for this guy. ’Cause there’s gonna be a lot of crap. A lot a lot a lot of crap.”
    She took another Munchkin and studied it for a moment before biting into it. Jelly oozed out onto her chin. She swiped it up with her fingertip.
    “So the question is, do you really want to spend your senior year shoveling up this guy’s crap?” she asked matter-of-factly,pointing at me with the bright red finger. “That’s what you need to figure out.” She sucked the jelly off to punctuate her point.
    “That is a disgusting image,” I said.
    Annie tossed the second half of the doughnut hole in her mouth and smiled, raising her eyebrows merrily. “Isn’t it though?”
    My body collapsed and my head hit the table. She and Hammond were basically asking me the same thing, and they were both right. Did I still love Jake, and if I did, did I love him enough to deal with the massive crap-storm that was about to engulf us?
    Outside, the sky was finally black. In a few hours, school would start for the year. In a few hours, I’d either be walking through the front doors of Orchard Hill High alone, or holding hands with Jake. I needed to figure this out, and I needed to figure it out fast.
jake
    I tripped over a sprinkler and took a header into the wet grass in Dr. Nathanson’s side yard. Fuck. Just what I needed. I shoved myself up off the ground. The whole front of my shirt was soaked and I looked like I’d peed in my shorts.
    Fucking great. Ally was gonna love me now. Why hadn’t I just gone to the front door? Ally’s mom didn’t know anything. What was the matter with me? I had to stop sneaking around girls’ houses like some kind of dumb-ass cat burglar. Clearly it got me nowhere good.
    I made it to the backyard without breaking any bones andstood under Ally’s window. The light was on. I took out my phone and texted her.
    SRY 4 BAILING. AM IN YARD.