Confessions of an Angry Girl

by Louise Rozett

  “I’m sorry, Rose,” says Michelle. “I didn’t know. I swear.”

  * * *

  Jamie’s phone goes straight to voice mail each time I call.

  Is he ignoring me? Is he mad at me? Is he hurt? In the hospital? Dead?

  I’m trying as hard as I can to stay calm, to breathe and not let my brain go to the worst-case scenario. It isn’t easy—my life has been all about worst-case scenarios for the past year.

  I can hear my mom rummaging around in the closet outside my room, looking for the digital camera so she can take pictures while she’s lecturing me about how I’m supposed to come straight home after this dance or I’ll never be allowed out of the house again.

  I know that she doesn’t need the camera or the lecture.

  It’s 6:45. Jamie is supposed to pick me up at 7:00. My hair and makeup are done, but I’m in cutoffs and one of my dad’s shirts. My blue sheath dress is laid out on the bed and my super-high heels are still in the box. I can’t make myself put any of it on because I know there’s no point.

  When I hear someone pull up outside at 6:55, half of me wants to run down the stairs and the other half wants to hide under the bed. I decide to go to the front door like a normal human being. My mother announces from somewhere on the second floor that she’s still looking for the camera, she’ll be down in a minute and I’m not to go anywhere until she gets there. I open the door to see Angelo getting out of his car.

  His lifts his hand to wave, but he doesn’t smile and that’s when I know for sure that something bad happened. Angelo always smiles, even when he shouldn’t, which is probably why he gets into trouble all the time. I’m suddenly sick to my stomach.

  I meet him on the sidewalk in front of my house and realize that he’s wearing a tuxedo that’s a little too small on him.

  “You look really nice, Angelo,” I say, putting off asking what I know I have to ask.

  “Thanks, Sweater. You know, you look pretty nice yourself. You clean up good.”

  I look down at my cutoffs and the shirt I wore to the salon. Tracy taught me that trick—wear a button-down shirt to the salon so you don’t have to pull anything off over your head and risk messing up your hair when you put on your nice clothes later.

  I’m still staring down at my shirt. I can’t make myself look at Angelo.

  “Jamie ain’t comin’, Rose.”

  I nod, willing myself not to cry. Angelo hates it when girls cry.

  “What happened?” I ask. “He changed his mind?”

  “No, nothin’ like that. He’d be here if he could. But he’s in jail.”

  I can’t process what Angelo is telling me. “He’s in jail,” I repeat like a parrot.

  “Regina got him busted for buyin’ with his fake ID.” I just stare at Angelo dumbly. “I guess, uh, Regina asked Michelle to ask Jamie to buy for the party tonight, and he said yes because it was Michelle askin’, not Regina. And then the bitch called the cops and told them to bust him at the store.”

  “And they put him in jail?”

  “Yeah. Fake ID and buyin’ for minors. His dad told his cop buddies not to go easy on him, and he ain’t gonna bail Jamie out till tomorrow, either. He’s the kinda asshole who would let his kid sit in jail all night just to prove somethin’.”

  Regina is a genius. An evil genius.

  “I went to see him and he asked me to take you tonight.”

  I can’t believe it. Jamie is worrying that I’m going to be bummed about missing the prom while he’s sitting in jail.

  Angelo pulls at the lapel of his tux. “He rented this for himself so it don’t fit me so great, but I’m ready to hit that hotel ballroom if you are.”

  I actually manage to laugh a little. Angelo pretends to look offended.

  “What? Dontcha think I look good?”

  “You do. But aren’t you already going with someone?”

  “Nah. Fuck This Shit is going to play at one of the after-parties, but I don’t wanna go to no—” He stops. “Uh, sorry, I didn’t mean that. I mean, I wanna go if you wanna go, but…”

  “Thanks, Angelo, but I don’t want to go without Jamie.”

  “Yeah. I told him you’d say that. He made me promise to come over anyway.” Angelo tugs at his bow tie, which seems to be strangling him. “Fuckin’ Regina. I wish Jamie woulda let you punch her when you had the chance.”

  This time I really laugh, knowing he’s only half joking.

  Angelo pokes gently at one of the sparkly things in my hair. “I can tell he likes you, Rose. And he’s really, really sorry.” He reaches into the bulging pocket of his tuxedo jacket and pulls out a wadded-up T-shirt and a crinkled piece of paper folded a bunch of times. “The T-shirt’s clean, I swear. I can’t say about the note one way or the other.”

  He winks, turns and heads back to his car, pulling off the bow tie and throwing it through the window before he gets in. Then he starts up the engine and guns it a few times before he drives down my street, his long hair blowing out the window, vintage Nine Inch Nails blaring. He honks the horn once as he turns the corner.

  I hold up his gift and see that it’s the Neko Case concert shirt he was wearing on Valentine’s Day. I look at the note, almost afraid to open it.

  The writing isn’t as neat as it was on the card that came with the carnation. It’s ragged, like it was written in a car—maybe the back of a cop car. Maybe they didn’t cuff him because of his dad.

  Rose. Like I said. I am not right for you. I’m different. Believe me. Be good.

  Why do I feel like he’s breaking up with me when I’m not even sure we’re together? And what is it that makes him so sure he’s different from me?

  I want to call Tracy. But how can I, after weeks have gone by and I still haven’t talked to her to see if she’s okay after what happened with Matt?

  I suddenly hate myself for being scared of things this year. I was scared of people knowing I like a guy who has to take remedial English. I was scared of standing up for myself when Regina was doing her psychotic graffiti. I was scared of losing Tracy to the cheerleaders and to sex, and I thought if I just buried my head in the sand, nothing bad would happen. And yet, bad is exactly what did happen.

  Bad things happen whether you’re scared or not, so you might as well not bother being scared. It’s a waste of time.

  I look back at the house and see my mother standing at the front door, uncertain, camera in one hand and phone in the other. She holds up the phone to tell me I have a call. I sprint up the walk into the house and grab it from her before she can even tell me who it is.

  “Jamie?” I gasp, sounding as desperate as I feel.

  “It’s Tracy.” For a second, I’m not sure my ears are working right. “I heard. Are you okay, Rosie?”

  The sound of my ex-best friend calling me “Rosie” floods me with such relief that my legs go wobbly. I can’t believe she’s calling me—she knew I’d want to talk to her, no matter what happened between us before. I stagger up the stairs to my bedroom, sink onto my bed and stare up at the ceiling, no longer concerned about messing up my hair.

  “Rosie?” she says again.

  “Yeah, I’m okay. Are you?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  Silence.

  “I should have called, Trace.”

  “It’s okay. I know why you didn’t.”

  “I’m really sorry.” My voice comes out in a whisper.

  “Me, too. I didn’t know Regina wou
ld do that,” Tracy says.

  “I’m kind of glad she did. I never would have gone after her if she hadn’t.”

  “That was totally crazy, Rose. You were scary. I’ve never seen you do anything like that.” I’ve never seen me do anything like that, either. I wish I could say that nothing like that will ever happen again, but if I’ve learned anything this year, it’s that I can’t make any promises as far as my behavior goes.

  “Is Jamie really in jail?” she asks.

  “His dad’s going to leave him there overnight to make a point.” I try to imagine what jail is like. Union is a small town, so I’m going to guess that Jamie’s not in danger—I can forget the prison images embedded in my head from HBO shows. Probably the worst that will happen is he might have to share a cell with somebody who had too much to drink at Morton’s and puked down the front of his shirt after grabbing at a cocktail waitress or something. But I’m still scared for him.

  I turn my head and see the blue flower I drew on the wall way back in October while I was on the phone with Peter, the day after Tracy’s Halloween party. It seems like a million years ago that Peter said he had asked Jamie to look out for me. I bet Jamie never thought that saying yes would land him in jail.

  “So, um, you did it, huh? How was it?” I ask, trying not to sound judgmental or ask if they used a condom. I know that if I want to keep talking to Tracy, I should put off that question until later. Much later.

  “Terrible,” she says in her matter-of-fact voice. “Ms. Maso was right. And you were right, too. He’s a total jerk and I should have saved it for someone else. If you feel like it, you can say ‘I told you so.’”

  “Yeah, well, so can you, so let’s pretend we both already said it and forget about it.”

  “Okay. So, did you get your hair done?”

  There are a million things we should be talking about, like what happened between us this year and how it got so ugly, but really, she’d much rather talk about my hair. And for once, so would I.

  I tell her about Sherri and the bling, and my shoes and my blue dress. I tell her about how Jamie sent Angelo over in his tux in case I still wanted to go to the prom. I tell her about what happened at the salon with Regina and Michelle. It feels so good to tell her things after keeping everything to myself for so long, I can’t believe I survived without doing it.

  “So, is Jamie your boyfriend?”

  I look down at the note that is still in my hand. Does Jamie really think that he can get rid of me by saying “I’m different”? It just makes me want to kiss him again.

  “He’s not my boyfriend. We kissed twice, and he said we shouldn’t have.”

  “But he asked you to the prom.”

  “Not really. He did it just to piss off Regina, I think.”

  “Rosie, Jamie doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would bother with the prom just to piss someone off.”

  “All I know, Trace, is that I like him.” I hesitate. “I want to be with him.”

  “Then you have to do something. If I were you…” she starts.

  “If you were me, what?” I ask.

  “If I were you, I’d tell Mrs. Chen everything, from the first time Regina threatened you and wrote graffiti on your locker, to what she did to Jamie today.”

  “But what if she makes good on her threat, Trace? I mean, what if she takes it out on you and figures out a way to get you thrown off the team?”

  “Then I guess I’m off the team. It’s not like I want to be around Lena anyway,” she says.

  “But—”

  “It doesn’t matter anymore, Rose,” she says. She sounds really sad, and I wonder if she means that it doesn’t matter because she doesn’t care about cheerleading anymore, or it doesn’t matter because she’s not with Matt. “Turn the bitch in.”

  “What if getting her in trouble just makes her crazier next year?” I ask.

  “You can’t worry about that now. Regina deserves some serious payback. Especially after what she just did—I mean, Jamie is sitting in a jail cell right now, and you’re both missing the prom because of her. Morley’s been trying to get you to tell Mrs. Chen, right? Well, here’s your chance. If you email now, I bet she’ll get it just in time to stop Regina when she’s trying to pick up her tickets at the hotel ballroom, in front of everyone. It’ll be totally perfect.”

  I’ve been keeping the secret about Regina for so long that the idea of releasing it into the wild is mildly terrifying. I look at my laptop sitting on my desk, waiting for me to take action.

  “Will you help me?” I ask, feeling sick to my stomach.

  “I’ll be there in five. I want to see this ‘bling’ in your hair anyway,” she says, hanging up before I can say another word. I imagine her yelling to her mom that she’s coming to my house as she runs out her red front door, just like she’s been doing ever since we were allowed to cross the street by ourselves. My best friend is coming over to help me. I feel calmer than I have in weeks.

  I look out the window over the back garden, where the dogwoods are in bloom and my mother’s flowers are starting to come up. I don’t like getting people in trouble. But Regina Deladdo deserves this. I have no idea what the fallout is going to be, but Tracy’s right—I can’t worry about that now. I was saving this information for the perfect moment, and the perfect moment is here.

  No fear.

  I go to the desk and open the laptop. The screen springs back to life.

  * * * * *

  escalate (verb): to increase in intensity, often in reference to a conflict or war; to get worse

  (see also: Rose Zarelli’s sophomore year)

  CONFESSIONS OF AN ALMOST GIRLFRIEND

  Coming in 2013 from Harlequin TEEN.

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  ISBN: 9781459237919

  Copyright © 2012 by Louise Rozett

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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