It was no secret that my sister had pretended to be ill to get out of school on more than one occasion, yet my parents didn’t give her a hard time. “You always let Jemma stay home.”
“Jemma wasn’t trying to ruin her perfect attendance record because of some boy,” my mother said, putting a plate of pancakes down for my sister.
Great, so I was being punished because I’d never bothered to pretend I was sick in the past?
“He’s not some boy.” I tossed my fork down. “And it’s not like it matters where I get into school now anyway,” I muttered.
“Hey,” my mom said, leaning over the kitchen counter and putting her hands on my shoulders, “I don’t want to hear you talking like this. Your dreams are your dreams. Not Marc’s.”
His name alone brought me to the verge of tears. How was I supposed to go to school like this?
“Come on,” my dad said, jumping into the morning pep talk. “Don’t you want to show Marc that you’re doing fine without him?”
“In that case, she might want to shower,” my sister said, scrunching up her nose and dramatically waving her hand in front of it.
I sneered at her.
“What?” Jemma asked, shoving a huge bite of pancake into her mouth. “I’m just trying to help. You’re kind of stinking up the place.”
I couldn’t really argue with her. She was right. I was a mess. A smelly, disgusting one. I was still in the tank top I’d worn to school on Friday and to Scobell’s. While I had managed to change out of my jeans and into a pair of gym shorts, I hadn’t touched my hair, or bathed, or even put on deodorant. I’d only brushed my teeth because Jemma had brought my toothbrush, toothpaste, and a cup of water into my bedroom and threatened to brush them for me. “Let Marc see what a mess I am, what he did to me. I don’t care,” I informed them.
“Cammy,” my dad said. He hadn’t called me that since I was a child. “We care, and this isn’t healthy.”
Neither was having your heart ripped to shreds.
My mother nodded in agreement. “We hate seeing you like this.” She was watching me with so much intensity, I had to turn away.
“I look how I feel.”
“Then you need to fake it till you make it,” she said.
Sometimes my mother could be like a walking meme. I picked my fork back up and stabbed it into my food. “What kind of advice is that?”
“The kind that works,” my father said. “When I got my first advertising job, I didn’t feel ready, but I pretended I was. I walked the walk, and now look—creative director. Your mom did the same thing.”
Did they really not see that this was entirely different from not being prepared for a job?
“It’s only been a couple of days,” I tried to explain. “You don’t get over something like this overnight.”
“And you don’t get over it by sitting home and sulking,” my dad said. “Cammy, we know how hard this is for you, but you need to be strong.”
“Your friends will be here soon. Why don’t you go get ready?” my mom said, putting on her “soothing” voice. I’d heard it a lot this weekend. I knew she was trying to help, they all were, but it wasn’t working.
“I am ready.”
“Camryn,” my dad said, switching back to my “grown-up” name and his serious voice. “You can’t go to school like that.”
I wanted to object, but I was too tired to argue anymore, so I bit my tongue and trudged back upstairs.
My phone buzzed. It was Terri.
I texted back a thumbs-up. There was no use telling her no, either; she was almost as bad as my family. Terri was on a mission to cheer me up. Both she and Grace had stopped by on Saturday and Sunday even though I’d told them not to, and I barely spoke to either of them. During the first visit, they put on an old movie. It was Sleepless in Seattle, and it used to be one of my favorites, but when the lead left her perfectly lovely fiancé to go find someone else, I burst into tears. Marc was Meg Ryan, and I was the fiancé—some random side character that no one cared about, because they were all rooting for the lead to find someone better. I didn’t want to be the throwaway character. I wanted to be the one who found love.
After the movie fiasco, my friends just sat with me while I sulked.
Now they were on their way to pick me up. By pure habit I showered, dressed, and was back downstairs by the time Terri beeped the horn. There was no getting out of it: I was going to school. I took one last look in the mirror, realizing I looked like a ghost version of myself. My hazel eyes, the same color as Marc’s, were dull and red-rimmed from all the crying.
I sighed. I so looked the part of the tragically dumped girlfriend. Well, I figured, I might as well fully embrace the role. I rummaged through the junk drawer at the end table by the door and found my giant, round sunglasses. I grabbed a baseball hat off the coatrack, too. I put them both on, my new shields from the world. “Bye!” I shouted to my family as the screen door slammed behind me, not giving them time for one last pep talk.
“Hey!” Grace jumped out of the passenger side and gave me a hug. “You can have shotgun.” They never gave me the front. Last one picked up always got the back. They were taking pity on me, but I was not going to object. I’d take any perks I could get.
I got inside and slunk down in the seat. Terri gave my outfit a once-over.
“I call it miserable chic,” I told her.
“Hmm,” she said. “I think it has more of the famous-actor-trying-too-hard-not-to-get-noticed vibe.”
A small smile tugged at my lips, but I pushed it away.
Terri caught me. “No way,” she said, shaking her head. “You are not sulking all day. I’m not letting you.”
“But I’m so good at it,” I moaned.
She laughed. “We know.”
Grace reached out and squeezed my shoulder. “You’re going to see, the day will be a lot easier than you think.”
I threw my head back. “Are we taking bets on that? Because I could use some extra cash.”
Terri side-eyed me as she started the car.
“Okay, fine.” I gave in begrudgingly. “I’ll try to be cheery.” Fake it till you make it, that was what my mom had said, and I supposed she had a point.
“Ready?” Terri asked when we pulled into the parking lot at school.
I nodded. “Let’s do it.”
My confidence waned as I got out of the car and saw so many students lingering outside. I made a sprint toward the building, my friends speed-walking to keep up with me.
“Trying out for the track team?” Terri asked, but I ignored her. My focus was on getting to my locker without anyone stopping me to chat.
We passed a few people in the halls, and I felt them looking in my direction, but the sunglasses were great at keeping accidental eye contact at bay. I wasn’t ready to make small talk with anyone. I successfully made it to my destination. Even better, I did it without a single Marc sighting. My goal for today was to avoid him at all costs. There was no way I’d be able to fake anything around him.
“Aren’t you going to take those off?” Grace asked, tapping her temple to signal she meant my sunglasses.
“Nope,” I said, adjusting the nosepiece. “They and I are one.”
Terri’s mouth quirked into a smile. “Hey, you be as extra as you need. I, for one, support it fully.”
Normally she busted me hard-core when I went what she called “over the top,” but today she was encouraging the dramatics. That meant she knew this day was going to be torture. We all did.
The bell rang and a bunch of people ran by. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say everyone stared as they passed me. My appearance brought no fewer than five conversations to a halt. Not that I was surprised. Videos of my breakup had been all over social media sites like GroupIt. They’d been taken down, most of them anyway, but not before getting hundreds of views—including about sixty from me. I couldn’t help it: I just kept playing the video over and over until my tears blurred out the screen. Th
en I’d start over.
Despite the gawking, people seemed to be giving me my space. That is, until a couple of random freshmen I’d never spoken to headed my way. They had a look in their eyes that sent a warning signal straight to my gut: It said I was in the presence of pond scum.
“Did you see the video of her?” Guy Number One taunted as he neared, making sure to slow his pace so he could get a good look at me. “So pathetic. Now look at her, trying to get more attention with the whole woe is me act. No wonder he dumped her.” He didn’t care that I could hear him. In fact, it seemed like that was his intent. Then he kept walking, as if he hadn’t just insulted a complete stranger.
My muscles tightened, but while I froze, Terri moved into action. “Not so fast,” she said, following them, her hands balled into fists. They stopped, and she moved closer until she was only a few inches from them. If I were those guys, I’d have been running. Terri could be scary when she wanted to be.
“What was that you were you saying?” she asked, her voice soft, a low growl designed to send shivers down one’s spine. “Care to say it to my face?”
One of them opened his mouth, but when he took in Terri’s death glare, complete with raised eyebrow and eyes flashing pure hatred, he snapped it back shut.
“That’s what I thought. You want to talk pathetic, try two little freshmen thinking they’re big shots. Think of this as your warning to watch yourselves, because next time I won’t be so nice.”
They scurried off like rats without saying anything else. Smart on their part. I wasn’t sure exactly what Terri would have done if they hadn’t listened, but knowing her, it would have stung.
“Whoa,” Luke, the missing member of our group, said, catching the tail end of things. “What’s going on here?” He looked from us to where Terri was still facing down the hall, even though the freshmen were long gone.
“We go to school with assholes,” she answered, swiping her hands together as if she were brushing away their memory.
He put his thumbs in his pockets. “Ah, they brought up the break—”
Terri shot him a look, not quite her death one, but close.
“The—the winter break,” he stammered, trying to cover. Even though there wasn’t a point. I’d already heard him. “You know, underclassmen always complain that once, um, winter break comes, seniors get to slack off. They’ll get it when they’re in our shoes. Right?”
Luke gave me a meek smile. He was trying so hard. They all were. “Yeah, sure,” I said, throwing him a bone, even though we both knew his attempt at a save was pointless.
The bell rang, and I’d never been more relieved and terrified at the same time.
“It’ll be okay,” Terri said. “I’ll be with you first period.”
I knew her words were supposed to make me relax, but they didn’t. I had a whole day to get through.
“You’ve got this,” Grace whispered.
I flung my backpack over my shoulder. I wished that were true.
Chapter 8
“Wait,” I told Terri before we stepped out of first period. Everyone else had already filed out, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I popped my head through the door and looked in both directions. There was no sign of Marc. “Coast is clear.”
I took her arm and pulled her into the hall. We made it about twenty feet when I thought I saw you-know-who. I twirled around and pretended to study a locker. About a minute later, I peered over the top of my sunglasses at the guy who had just passed. “False alarm,” I told Terri. “Marc has a shirt like that.”
She raised an eyebrow at me, but I ignored the look.
“Remember how I said be as extra as you want?” Terri pressed as we continued down the hall, me scanning the way in case I needed to make a quick dash into a classroom.
She didn’t wait for me to answer. “You may want to dial it back. Forget actress in hiding; you look like you’re in some bad teen spy movie, or turning into Inspector Gadget or something. All you need is the trench coat.”
Both of us had watched more than our fair share of the bumbling cartoon inspector when we babysat the Griffins. “I think I’m a lot cuter than Inspector Gadget.”
Terri gave me a look that said I knew what she meant.
“Inspector Gadget always wins in the end—that’s something, right?” I said in a lame attempt to lighten the mood and make her stop giving me that face.
She just sighed as we reached her classroom. “Are you going to be okay?”
I nodded, but she looked skeptical.
I hated that I was bringing everyone down and making them all worry about me. So I lowered my sunglasses, winked at her, and pointed my arm down the hall. “Go, go, Gadget is off to conquer the world.”
That finally got a laugh out of her. I wasn’t sure if it got her to believe I was A-okay, but I decided to quit while I was ahead. I took off for my class, fake smile and all.
I made it through about half the day unscathed, not one little sighting of my ex, but then I hit an obstacle. Lunch.
Before today, I’d never thought twice about where to sit in the cafeteria. This year, my seat was at the big table right in the middle of the room: the soccer table. Marc’s table. I obviously couldn’t go there now. I stood with my tray, carefully positioning myself behind a pillar so that I was out of my ex’s line of vision and could survey the area. Grace, Terri, even Luke, all had different lunch periods from me. I wasn’t sure where to go, but I couldn’t very well keep standing around like a sad statue. Where was I supposed to sit? I didn’t want to wind up eating in the bathroom or hiding in some classroom. I did not want to be that cliché. Still, it seemed better than having Marc and his friends see me with nowhere to go. My luck and fabulous avoidance skills were about to run out. Marc was bound to notice me in the cafeteria.
When we’d gotten our schedules this summer, I’d been so relieved that we had this period together. Now it seemed like a cruel twist of fate. I ventured a glance at his table. He was laughing. Laughing!
How could he be so at ease and happy, while I was struggling to get through the day?
I quickly moved my head back, but I wasn’t sure if I was fast enough. Marc looked in my direction. Had he seen me staring? I cursed my second-period teacher for confiscating my hat and sunglasses after I refused to take them off. They really would have come in handy about now. I did not want my puffy eyes on full display. As much as I hated to admit it, my parents were right. I didn’t want Marc to know what a train wreck he’d turned me into. I was not going to stay hidden. Not for some jerk. I gripped my tray so hard my knuckles turned white, and I took a step out from behind the pillar. I headed toward the back of the room, to nowhere in particular, but I did so with my head held high. I had no clue what I’d do when I reached the wall, but I kept going. Maybe I’d turn around and walk in the other direction? Sit at a random table? Curl up into a ball and pretend I wasn’t there? None of these seemed like decent options, but they beat standing around so people could throw me pitying gazes.
“Cam! Cam!”
I wasn’t sure where the voice was coming from.
“Cam, over here!” About two tables diagonally from Marc was Avery. She was standing and waving her arms at me.
For the first time all day, I smiled a real smile.
“Hey,” I said, relief washing over me as I made my way to her and dropped my tray in front of an empty stool.
“Hi.” As I started to sit, Avery put up a finger. “You should switch seats with Nikki.”
“Why?” Nikki asked.
Avery ever so subtly moved her eyes from our table to Marc’s, but I caught it. From the seat I was about to take, I’d have a full view of my ex. If I sat in Nikki’s seat, my back would be to him.
“Ohhh,” Nikki said, sliding out of her spot and moving around the table until she was next to Avery. “Right. Take my seat. You do not need to look at that all period.”
“Nikki, stop…,” Avery hissed.
“Sorry, but come
on, isn’t it weirder if we don’t talk about it at all?” She turned to me. “I mean, I was at the diner, and it’s not a secret that the video was just about everywhere. At least until Avery made those—”
“Nikki!” Avery snapped again.
“Wait, what?” I plunked down in the seat. “You had it taken down?”
Avery shrugged.
When it became obvious she wasn’t going to say anything more, Nikki answered for her. “Oh my God, you should have seen her. She was texting like a madwoman when she got to the movie theater. And when Olena Richardson refused to remove the video, Avery wasn’t having it. She kindly reminded Olena of a few pictures from her birthday party that the Richardsons would flip out about. Little Miss Perfect Olena was not acting so perfect. Not even sixty seconds later, the video was gone from her page.”
“You did that for me?” I’d noticed the videos had disappeared, but I hadn’t really thought about how or why.
Avery shrugged again. “It wasn’t a big deal.”
It was to me.
“What’s a little blackmail among friends,” Nikki joked.
“It wasn’t blackmail,” Avery corrected, her eyes twinkling. “Not quite. I simply helped her come to her senses. Cam said she wanted to make what happened disappear. I figured I could at least try.”
When I’d said that, I hadn’t meant for her to take me seriously, but I was grateful she had. “Thank you,” I told her. “Really.”
“Anyway,” Avery said, changing the subject, “do you know everyone?” She pointed next to her. “The blabbermouth here is Nikki; you’ll get used to her.”
“Very funny,” Nikki said. “She’ll love me—everyone does.” I wasn’t sure if she was joking or not, but it made me laugh either way.
Avery threw a chip at her. “Don’t mind her modesty.”
“Modesty is overrated,” Nikki answered, and ate the chip to accentuate her point.
“Uh-huh,” Avery said, humoring her, before introducing the other two girls at the table—Meg and Naamua. They were all on the cheerleading team.
Finding Mr. Better-Than-You Page 5
