I slogged into work today half dead from my sadness and lack of sleep. I guess my despair shows. When Smith Cross (the guy from the bathroom on the ski-bus) sees me, he does a double-take. “You okay?” he asks.
“Peachy,” I tell him, poising my pencil, ready to take his order.
He’s here with his girlfriend, Chloe. She hates me by the way, but she apparently likes our food. I work at this place called “Soup n Sandwich.” She usually comes in with her snooty friends and they sit for hours at a back booth, gossiping and dissing on the entire student body. But today she’s not here with her friends. She’s dragged her poor boyfriend, who I happen to know doesn’t like soup or our sandwiches. I know because of the half-hearted joke he makes every time she drags him here.
“What would you like to order?” I ask him all business-like.
“A steak,” he says.
“Right. I know. But as you know, we don’t serve steaks,” I tell him.
“Okay, then I’d like a burger.”
“Uh-huh. But we don’t have those either. As the name says—we have soup, and we have sandwiches … although on Saturdays we serve a sandwich called ‘The burger.’ But it’s not really a burger—or a least not your kind of burger—also, it’s not Saturday, so we don’t have it.”
I blather on and on inanely because his eyes are watching me intently. Smith’s eyes on me has always done this—turned me into a blathering idiot, even back in middle school. Though, after my embarrassing blunder with him back then he purposefully kept his eyes determinedly off me—and walked the other way if he saw me coming.
But as I said, recently things have changed. My recent blunder with him (not the one on the bus—one way more embarrassing) has made him start looking at me again. Now he looks at me like—like what his girlfriend accused him of: as though I have sunshine and rainbows coming out of my butt. (Well, not really. It’s not like that. It’s because he really, really wants to tease me about our embarrassing encounter, but he knows he shouldn’t. So, he just gazes at me like he has all these flirty, inappropriate, totally embarrassing things swimming in his head that he’d like to say … but won’t.) But Chloe apparently doesn’t know about the embarrassing thing that I did to her boyfriend (accidently!!), so she mistakes his eyes lighting up when he sees me as something else—something to be jealous about, apparently. But it’s soooo not.
Still, I’m not going to tell her. Let her stew and steam inside. (She’s a royal witch, in case I haven’t mentioned that.)
Anyway, I stiffly take Smith and Chloe’s order—trying to ignore Smith’s eyes on me, though I know I’m turning red, which makes him enjoy it all the more.
As I’m slogging away from the disturbingly beautiful couple, I get a devastating text from my semi-friend, Jazz. I read it, then collapse against the wall near the bathroom, feeling like I’m actually dying of heartache.
I squeeze my eyes shut, then peek at her message again: “Mandy, are you and Grady broken up or something?”
My stomach drops. It’s already getting around? It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours yet.
When I don’t answer her … because I can’t bear to, she quickly texts more: “Sorry to alarm you if you’re not. But he and that new girl at our school, Becca, seemed to be awfully chummy at Jimmy North’s party last night, so I was just surprised … and wondering.”
After that she quickly adds, “But it probably wasn’t the way it was starting to look, right? I mean, it was Grady. He’s friendly to everyone, and you guys are adorably tight.”
I stare at her message, chills going down my spine.
“Well, we were tight,” I mutter under my breath.
“You talking to me?”
I freeze, then whip around to find Smith behind me, watching me with a tiny grin. He must have gotten up to use the restroom. Grand. I’m standing right in front of it—talking to myself.
Smith grins, gesturing at the bathroom door. “I’ll wait if you’re planning to spread some sunshine.”
“I’m not—thanks,” I tell him. “And your girlfriend hates me by the way, so you probably shouldn’t look at me like you’re hoping to see rainbows spring from me.”
His playful grin goes all lopsided and adorable. “I can’t help it.”
“Well, try. I mean, you managed to not even look at me all through middle school.”
He shrugs, “So, I’m making up for it now.”
It’s all just teasing—I want to make that clear, so no one is getting the wrong idea. Chloe is gorgeous, and Smith is a tease. But he’s not the kind of sleazy guy that would scam on girls behind his girlfriend’s back. I mean, before he got together with Chloe, he got around big time. He dated a lot of girls. Like, tons. But now he’s totally devoted to Chloe. He doesn’t cheat. Or do player moves. He just … teases. He can’t resist. But he’s totally, totally devoted Chloe. Everything else is just for fun and not to be taken seriously—he doesn’t take it seriously—and it’s not flirting. I want to stress that. It’s teasing, totally to entertain himself, and in no way to get a girl romantically sparked up towards him. (Though I’m sure that happens constantly anyway—but that’s not his intent … and makes him scratch his head when it happens. And then uncomfortably ignore the girl that gets all love-struck and confused.) (Believe me, I know.)
“You can use the room,” I tell Smith. “I’m just standing here to have a private conversation—with myself, that you interrupted. And I don’t want your girlfriend coming over here, and interrupting it more—especially because she yells at me.”
He raises his eyebrows, “Really?”
He looks surprised, and kind of concerned.
It makes me quickly backtrack because I like Smith—I mean, we used to be friends and he’s a good guy, and actually saved my life (literally). So, I don’t want to mess with his perfect, beautiful—though probably totally shallow—relationship with gorgeous Chloe. I mean, it’s not his fault if she’s a witch to me. That’s her own bewildering delusions—and totally not the doings of poor innocent Smith.
So I tell him quickly, “Well, she doesn’t yell at me out loud—it’s more with her eyes.”
He grins with bewilderment, cocking his head slightly. “Her eyes yell at you?”
I nod defiantly, then murmur total deadpan, “All the time.”
His grin quirks. “What do her eyes say to you?”
“They say: ‘Don’t talk to Smith in front of bathrooms—or anywhere else.’”
His eyes twinkle. For a moment he doesn’t say anything. Then he murmurs around a slight grin, “I bet they do.”
Then he opens the bathroom door and goes inside without another word to me, though he still has a faint bewildering grin on his gorgeous lips.
I watch him go, then shake my head, letting out a breath. Don’t even think about him, Mandy.
Really, I can’t anyway. Though now I guess I’m free to do so, if I want. Groan! I can think about any boy I want. I’m free to fantasize to my heart’s desire, since I’m now totally unattached.
Unfortunately, that knowledge makes me feel like an axe has been whacked into my heart.
CHAPTER 12
I had honestly half-expected all afternoon to see Grady walk through the restaurant’s door with roses and his pleading, apologetic puppy-dog eyes, and pull me aside with an emotional apology in fervent whispers as he pleadingly clutched me in his warm comforting arms, begging me to forget everything that happened yesterday, begging me to let us go back to the way we were.
I honestly half-expected that all afternoon—Grady to show up. Every time the restaurant’s door opened, my heart would speed up as I gazed at it hopefully, over and over, every single time … until I got Jazz’s devastating text. Then it struck me like a smack in the face, or more like a violent slug in the stomach. It was really, truly, actually over. Grady wasn’t mine anymore. I really lost him—to Becca.
It was just so hard to let that sink in.
Impossible.
It hu
rt so incredibly bad realizing while I was busy bawling my eyes out last night, Grady was at a party—with Becca.
Everything inside me crumbled and died realizing that.
There was no going back now—Grady had already gone on a date with Becca.
We were really over.
CHAPTER 13
Sadly, I had another angst-filled night, stray tears creeping down my face as the plaguing realization crashed through me again and again in persistent drowning waves, that my devoted sweet boyfriend is now my ex-boyfriend.
It’s weird.
Unsettling.
Heartbreaking.
I only slept the tiniest bit, having a hauntingly disturbing dream of seeing Grady and Becca running from me in the crowded school hallways, laughing, holding hands and seeming to think it was hilarious that I was chasing after them, yet couldn’t catch them. In my dream, Grady was still my boyfriend, and I was still trying to hold on to him, but Becca was pulling him away, and Grady was letting her, laughing and whispering with her about it, making me feel so small and hopeless, and empty for trying to hold on to him.
The phone rang, startling me from the disturbing nightmare. For a moment, I was flooded with relief that it was just a dream—only, sadly, in a way it wasn’t. Not at all. Becca had pulled Grady away from me.
Aching from that knowledge, I listened to the recorded message on my phone informing me that there is a two-hour delay for school this morning due to overnight snow.
Great, I thought miserably, falling back into bed. I groaned gloomily. ‘Now I’ll get to feel the true effects of no longer having Grady.’
Whenever it snowed, Grady would come over bright and early and help me shovel out my clunker car, and then help me shovel the driveway. Now I’d have to do it all alone—no cheerful Grady tempting me into a snowball fight. Not that this was anything at all compared to the rest of the heartache I was feeling, but it was yet another thing that hit me in the gut—that from now on, I’d have to clear the snow without cheerful Grady.
I don’t have a dad, by the way. He died when I was ten. So Grady had settled in nicely as the ‘man of the house’ when we started dating two years ago. But he had even been like that before we started dating, ‘cause we had always been best friends, even before the romantic stuff.
It will be so weird to be without him. I really don’t feel like I can survive this—going to school today and trying to avoid Grady. Why can’t it be a whole, entire snow day instead of a measly two-hour delay? I need the agonizing moment delayed more than two hours—me facing Grady knowing he will be with Becca, talking with Becca, smiling with Becca.
… kissing Becca?
CHAPTER 14
When I finally slog outside to shovel the snow, I stop in my tracks. A fluttery warmth washes through me, yet at the same time a violent chill slides down my back—because there’s Grady, shoveling my driveway.
“About time you got your lazy butt out here,” he tells me with a grin.
“Yeah, well I had a big night partying,” I tell him lamely as I shovel.
He tosses me a cautious, questioning look. Keeps shoveling. “Oh yeah?”
“Oh yeah, all kinds of fun—naked guys. Tons of them.”
He grunts with a tiny grin, “I always knew you wanted an orgy.”
We don’t talk for a while. Just work.
Finally, I say, “Grady, you don’t have to do this anymore.”
“I never had to do it.” He gives me a playful nudge. “I’m just being neighborly.”
It hurts, him being like this—still nice. Still Grady. Even though he now likes another girl. And now I can’t put my arms around him. Can’t even touch him. It hurts so bad.
But who am I kidding? It would hurt either way. Everything hurts. If he hadn’t been out here, if I’d come out to my driveway and been alone—I would have probably cried.
But now, since he’s here—geez, I might cry anyway. For a different reason.
I’m a mess.
I swallow then choke out, “I heard you went to Jimmy North’s party Saturday night.”
He glances at me, then looks away. “Yeah. I didn’t want to. I mean, I didn’t feel like it. But Becca dragged me to it—to try to cheer me up.”
He raises his eyebrows, “I lost my girlfriend … right?”
I hate this so much. Hate the way he said, ‘Becca dragged me to it’ like she’s his girlfriend and has the grounds to do that—drag him places.
This is too much for me right now, my heart can’t take it—just talking to him, let alone hearing him say her name—hearing that they were together.
I draw out a ragged breath, “Just go Grady. I can handle it on my own.”
His eyes flash with something I can’t read as he glances at me. But then he smiles faintly, trying to make a joke about what I just said, like to lighten the mood, which he always tries to do when we’re having a tense moment. But this moment is beyond ‘tense.’ Still, he tries. Because he’s Grady. His smile is forced, but determined, “What you don’t need a man around anymore?”
“Apparently not,” I mutter.
“Well, I’m going to help you, Mandy. You may be mad at me—but I’m not mad at you.”
“Yeah, well, you have no right to be mad at me—so that makes it easy.”
Grady isn’t smiling for once, not at all. He squints his eyes. “Makes it easy? I don’t have a right to be mad?—Mandy, you broke up with me.”
I can’t help it, I sob out, “Because I was losing you to her.”
He looks into my eyes, then looks away, drawing out a long breath … and that basically says it all.
Not seeming to breathe, he stares at me.
I need him to put his arms around me and comfort me and tell me that I’m wrong … and he does that. But after a moment of hesitation. And that hesitation is a knife in my heart. He murmurs comfortingly, “You didn’t lose me, Mandy.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, wishing so bad I could believe his words. But of course I can’t, they’re lies. “You went to a party with Becca, and did who knows what with her.”
“You broke up with me.”
A shudder goes through me. I wrench away from him, terrified I’m going to cry. “You let me easy enough.”
“I didn’t want to beg you to stay with me.”
“Grady, I didn’t want to be second.”
He shakes his head. “There is no second. There is no ‘better.’ You are both different.”
“And you want us both.”
“Is that so bad?”
Oh. My. Gosh!
My heart shatters into a thousand pieces. It will never recover. Not ever.
It’s like he slugged me in the stomach. Hard. Grady, who I used to love.
“Yes,” I tell him incredulously, my lip quivering.
Wanting to bash him in the head with my shovel, I run for my house instead, planning to rip up every single picture I own of the guy.
I hate him so much!
CHAPTER 15
Grady ended up shoveling the rest of my driveway by himself. Seeing it cleared once I finally trudged out a half hour later to finish the job myself, I was surprised, but not stunned to see that he had stayed and finished … and also that he left a note for me under my windshield wiper.
When I discovered it—the note—I squeezed my eyes shut, afraid whatever he had to say would make me bawl—whether it was sweet or bitter. Though I knew Grady wouldn’t write anything bitter. But then again … he had no right to, I reminded myself bitterly. He wasn’t the one that had been backstabbed and betrayed by discovering the person he loved and trusted with all of his heart had freely given his heart to another person—had wholeheartedly let that person in … and let you slip out.
Holding my breath, I curiously peeked at his note, my heart pounding hard just from seeing his familiar handwriting, and knowing whatever he had written wasn’t a love note. That I would never get a love note from him again.
“Mandy, I hope we can sti
ll be friends. I know people are always saying that when this sort of thing happens, but I wasn’t ready for it to happen—and I need you to still be my friend.”
My eyes well up with tears and I want to rip his note to shreds, yet at the same time I want to hold it near my heart and sob. But I don’t do either. Instead, I stuff it in a pocket that I never use in my backpack, where I’ll never have to see it—but I can if I want to. (Not that I think I ever will, but knowing me, I’ll want to stare at his handwriting later, just to torture myself.)
When I get to school, I see the tables set up for the blood drive and remember that I had signed up to do that—give blood. But here’s the thing—I don’t actually weigh enough to legally give blood, and I basically haven’t slept in two days, or eaten anything in two days. Giving blood doesn’t seem like a good idea … yet I signed up to do it.
After a brief pause, I decide to just do it now, while the lines are short—though actually, I need to pee, pretty bad. Mostly just because I’m nervous though—nervous that any minute I might see Grady turn the corner holding hands with Becca … and also, you know, nervous about a needle being stuck in my arm, and blood being sucked from me and into a tube. Just thinking about it makes me definitely sure I should pee first, but then the lady says “next” and she’s looking at me.
So, I guess that’s me—I’m ‘next.’
Hesitantly, I sit down in the chair she gestures at, then turn my head and look away as she draws my blood.
Oh-kay, now I feel dizzy—and need to pee.
What a great day.
When she’s finally done, I hobble away.
With the hallway kind of spinning, I quickly head for the bathroom. But then—ouch! It’s like my nightmare come true. I stop dead in my tracks and feel bile rise in my throat as I see Grady at his locker … with Becca standing right beside him—close, close, close—obviously telling him something highly entertaining, since Grady is smiling at her with that smile he used to give me—the one that told me I was the most spectacular person on the planet.
Want To Hate You ... Too Bad I Love You Page 20
