Miyuki frowns. “You’ve named my research subjects?”
Uh-oh. I freeze, worried that I’ve overstepped.
“Don’t anthropomorphize these birds. Or get caught up in some misplaced idea of emotion in the avian world.”
“I’m not,” I hurriedly assure her. But I totally am. I mean, we’re creatures of biology and humans are all about the love. The undamaged ones anyway. Like me and Jeremy. Why not parrots?
Miyuki shakes her head as if she can guess what I’m thinking. “Ally, this is biology. Leave the love business to romance novels.”
She turns back to her notes.
I put Buffy back in with Angel and watch her nuzzle her mate.
This day has devolved into sucking in a big way.
I’m trying not to let everyone’s negativity get to me as I face Jeremy later that night across a table, wearing this cute 70s-style hemp peasant dress that goes great with my oversized glasses. I’m like some chic retro princess.
Jeremy hasn’t really said much but the food has been good and I’m getting my second dessert of the day. I fork another bit of super tart lemon pie when I notice that he’s fidgeting across the table.
“Relax already.”
Jeremy puts down his fork. This is a good sign. I just know he’s going to suggest applying to the same schools. I sit up straight.
“Ally, I want to—”
“Yes!”
His brows crease in confusion. “No. I… I’ve realized that you and I have no future.”
I try to speak but nothing comes out. I pick up my full water glass and gulp it down, jittery. It makes Jeremy visibly uncomfortable.
He continues. “I just, uh, don’t think that we’re compatible.”
I slam the glass down on the table. “We’re totally compatible. We like the same movies, causes, science jokes.”
“We don’t have the chemistry I want in a life partner.”
Life partner? You’re seventeen! Get over yourself.
“Who is she?”
“Does it matter?”
I cough in shock. “Oh my God. There really is someone else?”
“You just asked,” he says, confused.
“But there wasn’t supposed to actually be someone.”
Jeremy gives me his “you’re not being logical” look.
I want to gouge his eyeballs out.
“I haven’t slept with her…” The “yet” is heavily implied.
“Two years, you rat bastard. I gave you my youth. My virginity. Who? Is? She?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Her name,” I growl, startling Jeremy, who flinches. The ground has just been ripped out from under me and I want a name.
“Leslie.”
My mind races as I furiously figure out if I know this traitorous man-stealing bag.
Oh God. I do. Leslie Quan. A senior from a nearby high school who is so militant in her vegan-activist ways that she makes Jeremy look like a meat-eating redneck.
I’m highly confused by this information, to the point where I just open and close my mouth a few times. He’s dumping me for her? “Humor-Les Quan? Is this a sick joke?”
“She’s a really nice person once you get to know her.”
“Oh, please,” I snort, my rage front and center. “She’s a bossy bitch who accosts people with how there’s a special level of hell for egg-eaters.”
“It was only that one time,” he retorts. “You’re being unfair.”
“You’re right,” I concede. “She does have beautiful eyes. And a mouth that looks like it’s had plenty of practice in the oral arts.”
“If you’re going to be childish about this, then we should just end this conversation now.”
Childish would be to burst into tears. I won’t give the tree-hugging, carob chip-snuffling bastard the satisfaction. I dig my nails into my palms to hold back the waterworks until I can get out of his sight.
Jeremy’s expression softens. “I hope we can remain friends.”
And I hope that I don’t throw up right now because I feel cold and shaky and like I’ve just taken a giant fist to my gut.
I jam my knife into the center of his heart-shaped chocolate cake. Blood-red raspberry syrup oozes out. “I hope you choke on that disgusting shit that makes you smell like ass.”
I push away from the table, mad that I don’t even get to walk out on the diss of all disses.
I hate my life. But mostly I hate Jeremy.
Happy freaking birthday to me.
Chapter five
At 9pm that night, the second my shift is over, I race up to Ally’s front door. My home away from home since my mom died. Ally’s mother Elise waits for me.
“I’m so sorry to make you come over after work.”
“Is she okay?”
“She refuses to let me in.” Elise sighs. “Between you and me, I never did like Jeremy.”
“You weren’t the only one.”
Elise leads me upstairs. “I’ve got dinner for you if you’re hungry.”
“I ate. But thanks.”
“Popcorn isn’t dinner, Sam. Come down after and get some proper food. Make Ally come down, too.”
Elise stops before Ally’s closed door and pats my cheek fondly. “I’m so glad she has you.”
She’s the only person who can make me blush.
Elise leaves. I knock on the door and am predictably ignored. However, I don’t care about respecting Ally’s privacy like her mom does, so I open it and step through, coming up short at what I see.
Ally is wearing that ugly peasant dress she thinks is hip but really looks like some kind of Woodstock reject. Behind her humongous glasses, her eyes are puffy and her brownish hair is half-fallen out of her ponytail. She stands on her bed, eyes closed, singing, no, mangling Cee Lo’s “Forget You,” which she’s changed to be about a guy. Ouch.
I shut off the music.
Ally’s green eyes snap open. “If you’re here to say ‘I told you so,’ you can just…”
She snaps her fingers in dismissal but the movement makes her wobble.
“I wouldn’t say that.” I take her arm and help her off the bed, stunned as she bursts into tears.
I put my arm around her and pat her head as she sobs with enormous, shuddery gulps into my shoulder. Ally doesn’t cry. She’s whip smart, funny as hell, defensive, and snarky, but waterworks? Never. It’s kind of freaking me out.
“Buck up, little camper,” I joke, “Let’s look at the giant upside.”
She glances sideways at me.
“Now you can find a guy who will eat your chocolate poo candy with you.”
I fail to get a laugh.
Ally looks at me hopefully. “He’s seeing someone else. But he hopes we can be friends. And he wouldn’t want to be friends if he didn’t still like me, right?”
Oh man. Chicks just have to rip apart every little thing. How to put this nicely? “No. He doesn’t.”
“It’s over? Like done? He gets to just walk away?”
I nod and tense for more tears.
Ally stares at a spot on the wall. I know that look. I can practically hear her brain furiously thinking something through. I wait for it.
She turns to me, teary-eyed, and studies me intently. Just as I’m about to tell her to quit staring, she leans in toward me, her lips puckered.
I slam my hand over my mouth so our lips can’t touch.
Ally shoves me. “You’re the one who said I should sleep with other guys.”
I scoot back so I’m nowhere in contact with her and the crazy now spewing out of her.
“I didn’t mean me.” Far as I’m concerned, Ally doesn’t even have the proper parts for sex. Like a sister wouldn’t.
She huffs. “I don’t want to sleep with you
. I want you to sleep with me.”
I shake my head vigorously. “No. You really don’t.”
She shoves me. Again. Hard. At least I know she’s angry and not just Jekyll and Hydeing.
“You’re not listening,” she says. “I don’t want you to sleep with me. I want you to want to.”
She looks at me as if she’s made some point.
I stare at her, clueless but giving it my best shot at figuring out what’s going on. “If this is about going out and having revenge sex, you don’t need to. You’re smart and funny and Jeremy is a twat.”
Ally kicks at her carpet like a five-year-old.
“What’s going on in your head, Brain?”
Ally gets this manic gleam in her eyes. “Being the one that gets left behind sucks. Not that I thought we’d be together forever, but I thought when it did end, it would be mutual. No hard feelings.”
She shakes her head at her own stupidity. “But it doesn’t work that way. Biology shows that relationships are dominance and submission. And I’m not going to submit any more. I’m going to be the one on top. I want to be the one in control. Like Buffy.”
“Your new boyfriend might have something to say about that.”
Ally shakes her head. “No boyfriend. This is about enjoying myself without getting hurt. Screw around then screw off. You’re the veritable master. So teach me.”
“Like the beautiful butterfly emerging from its cocoon, so Ally emerges from her room. And as the butterfly majestically spreads its wings for the first time, Ally too, spreads her—”
“Don’t mock me.” She crosses her legs and faces me earnestly. She’s really working herself up. “Take the love baggage out of me, give me some game. It’s rarer, but there are dominant female animals. A lioness doesn’t want to screw a lion? She beats the crap out of him. Now that’s dominance.”
She chews on her bottom lip thoughtfully. “I could even write a book. From Victim to Vanquisher: Reclaiming Our Animal Selves.”
For a minute, I consider it. If I could turn someone like Ally into a female who simply enjoys the game with none of that “we slept together so now we should date” B.S. that always gets in the way? I could end the battle of the sexes.
I mean, girls have been counseling each other poorly for years. Causing all kinds of trouble because they don’t get what guys really want. If we are going to have any peace, we need to overcome that. Show them the one true way.
She could be an ideal for all women to aspire to. This power play might be her real way of feeling better after being dumped but it’s a guy’s wet dream. This is my chance to strike a blow for all mankind. My duty even.
Then I remember who I’m dealing with and realize it’s probably more of a suicide mission.
“Al, you’re a fall in love kinda girl. Not a screw ‘em and kick ‘em out of bed type.”
“So you’re saying I’m a submissive loser?”
“Yeah. That’s exactly what I said. Dumbass.”
She waves me off. “You have it so easy. You run your little life exactly how you want it, coming and going la la la. I ask for one thing and you won’t help me.”
Seriously? Now she’s pissing me off. “Here we go. Bring out the violins.”
“You don’t think I can do it, do you?”
“No shit!” I shoot back.
“You suck as a best friend.”
Never have we gone that far. “Take it back,” I say, serious.
“Suckiest best friend e-vah.”
“You know that part about me not saying ‘I told you so?’”
Ally glares at me. “You wouldn’t dare.”
I would. I do. “I.”
Ally tosses a shoe at me, but misses.
“Told.”
Another throw and a miss.
“You.”
Thunk! This time she nails me.
“You throw like a girl,” I shout and storm out.
I don’t even get dinner.
Chapter six
I am pounding the pavement. Literally. Going on a run where with each hard smack my foot makes on the sidewalk, I imagine I’m crushing Jeremy’s head.
I’ve been teaching the parrots to respond with “big jerk” when I say Jeremy’s name to them. While it is amusing, it doesn’t take the sting off.
At least the endorphin high from my run is making me feel better. Marginally. This past week has been a nightmare. I’ve tried to stay under the radar but it’s meant pretending I don’t see Jeremy in all of our classes together in case I do something stupid in a moment of weakness—like beg him to take me back.
Combine that with racing home after school so I don’t have to deal with Sam and how humiliated I feel about him turning me down. He goes on about wanting females to be like what I was proposing but when it was me, no thanks. Too impossible a task.
Maybe he’s right.
In any case, I don’t think I can keep this up for the eight months left in the school year. I just want out.
Speak of the devil. Sam is jogging toward me on the trail I introduced him to (so I totally should have custody of it) and we’re going to get stuck trying to pass each other on the narrow stone bridge.
Figures. I try to go around him in cold silence but he plants himself in front of me.
“Take it back,” Sam demands.
I scramble to figure out what he’s talking about until I remember that I made a crack about his best friendness and he’s super touchy about that. Sam may love abandonment, but only when he’s the one doing it.
And I know that once again, this is all caught up in his issues with his mom dying on him when he was little. But I’m still too mad at him so all I can say is “You.”
Sam studies me. “Count of three.”
I give a grudging nod.
He counts. “One, two, three. I’m sorry I said ‘I told you so.’”
He glowers at my silence.
I cross my arms. “Fine. I’m sorry. But you were meaner to me than I was to you so you had to go first.”
I hesitate, not sure if I should tell him what I’m thinking because he’ll freak but he’ll find out sooner or later anyway so I do.
“I’m leaving.”
“What?! Where?”
I amend my statement. “If I can. For next semester. There’s this awesome study program at a high school in Ecuador and I could go to the Galapagos and improve my Spanish, which I’ll need for the places I want to eventually work in.”
He doesn’t say anything so I keep going.
“I never went before because of Jeremy but now that I’ve got no attachments—”
“Thanks.”
“You know what I mean. It’s only a few months. There’s email. Mom and Dad think it’s a great idea. Expanding my horizons and all that.”
That’s a lie. They only said we could discuss the possibility, but I figure another month of moping and even Mom will be sick of me enough to ship me off.
“What happens when you’re sad and drunk at 3am?”
“Excuse me?” What is he going on about?
“Because you’re so running away, which is cool. I applaud your instinct to put as much space between you and that tool as possible, but you’re going to be sad and drunk at 3am at some point, so what happens then?” Sam arches an eyebrow as if he’s waiting for a serious response from me.
What a weirdo. “I get sick and fall asleep?”
“Or you could end up in a black market bust buying a rare species of scorpion to send to Jer. Then I’d have to break you out of a foreign prison, maybe get to meet a hot human rights lawyer but this is about you not me, and in the meantime, you’d be in a third-rate jail being someone’s bitch.”
I can’t help but laugh.
“See. Running away isn’t going to help you feel better.
”
He’s right, but on the other hand, “Staying here isn’t either.”
Awkward silence. Sam gives me a tight nod and jogs off.
I pull out my cell phone and bring up the text I have not yet sent Jeremy but which I have not yet deleted, either.
“Hey, Al…” Sam has returned.
I look up guiltily, which is stupid because now Sam is suspicious. He moves toward me slowly, motioning for me to hand over the phone. He might pounce at any second, so I try to quickly stuff the phone back into my pocket.
But Sam has no boundaries where I’m concerned—it probably comes from the peeing contests we used to have as toddlers—and he wrestles the phone out of my hoodie pocket, not caring if he hits boob.
Having grabbed the prize (the phone, not my boob), he holds me at arm’s length while he reads my text.
“That’s private,” I fume.
“‘Roses are red/Violets are blue/We could still be a couple/Let’s go for take two,’” he reads.
He stares at me in disbelief. “What are you, twelve?”
I grab the phone back. “I think the important fact is that I haven’t sent it.”
“What happened to reclaiming your animal self? Unless you meant exposing your soft underbelly for the kill.”
With that reminder, I just deflate. I tiredly remove my glasses and rub my eyes. “You’re right. I’m not that girl.”
Sam looks like he wants to punch me. “You’re just going to agree with me?”
He gives a small growl of frustration then shakes his head like he’s come to a decision he’s not happy about. “As the best friend e-vah…”
He pauses and yes, it does elicit the desired small smile from me.
“I’m not going to let you sink. If you need to get some game, get out there and feel better about yourself, then let’s do it. Because that text is not going to make you happy either.”
Sounds good, but so does being a gazillion miles away in South America.
“When is the application date?” he asks.
“In two months,” I reply.
“Then give it two months. And if you still need to go, I’ll drive you to the airport myself. Okay?”
Sam Cruz's Infallible Guide to Getting Girls Page 3
